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I remember being pitched this technology several years ago - although not by Nuance. Part of the problem is that phone lines are crap for voice quality. If you

by edent 4y ago

I remember being pitched this technology several years ago - although not by Nuance. Part of the problem is that phone lines are crap for voice quality. If you're on GSM, you're using the AMR codec which - for the time - was brilliant. But it is incredibly low bandwidth. And, effectively, it synthesises speech rather than just transmits it. So the algorithm is not getting a pure waveform and analysing that - it is looking at a partially reconstructed digital simulacrum. The pitch that we received was about detecting stress in the human voice so call centre handlers could tell if they were speaking to a fraudster. It didn't work. Oh, sure, you can make a reasonable prediction by listening to pauses and pitches - but that doesn't account for the fact that calling up and being on hold for ages in inherently stressful. I'm not surprised this system was fooled by AI. But I am surprised anyone bought it in the first place.

travisjungroth 4y ago
> detecting stress in the human voice so call centre handlers could tell if they were speaking to a fraudster That's the craziest pitch. Who is going to carry more stress in their voice: the dude who just scams for a living and is on his fifth phone call that hour or the guy with severe social anxiety who is only on this phone call because of the massive consequences accumulating from avoiding it? I can almost believe it if it was something like detecting that a professional authorized agent wasn't being held at gunpoint. But having a consumer line say "You sound tense. I'm going to hang up and you can call back when you've calmed down." would... not be great.
- edent 4y ago
  I think it was more like "lie detection" - trying to work out if a customer was lying when they said "I'm going leave unless you cut my bill". That sort of thing. But, yeah, I think they had totally misidentified their target audience.
  - travisjungroth 4y ago
    lol even worse. Cutting mobile plan to buy food: sounds stressed, bluffing.
Nextgrid 4y ago
> But I am surprised anyone bought it in the first place. Possibilities: * the company had nobody competent enough internally to evaluate it because nobody competent will work for them (either due to money or working conditions) so the company operates in a self-reinforcing feedback loop of mediocrity * the objective of introducing the system is not true security (because that would be hard/costly/raising uncomfortable questions) but to mislead the users into a false sense of security, scoring PR points among the clueless while avoiding the costly "true security" work * some people internally will benefit from this system being introduced regardless of the actual value it provides, so any concerns will be ignored - by the time those problems come to light, whoever benefited would've moved on or even been promoted and is out of reach of the consequences These are not mutually-exclusive.
woodson 4y ago
The fact that AMR uses a very complex analysis-synthesis loop (with subtle differences between its 8 bit rate modes) makes speaker recognition much harder (and therefore more error prone), but perhaps they decided that they can live with the higher error rates. Future voice communications will use neural audio codecs which can achieve higher audio quality at low bitrates, but the issue with voice cloning remains, as just like AMR it’s synthetic. Fraud detection from detecting stress in your voice however has no scientific basis, no matter how high the audio quality. There are tons of reasons for someone to be stressed that have nothing to do with fraud…
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  My actual conversation from today: "You sound strange and unclear. Are you drunk, or depressed?" "I just had a tooth taken out and it hurts when I open my mouth too much." Fortunately, there was no one / nothing to overanalyze my voice and make stupid decisions around it.
throwaway_ab 4y ago
Unreal to believe someone thought that detecting stress would illuminate fraudsters, people used to lying and making hundreds of calls daily, and not illuminate the stress of many who have to call the tax office and/or social welfare departments for genuine reasons. When I had tax trouble years ago I was constantly in a state of panic and stress on every phone call.
senectus1 4y ago
every time i ring the bloody office they offer to set this up fo rme, and every time i say no because i know its a bullshit way to authenticate.

by edent 4y ago

travisjungroth 4y ago

> detecting stress in the human voice so call centre handlers could tell if they were speaking to a fraudster That's the craziest pitch. Who is going to carry more stress in their voice: the dude who just scams for a living and is on his fifth phone call that hour or the guy with severe social anxiety who is only on this phone call because of the massive consequences accumulating from avoiding it? I can almost believe it if it was something like detecting that a professional authorized agent wasn't being held at gunpoint. But having a consumer line say "You sound tense. I'm going to hang up and you can call back when you've calmed down." would... not be great.

edent 4y ago
I think it was more like "lie detection" - trying to work out if a customer was lying when they said "I'm going leave unless you cut my bill". That sort of thing. But, yeah, I think they had totally misidentified their target audience.
- travisjungroth 4y ago
  lol even worse. Cutting mobile plan to buy food: sounds stressed, bluffing.

Nextgrid 4y ago

> But I am surprised anyone bought it in the first place. Possibilities: * the company had nobody competent enough internally to evaluate it because nobody competent will work for them (either due to money or working conditions) so the company operates in a self-reinforcing feedback loop of mediocrity * the objective of introducing the system is not true security (because that would be hard/costly/raising uncomfortable questions) but to mislead the users into a false sense of security, scoring PR points among the clueless while avoiding the costly "true security" work * some people internally will benefit from this system being introduced regardless of the actual value it provides, so any concerns will be ignored - by the time those problems come to light, whoever benefited would've moved on or even been promoted and is out of reach of the consequences These are not mutually-exclusive.

woodson 4y ago

The fact that AMR uses a very complex analysis-synthesis loop (with subtle differences between its 8 bit rate modes) makes speaker recognition much harder (and therefore more error prone), but perhaps they decided that they can live with the higher error rates. Future voice communications will use neural audio codecs which can achieve higher audio quality at low bitrates, but the issue with voice cloning remains, as just like AMR it’s synthetic. Fraud detection from detecting stress in your voice however has no scientific basis, no matter how high the audio quality. There are tons of reasons for someone to be stressed that have nothing to do with fraud…

inglor_cz 4y ago
My actual conversation from today: "You sound strange and unclear. Are you drunk, or depressed?" "I just had a tooth taken out and it hurts when I open my mouth too much." Fortunately, there was no one / nothing to overanalyze my voice and make stupid decisions around it.

throwaway_ab 4y ago

Unreal to believe someone thought that detecting stress would illuminate fraudsters, people used to lying and making hundreds of calls daily, and not illuminate the stress of many who have to call the tax office and/or social welfare departments for genuine reasons. When I had tax trouble years ago I was constantly in a state of panic and stress on every phone call.

senectus1 4y ago

every time i ring the bloody office they offer to set this up fo rme, and every time i say no because i know its a bullshit way to authenticate.