A neurological disorder stole her voice. Jennifer Wexton takes it back on the House floor.

When Jennifer Wexton rose Thursday to speak on the House floor, something she has done countless times before, the congresswoman used a voice she thought was gone forever. But with the help of a powerful artificial intelligence program, the Virginia Democrat will use a clone of her voice to deliver what is believed to be the first speech on the House floor ever given via a voice cloned by artificial intelligence, thrusting Wexton into a broader debate about over artificial intelligence. Wexton told AP she first used the cloned voice to speak with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office earlier this month when he signed the National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act, a bill that Wexton called the “most consequential action we have taken in decades to combat Parkinson’s and related diseases, like my PSP.” A few days later, Wexton publicly debuted her cloned voice in a video, leading to an outpouring of support and thrusting the congresswoman into a debate over AI. “I didn’t anticipate being at the forefront of a debate over the future of AI.” Using AI-powered cloning to give Wexton her voice back is one of the positive applications of this technology. Fleisher notes that people with “neurological diseases are already stigmatized,” so speaking with a voice that sounds like a computer “perpetuates the stigma” and often leads them to withdraw from relationships and “worsens the social isolation that can be such a huge part of these conditions.” “To know of and already deeply respect Representative Wexton and then hear her speak so beautifully in her own voice, using her own words through this technology, it is giving me goosebumps now,” she said, growing emotional.