“The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.” – George Bernard Shaw
Few people know that emotions and intentions impregnate our voice. Each emotion leaves a trace in our voice, a specific signature which can be detected by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. A study from 2022 demonstrated that AI algorithms can detect residual emotions in anyone’s voice, which are emotions triggered by events preceding the moment of speaking [1]. The study revealed that any stressful event generates intense emotions, which are then conveyed through the voice. But interestingly enough, the algorithms have also detected emotions later, when they should have disappeared. Even when the students were talking about the weather, for example, the algorithms detected remanent emotions from a stressful event that had taken place earlier that day in their voices.
We can assume that, in the near future, AI will be able to “reconstitute” one’s thoughts and emotions through detailed voice analysis. A recording in which one speaks randomly may be sufficient to find out what that person thought about or felt the entire day. The idea itself is shocking for the notion of privacy, but AI development cannot be stopped, as it is necessary in security issues. The AI rekindles the privacy-security conflict, which should be analyzed from the perspective of the AI’s potential harm and benefits.
In some fields, the performance of AI algorithms is superior to human intuition, and effective solutions to many technical and social issues – from security, migration, border control to justice, public administration, medicine, and agriculture – can be identified with their help. To return to voice-related applications, AI can also be useful in politics because it’s able to expose corrupt and lying politicians. The AI algorithms are impartial, and many arguments and political accusations could be clarified with their help. Many of the secret plans of politicians could be learned by analyzing their Internet records of the time with such AI algorithms. In those records, their true intentions are impregnated; only their decipherment is lacking.
Memo
Acknowledgment: This text was taken from the book The Power of Voice, with the consent of the author Eduard Dan Franti. The Power of Voice can be obtained from Memobooks, Apple Books, or Amazon.
Bibliography
[1] Ș. Mihalache, D. Burileanu, E. Franti, M. Dascalu and C.-A. Bratan, “Lasting emotions – An investigation of short and long term affective content evolution and remanence in speech,” ROMJIST, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 3-19, 2022.
