I Cloned My Voice With AI so My Son May Hear Bedtime Tales

This as-told-to essay is predicated on a dialog with Max Fricke, founding father of HuggleTales. It has been edited for size and readability.

My 3-year-old son loves listening to tales I’ve made up for him. So once I journey, which I do incessantly for work, we each miss out on our bedtime routine of making tales.

I used to be on a monthlong journey once I had an thought: what if I may create an AI that would replicate my voice and inform my son the tales he beloved a lot?

I am artistic, however like many mother and father, I’m additionally drained. On that journey, I used to be pissed off: my Wifi connection wasn’t nice, and my tales simply weren’t resonating with my son the way in which they often did, so I had began utilizing AI to generate story concepts. It was enjoyable, and I used to be in a position to create tales that helped my son course of his day. I noticed there was lots of potential there.

My son was already used to listening to audio tales

My son already loved utilizing the Toniebox, a child-focused speaker. The speaker permits youngsters to put a figurine on prime of the field, and the chosen figurine tells a selected story. My son actually preferred having the autonomy to decide on what story he listened to.

Our Toniebox let me report my voice for our son, so he may select to play that individual story. This instrument allowed my son to listen to my voice whereas I wasn’t obtainable, nevertheless it did not permit us to create the fluid, participating tales he was used to listening to at bedtime.

I envisioned a product that may permit him to ask for a narrative, say about butterflies and dragons. Then, he may hear the story instantly, in my voice, even once I wasn’t obtainable.

I vibe-coded an app, and spent hours replicating my voice

I am not a coder, however I downloaded Basecamp, which let me vibe-code an AI product. I experimented with creating prompts that produced extra artistic tales with ChatGPT and Gemini.

Cloning my voice was the toughest half. Even that time period — cloning — sounds creepy to numerous individuals. When my son first heard my AI-generated voice, he was skeptical as a result of it did not sound precisely like me. However as I refined the mannequin, he did not discover the distinction between my voice recordings and the AI-produced voice.

At present, the voice sounds precisely like me, 90% of the time. That is sufficient for my son to take pleasure in listening to it nearly as a lot as he enjoys listening to my tales in particular person.

My son advantages essentially the most from the AI storytelling

I do not need HuggleTales — the app that I’ve developed — to exchange the emotional connection of a telephone name or FaceTime. I nonetheless inform my son tales over the telephone or in particular person. Nonetheless, now we have now one other instrument: when he needs to listen to my voice, he can use the app.

It is also useful once I’m drained. We have all struggled to give you a narrative on the finish of a protracted day. Typically, my son and I’ll give the app a immediate, and lie collectively to hearken to a narrative informed in my voice. That is likely to be odd to some, however for me it is simply one other method to join with my son.

Finally, all of the work I’ve put into this app is for my son. He is the one who advantages. After I’m at work, I nonetheless miss him, however now he can get an emotional hug from me, even once I’m not round.