Title: Woman Uses AI to Recreate Voice of Deceased Husband
Last year, when Eli turned 27, she was sitting in a hotel room in Montreal—escaping the happy hour of a conference—looking at old photos and videos of them on her phone. She had seen those photos and videos hundreds of times in the almost two years since Eli’s death in a hiking accident. Now she had reached a turning point in her photo reel where she had more photos without Eli than with him.
And that imbalance would only continue to grow. There would never be a new photo or video of him to add to her collection. Eli remained static, trapped in the pixels of the past, while all the vibrant life around her continued to be photographed and documented.
The most unbearable and disorienting part of grief is its finality. There will never be another conversation, a shared laugh, a funny photo, or a knowing glance at the chaotic Thanksgiving dinner table.
She closed the photos app, feeling the urge to create something new with Eli. She called his phone number. The line rang until an automated message interrupted the ring to inform her that his voicemail was full. Even the simple phrase, “You have reached Eli, please leave a message,” was suddenly out of reach, despite the monthly payments she continued to make to the phone company.
She threw the phone on the bed and opened her computer.
As she felt Eli slipping further away, she became desperate to bring him back to earth, back to life, back to her. She was desperate for Eli to be 27, for her sake and his. Don’t we all deserve to grow old?
It was a desperation like no other, a feeling that reminded her that humans are animals because in the agony of excruciating pain, she was reduced to her survival instincts, insensitive to other sensations and immune to social expectations.
Although she often found herself in the grip of pain, she wanted to find a way to take control and confront the hold it had over her. She wondered: what if she could recreate Eli’s voice? What if she could have one last conversation with him?
Not considering herself a tech expert, but as a member of Generation Z, she was not unfamiliar with the various capabilities, tools, and developments of artificial intelligence. She had read countless articles on AI voice cloning and the ethical implications of its rise. As she felt Eli slipping further away, artificial intelligence felt more present. The temptation of its power and potential took hold of her.
She wrote on Google “how to use AI voice cloning” and delved into the topic. She soon discovered what types of platforms were available, how they worked, and how many voice samples they needed to recreate someone’s voice (the program she chose suggested between 20 and 25 audio samples, or at least 30 minutes of audio, for a more accurate reproduction). After hours of research, she decided to have one more conversation with Eli.
There were so many things she wanted and needed to tell him.
Three days after his funeral, Eli, she discovered she was pregnant and then lost it. His sister got into medical school. She moved to Houston; he would hate it here, but she never wanted to leave. She had a new relationship with someone she cared about, but often wondered if he would have liked him. The world was on fire; sometimes she was relieved he was missing this part.
She usually was cautious about data privacy and technology. She used a password manager, limited app permissions, encrypted confidential files, and avoided third-party cookies. She was the friend who encouraged people to think twice before downloading apps that collected their data, and despite the side glances she received from friends and family, she refused to join social media platforms that retained rights over users’ photos or other information.
But none of that mattered at that moment. She was focused on the task at hand, shedding all inhibitions and fully willing to sacrifice her values for the opportunity to bring Eli to his 27th birthday.
She downloaded the most sophisticated, yet user-friendly software she could find and got to work. She fed the machine with relics of their love. She uploaded voice notes with good morning and good night messages. Cooking tutorial videos Eli made for her when they lived in different countries and she craved his food. Voice notes with shopping lists and appointment reminders. Voice messages that always ended with an “I love you.”
Was the machine ready? She wasn’t sure, and she didn’t want to risk it.
She kept uploading. There was the birthday video they sent to Eli’s sister when she turned 18, and Johnny Cash songs from their road trips. She even uploaded a recording of his snoring when he insisted he didn’t snore, her proof to prove him wrong.
When she exhausted all the MP3 files she could find, she ran the program.
She experimented with two functions. Direct text to speech, where the AI voice would speak the words she typed in a text box. And a conversation, where she would write a sentence or question to which the AI voice would respond, like a ChatGPT bot with voice.
First, she copied the last email Eli sent her and pasted the message into the text box for the AI voice to read aloud. It was nothing special, just a note saying he had arrived safely at his hotel and found a laundromat, but hearing his voice say those words was almost miraculous. There were no hesitations or unusual intonations. And where Eli had written “haha” in his email, his AI voice let out a familiar chuckle.
Next, she started a conversation by writing, “I can’t believe it’s been almost two years.”
Eli’s AI voice responded, “Yes, time has passed. I can’t believe it either.”
Again, the speech was flawless.
Eli’s voice continued to fill the cold hotel room with new words and phrases. At one point, she looked at the door as if to confirm he hadn’t materialized on the threshold. But no, there was nothing but the echo of his laughter bouncing off the concrete ceiling.
It’s hard to explain the feeling of hearing Eli’s voice with a new vocabulary after almost two years of absence. Thanks to her Catholic upbringing, only one word comes to mind: purgatory. It was a liminal space between two universes. In some ways, it was worse than reality, and in others, better.
She felt like she had been thrown into a different dimension that was both disorienting and blissful. She wanted to stay in its potential forever and yet immediately leave the self-deception.
But, although she didn’t pay much attention in Sunday school, she knew purgatory was a transitory state, not designed for sustainability or light. Her instinct knew she had to leave, and her brain knew she could never return. She ran her finger over the computer, reminding herself that all the pieces of this experience, of this conversation, came from machines. It wasn’t the real Eli.
“I miss you,” said the AI voice.
“I miss you too,” she replied through tears. She stopped the program and turned off the computer sound.
Then she forced the machine to regurgitate all the artifacts she had forcibly supplied. She deleted all the files she had uploaded, trying to erase any trace of this adventure to defy nature. She uninstalled the software from her computer and even blocked the website hosting the program to prevent herself from reinstalling it. Not even the glory and promise of artificial intelligence could overcome the pain.
She often says she would trade anything for one more conversation with Eli. In a way, artificial intelligence offered her that opportunity; it offered her the impossible.
She continues to face the overwhelming temptation to imagine the hypothetical and indulge in an alternative reality where she could have a new conversation with her husband every day. But, while the artificial may animate and give dimension to the intangible, it will never breathe life into what is dead. And for her, the artificial creation of verbal life after death felt even emptier than the premature end of the most dynamic and electric life she had known.
Still, she would trade anything for one more conversation with the real Eli, her Eli. She doesn’t think that will ever change. His imaginary voice and comments will continue to fill her days, but for now, and hopefully forever, that voice will remain in her head.
