Technology has achieved advances unimaginable many years ago, such as what we have now. wireless headphones with “noise canceling” that reduces external noise.
Now the Japanese group Softbank intends to use artificial intelligence to create a tool called “Emotion Cancellation” to mitigate the effects of users screaming on a mobile phone.
The solution is mainly developed for call centers, which receive angry complaints from customers thousands of times a day.
“We are working to develop a solution that can transform a customer’s voice into a calm, conversational tone and deliver it to our employees using AI-powered voice processing and emotion recognition technology,” SoftBank said in a press release.
How does emotional suppression work?
Toshiyuki Nakatani, a SoftBank employee, was inspired to create a solution to protect others from this type of harassment.
The technology works in two stages. First, it uses AI voice processing to identify angry callers and analyze their speech characteristics. It then incorporates the acoustic characteristics of innocuous vocals to create a calmer, more natural tone.
To do this, the AI was trained on more than 10,000 voice samples, with 10 actors recording more than 100 common phrases expressing a range of emotions, including anger and frustration. Although the technology does not change the caller’s words, it does significantly change the intonation, making it less aggressive.
SoftBank ensures that the system does not completely eliminate all traces of anger, allowing traders to understand the situation and respond accordingly.
SoftBank’s “emotion cancellation” system currently only works in Japanese. However, the company is currently exploring the possibility of expanding this technology to other languages for international markets.
Notably, the first systems are expected to be available in April next year, with prices yet to be determined.
Source: Digital Trends
