16% Diaphragm, 100% Genius: How AI is Saving Cho’s Voice
Sickboy
CBC
4.8 • 524 Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when your body is slowly losing its ability to breathe, but your brain is busy building the future of technology? This week, the fellas (and a very helpful Brock) sit down with Chouaieb (Cho), an AI Black Belt at Google who is quite literally using technology as a personal savior. Cho lives with Ulrich Congenital Muscular Dystrophy (UCMD), a rare condition that has left his diaphragm functioning at just 16% capacity. For Cho, the "AI revolution" isn't about deepfakes or taking jobs - it's about cloning his own voice so he can keep telling stories to his three kids after his inevitable tracheostomy. We dive into the raw logistics of "engineering a life": from why he has to basically dehydrate himself just to sit through a podcast, to the nightmare of calling 50 hotels just to find one with a bed that fits a medical lift. It’s a conversation about "Career Pivots," the BS "Saint or Pity" binary society forces on disabled people, and why Cho identifies more as an entrepreneur than a patient.
Connect with Cho:
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nemri
Instagram: @choe_nemri
Mentorship & Advocacy:
FREE Mentorship (Disabled in Tech): https://cal.com/nemri/disability
Professional Paid Mentorship: https://mentorcruise.com/mentor/chouaiebnemri/
Cho’s Accessibility Projects:
* Airbnb Accessibility Analyzer: https://github.com/cnemri/airaccess
* WheelAir: A repository of airline wheelchair policies: https://wheelair.netlify.app/
You can watch this entire episode over on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0EVgIbBQOxtKJ4qjAlfeutzZRfCGV8nb
Follow Sickboy:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcast
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcast
Discord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It's becoming pretty clear that U.S. President Donald Trump is ripping up the political |
| 0:05.3 | playbook. |
| 0:05.8 | And when it comes to what it all means for Canada, well, as they say, it's complicated. |
| 0:09.8 | But our podcast, two blocks from the White House, is a way to make sense of it all. |
| 0:13.8 | Join me, Willie Lowry, and senior Washington correspondents, Paul Hunter and Katie Simpson |
| 0:18.6 | every week as we break down the headlines from Capitol Hill with a Canadian spin. |
| 0:24.2 | Find and follow two blocks from the White House on your favorite podcast app, including YouTube. |
| 0:30.2 | This is a CBC podcast. |
| 0:36.7 | Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Another week, another episode of Sick Boy, and this week is a special |
| 0:42.4 | one because we're sitting down with a heavy hitter. His name is Cho, and he works at Google. |
| 0:50.0 | What does he do at Google? You ask? Well, he's an AI black belt at Google. And that's that, I'm not making |
| 0:57.6 | that up. That's an actual job title. He has a black belt in AI. He will choke your ass out with |
| 1:06.2 | AI, not actually. He's, he's an AI specialist who is very excited about the future of technology, very excited about |
| 1:14.5 | the future of AI. |
| 1:15.4 | Not because AI can write his emails or make really cool art. |
| 1:19.2 | No. |
| 1:19.5 | Our friend Cho actually lives with a rare form of muscular dystrophy called Uruk congenital muscular dystrophy. |
| 1:28.3 | And he has a pretty bad case where his diaphragm is only working at about 16% capacity. |
| 1:37.3 | So this means that he literally needs to engineer his entire day around when he can speak, when he can eat, |
| 1:46.3 | when he can even drink water. So we dig into, with Cho, how he is banking on AI as a personal |
| 1:55.7 | savior to one day preserve his voice. We also dive into his wild experience in growing up in Tunisia and moving to France |
| 2:08.2 | and the absolute effing headache of navigating accessibility in a world that's just not built for you. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of CBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.