When You Can’t Speak, Can AI Speak for You? Exploring a new technology helping people with speech disabilities communicate.
- Jan 31
- 3 min read
Speech is a very important human communication, allowing individuals to share information, express themselves, and advocate for change. But what happens if speech is not accessible to you? How is communication impacted? How is one perceived by society? Unfortunately, individuals with disabilities who can’t express themselves through speech are often viewed differently by speaking individuals, for example, as less intelligent or capable, and this limits academic and employment opportunities. However, the new AI technology SMF VoXAI, developed by Bernard Muller, an entrepreneur fully paralyzed by ALS, may be able to solve this problem. In this blog, I’ll fill you in on how this new technology works, its advantages and disadvantages. I think SMF VoXAI is beneficial for individuals with speech disabilities, and I’ll discuss my thoughts and questions as well.
How does SMF VoXAI work? SMF VoXAI is an integrated communication AI system that tracks eye and facial movements to translate thoughts and responses into spoken words during a conversation. Like current argumentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices, SMF VoXAI uses eye trackers to “eye type” what an individual wants to say. However, unlike AAC devices, its coordinated voice generation features allow it to transcribe those eye-typed words into spoken language. See the technology in action in this video.
Two things really set SMF VoXAI apart from other current argumentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices being used to help individuals with speech disabilities: its speed and its core mission statement. Firstly, users of current AAC devices often claim the devices “lag” behind, and can’t type fast enough to keep up with the conversation. SMF VoXAI is way faster and, so far, hasn’t experienced such issues. Secondly, according to a Forbes article about the technology, a core goal of SMF VoXAI is that “communication should feel human and not mechanical.” In order to meet this, SMF VoXAI employs photorealistic, real-time avatars - interactive, digital representations of humans - that make human-like face gestures, such as mouth movements, during conversation. Current AAC devices fail to incorporate this and often make communication mechanical by just typing thoughts to display to people during a conversation.
My Thoughts: I think SMF VoXAI is really beneficial for individuals with speech disabilities. SMF VoXAI eliminates the communication barrier that individuals with speech disabilities face, limiting their ability to express themselves. From an accessibility perspective, the new AI technology is fairly inclusive of individuals from all financial standings. It costs roughly $30 a month for premium features, such as faster processing, advanced avatar customization, and others, and the “freemium” model is 100% free. This makes SMS VoXAI a huge economic save and an accessible tool compared to current AAC devices, which cost around $15,000 upfront.
At the same time, I had one main question about the new technology: Can AI express emotions to the same depth as a human voice? Yes, the avatars allow it to make humanlike facial movements and gestures, but can the AI's voice modulate to express the same depth as our human voices? I believe these are important questions to consider as we refine SMF VoXAI to align with its core idea of making communication feel human rather than mechanical.
Of course, since SMF VoXAI is a brand-new technology, as it has been tested only by the 20 participants in the original pilot study, it is important to obtain external validation from scientists and researchers. I’m looking forward to seeing what further research has to say on SMS VoXAI and the effectiveness of SMS VoXAI when put into practice.
Sources:
Comments