Christmas Gifts 2023: As we head closer to the year-end celebrations of Christmas and embrace 2024, a viral video of a son’s gift to his mom for this occasion is making waves across the internet. A St. Louis person zeroed down to use artificial intelligence (AI) to generate his father’s voice (who is no more) as a present to his mother. Phillip Willett uploaded a TikTok video of the creation that continues to break the internet with emotional reactions.
Willet received the idea from his wife Kassandra to create something using AI, which he generally deploys in his professional space as a content creator at The Content Guy media company, according to Good Morning America. While he was hesitant initially, the idea ended up sticking with him, and he decided to use AI ElevenLabs’ text-to-speech tool for the process.
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“The actual first words that I put into the program was ‘Hi, honey.’ And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard [my late father] say that in my life, which was why it was the first thing I put in,” the 27-year-old told GMA. “When the program said it in his voice…I got chills all over my body,” he continued. “That’s when I was like, I’m doing this no matter what.”
John Willet, his dad, died in 2022 from pancreatic cancer. To resurrect his father’s voice, he finished the project in about 11 hours but was invested in the output for the entire day. Accompanying the voice were photos of his mom (Trish Willett) and his “hero” (John Willet) blended into a video book. Once the product was complete, he presented it to his mother ahead of December 25.
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His aim was to immerse his mother and let her feel the emotion of his father’s relationship. The AI was able to “encapsulate their whole life together,” Willet added. Later, his mom’s immediate reaction was shared on TikTok. After the video finished, Willett told the news outlet: “I don’t think we moved for at least five minutes and we were both just crying,” Willett said of the special moment.”
