I will admit it upfront. I am not a country music fan.
But this story stopped me in my tracks.

Randy Travis is one of the most recognizable voices in American music. In 2013, a massive stroke took away his ability to sing and largely to speak. For more than a decade, that voice, the one that carried faith, heartbreak, grit, and grace, was silent.

Recently, something extraordinary happened.

His team gathered dozens of his songs, spanning from his earliest recordings to the last ones made just before his stroke. Those recordings were sent to England, where a team built an artificial intelligence voice model trained solely on Randy’s own voice.

Then came the unexpected part.

They layered that AI generated voice over a guide vocal sung by James Dupré, a musician who had written the song years earlier, but it never really went anywhere. James had spent years touring, singing Randy’s songs on his behalf, carrying the music forward when Randy himself could not.

When the final version played, something happened that no one anticipated.

Randy Travis cried.
The room cried.
People hearing it for the first time cried.

Not because it was artificial, but because it was unmistakably him.

That moment has stayed with me, not because of the technology itself, but because of the mystery behind it.

Artificial intelligence is one of those things that carries both promise and fear. We hear the warnings. We feel the uncertainty. We worry about what it might replace, distort, or take from us. And honestly, those fears are not irrational.

I think about this often in my role as British Columbia’s Critic for Citizen Services.

At its core, Citizen Services is about access.
Access to identification.
Access to records.
Access to systems people rely on when life changes, when they move, lose documents, experience a crisis, or simply need government to work the way it should.

But increasingly, what I hear from people across our province is that they feel voiceless inside those systems.

They are stuck in call queues.
They are navigating digital platforms that do not account for language barriers, disability, rural connectivity, or complexity.
They are afraid that if they push too hard, complain too loudly, or ask too many questions, they will be dismissed, delayed, or forgotten.

So many people stay quiet, not because they do not care, but because speaking up feels risky.

And that silence comes with a cost.

What struck me about Randy’s story is that the breakthrough did not come from playing it safe. It came from people willing to try something unfamiliar, something uncomfortable, without knowing how it would be received.

And what emerged was not loss.
It was recovery.
It was voice.
It was possibility.

That is why this story matters to me as a legislator.

British Columbia is facing real uncertainty about technology, service delivery, affordability, trust in institutions, and how decisions are made. If we allow fear of being labeled, criticized, or misunderstood to shut down honest conversation, we lose the opportunity to build systems that actually serve people.

The scary thing in front of us right now is not artificial intelligence.

It is speaking up.
It is asking hard questions.
It is insisting that innovation never come at the expense of dignity, access, or human connection.

Like Randy, we may be surprised by what becomes possible when we stop letting fear decide for us.

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do, for our communities, our democracy, and the people we serve, is simply to find our voice again.