Parents use AI to recreate gun violence victims’ voices

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Even though their children may not be here, the parents of shooting victims gathered in Centennial Park in Nashville on Sunday to share their voices using artificial intelligence (AI).

The parents of Joaquin “Guac” Oliver, a 17-year-old killed during the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida, stopped in Nashville on Sunday, Aug. 18 as part of their annual school bus tour. This year’s stops feature AI-generated voices with messages from several victims, working to promote gun reform.

“If you use it, you can understand better, and you can click with your emotions and feel the fact that you need to do something after you listen to those voices,” Guac’s mom, Patricia Oliver, said. “We are committed to keep talking and keep saying and keep sending the message all over the world, all over the country, because we are dedicated to this for life.”

The recordings were created as part of the Shotline program. Organizers say anyone who scans the campaign’s QR code can listen to the messages and forward them to local and state lawmakers.

Shaundelle Brooks lost her son, Akilah DaSilva, during the 2018 Waffle House shooting in Antioch . She admitted that hearing her son’s voice was difficult. However, she hoped his voice would help promote gun legislation, such as improved mental health resources and perhaps even overturn Tennessee’s law allowing teachers to carry in schools.

“The recreation of his voice, it was hard, it was hard, but I knew that Akilah spoke against violence, he spoke against guns,” Brooks said.

Brett Cross, the father of 10-year-old Uvalde school shooting victim Uziyah Garcia, traveled all the way from Texas to share his son’s voice in Nashville.

“I need the world to know who he was. I need them to know that he loved Spider Man, that he loved basketball, that he loved Pokémon…We encourage people to fight right now before it happens to them because I guarantee you, the hardest thing in the world is going on after you lose a child,” Cross said.

Elaine Eisinger is the mother of a Covenant School student who made it out following the 2023 shooting . Eisinger, who said her daughter struggles with panic attacks, hoped Sunday’s event would help in an effort to change gun laws in Tennessee.

“I would just love to see more action around the mental health piece, around ensuring there is background checks on private gun sales, doing away with permitless carry,” Eisinger said. “There’s just some very basic, if you’re asking me, common sense things we can do that don’t infringe on anyone’s Second Amendment right that can just ensure more safety in our community.”

Sunday’s Nashville visit is one of 15 stops the bus tour will make across the country before mid-September.

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