Politico

Rep. Jennifer Wexton wrestles with AI’s capacity to reshape the lives of those struggling with incurable disease — including her own.

Rep. Jennifer Wexton stepped to the lectern on the House floor in late July and addressed her colleagues as she had done countless times since being elected to Congress five years ago. Except this time, for the first time, her voice was generated entirely by artificial intelligence.

The Virginia Democrat was diagnosed last year with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare, incurable and ultimately fatal brain disease. Following the diagnosis, she announced that she would not seek reelection after her current term ends this year. The disease has affected her ability to walk and made her natural speaking voice weaker and less clear. But with the help of a company called ElevenLabs, Wexton used old recordings to recreate it.

That moment on the House floor thrust assistive technologies into the national spotlight and served as a hopeful counterpoint to all of the doom often associated with AI — after all, the same technology generated a deepfake of President Joe Biden’s voice back in January. Wexton and her colleagues are now navigating the tension between AI’s harms and benefits as Congress weighs whether to regulate the technology.