Joyce Esser thought she had found her voice again—until an AI speech system took it away for swearing.
The UK woman who has bulbar motor neuron disease (MND), used the AI-powered voice cloning tool by ElevenLabs to recreate her speech. But after typing a lighthearted message for her husband—"Come on, Hunnie, get your arse in gear!!" followed by, "I'd better get my knickers on too!!!"—she received an unexpected warning.
"The next day I got a warning from ElevenLabs that I was using inappropriate language and not to do it again!!!" Joyce told MIT. Assuming it was an overreaction, she expected the issue would be resolved. Instead, she was banned. "Well, apparently not, because the next day a human banned me!!!!"
"I'd just got my voice back and now they'd taken it away from me," she said. The timing stung even more, as she had recently praised ElevenLabs' technology to her local MND group.
After reaching out, the company reinstated her access and apologized, but the reason for her ban remains unclear. ElevenLabs' policy prohibits threats, impersonation, and election interference, but there is no explicit rule against swearing.
"There is no specific swear ban that I know of," a company representative said.
MND communication tools let users input recordings of their old voices and type messages that are then spoken aloud for them, uncensored.
"People living with MND should be able to say whatever is on their mind, even swearing," Richard Cave from the MND Association said.
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