A MacBook May Have Given Roger Ebert His Voice, But An iPod Saved His Life (Video)
Posted by Alex_Pasternack on Monday, Apr 18, 2011
Speaking through a computer and wearing a newly designed facial prosthesis, Roger Ebert – who lost his voice and his jaw and nearly his life after a battle with cancer and a ruptured carotid artery – closed the TED Conference, improbably, with a laugh.
“A guy goes into into a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist says, ‘You’re crazy.’ The guy says, ‘I want a second opinion.’ The psychiatrist says, ‘All right, you’re ugly, too.’”
You didn’t even have to be there. Seriously, he adds: “if a computer can tell a joke and do the timing and delivery as well as Henny Youngman, then that’s the voice I want.” He calls it the “Ebert Test,” after Turing’s AI standard, and seems to have already found the winner: his MacBook.
“Alex,” the standard voice included in the Mac OS software, does sound better than Hawking’s synthesized voice, and better, he says, than the voice ‘reconstructed’ for him last year by a Scottish company using sound clips from his previous television appearances – a prosthesis that proved too uncanny valley for him.
Other Interviews with Ryan Trecartin – Alex from Sara Amido on Vimeo.
The artist Ryan Trecartin also speaks through “Alex” in this interview by Sara Amido.
This isn’t the only time Apple saved him. If he hadn’t been in the hospital when his cartoid ruptured, he says he almost certainly would have died. But he wasn’t supposed to be there: the reason he hadn’t yet left the hospital was because he was sharing Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” with hospital staff staff on his iPod.
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legalbriefs about 1 month ago
Wouldn't it be incredible if they could take all the audio that Mr. Ebert has accumulated from all his shows, which must be millions of words and use them as a vocal dictionary rather than a computer generated voice. Now the computer would be speaking but with his own words and voice. Hey Apple, what do you think.
alexjp3 4 months ago
god only knows how much we are indebted to steve jobs . . . oh that man
adeady 4 months ago
Being exposed to Ebert's opinions at a young age being from Chicago, I couldn't even recognize him. Being immediately opposed to his physical features now, I cannot believe all he has been through. His physical actions during this speech is unfortunately hilarious....... wtf is he doing? SInce when does he have that wife?