Tech & nature
Terry speaks again by thought
Silenced by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an American speaks again in his own voice thanks to a Neuralink implant.
· N° 8
A living room, a switched-off television, a man in a wheelchair, hand over his mouth. Terry, an American with bulbar-onset ALS diagnosed in 2024, had lost his voice. In the video released by Neuralink, he says “Hello, how are you doing today?”, then, to his wife, “I love you”. She cries, so does he.
Read the intent, restore the timbre
The third participant in the VOICE trial, Terry carries the N1 implant in the region of the brain that drives speech. It picks up what he wants to say, a decoder turns it into words, and an AI trained on his recordings from before the illness speaks them in his own timbre. “That is part of his identity that the disease had taken”, his wife says.
The device remains experimental, not approved by the FDA, even if it holds a status that speeds up its review. More than twenty people carry one, according to the company. When a machine gives a voice back, who owns what it says?
Based on Neuralink, Notebookcheck and iPhone in Canada