SINGAPORE: A disabled peer has given the first speech in parliament using an AI-cloned voice.
Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, who has spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), delivered the address during a debate on the Health Bill in the House of Lords on Tuesday.
Campbell first addressed peers in her natural voice with the aid of a ventilator, saying her cloned voice would “enable me to contribute to debates in my own, once-clear voice before it begins to deteriorate due to my disability”. She said it “showcased to the world inclusion in democracy at its best”.
Campbell has previously been given special dispensation to bring an assistant into the Lords chamber to read her speeches.
SMA is a genetic disease in which the nerve cells in the spinal cord and brainstem that tell muscles to move gradually die off, leading to muscle wastage.
Campbell cloned her voice using recorded interviews, including an appearance on Desert Island Discs. She used the platform ElevenLabs, a voice cloning company that is based in the UK, which says it needs only 30 seconds of a voice to clone it.
On hearing her cloned voice for the first time, she said: “It was quite spooky. My sister said, ‘Oh no! It’s you ten years ago.’” To which Campbell replied: “I sound nice and young.”
On the wider implications of the technology, the peer said: “It’s also a big message to disabled people that they must follow their dreams and that if you get the right support … you can thrive. In fact, you can do so much more than other people will tell you that you can.
“People like me with progressive conditions are often given a pretty gloomy prognosis, but I want to also show the world that you know I’m alive and kicking, even though my mother was told when I was about one that I would not reach the age of two. Here I am at 68!”
Campbell’s speech focused on the importance of ensuring that personal health budgets (PHBs) remain accessible to disabled people who need them. PHBs are NHS money given to meet long-term health and care needs and Campbell is a recipient.
She told the Lords: “I am nervous when I hear the prime minister speaking of healthcare and social care staff as one workforce. We must not replace personal control with a one-size-fits-all service.”
There was a “creeping rigidity over the use of PHBs … Individuals have been prevented from using budgets to enable their carer to support them when away from home,” she added.
Campbell is a prominent disability rights campaigner who has been a commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She is a founding member of Not Dead Yet UK, a network of disabled people who oppose the assisted dying movement.
ElevenLabs has committed itself to providing unlimited free access to its technology to anyone facing permanent voice loss as part of its “1 million voices” programme.
Jennifer Wexton, a former member of the House of Representatives, was the first person to use a cloned voice in US Congress. She suffers from progressive supranuclear palsy.
Others to benefit from it are Irene Perrin, a guide at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, and Patrick Darling, a Bristol musician who will be the first person with motor neurone disease to record at Abbey Road Studios.
Tim Green, a former NFL player diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2016, has his cloned voice on his podcast Nothing Left Unsaid.
Mati Staniszewski, co-founder and chief executive of ElevenLabs, said: “Our voices carry a part of our identity, and losing the ability to use them can mean losing the ability to take part in the conversations that shape our lives.
“Baroness Campbell has spent decades advocating for disabled people, and we are proud that our technology can help her do exactly that in the House of Lords and beyond.”