I had a vision of a mirror that reflected my inner voice back to me. Before I could build it, I needed to hear what that voice could actually sound like.
mirror.me/affirmations is the audio prototype and self-portrait of that vision. The core loop is simple: you speak, and a distorted reflection responds in your own voice. Building it let me test whether the technology could make the vision real through voice cloning and LLM rewriting in real time.
To generate a voice clone, I needed to read a script that captures the nuances of my voice. I wrote something to prepare me for what was coming: the externalization of inner narration.
Then, the experience itself. 6 affirmations I worked on with my therapist. I designed them to flow from external to internal themes, from least to most personally serious and heavy.
After recording a prompt, the software takes a second or two to process the data, write a distorted response, then generate an audio file with the cloned voice.
After reading all of the prompts, a final screen closes the experience.
Embodying my inner voice externally was liberating and unnerving. To see the words I only hear inside, to hear another voice rather than a ringing inside my body… It made me laugh and cry at the same time. It showed me how cruel I was being to myself. I would never speak this way to my loved ones. Not even to a stranger. How could I do this to myself?
Having it outside of me to see it as something separate - not my body, not my mind, not me. That distance gave me something I couldn’t get before: the ability to disagree and eventually, reject it completely.
I was also struck by how something I had built - a small application, a five-minute experience - could change something within me that decades of living with this voice couldn’t. Technology made possible what I had been reaching for in years of therapy.
I realized that this version of the project could only ever create a personal impact. If I showed this to others, they would only feel empathy for me, and that’s not enough. I want them to experience what I had: to hear how they speak, and experience the power of that outside of themselves.
That's when I decided to build mirror.me/radio_v0.