Lip-Reading AI Could Help the Deaf--or Spies

U.K.-based Deepmind has created artificial intelligence software that can read lips. An artificial intelligence (AI) program from DeepMind can read lips better than professional lip readers after reviewing thousands of hours of YouTube videos along with transcripts via machine learning. The researchers tested the program on 37 minutes of video it had not previously viewed, and it misidentified only 41% of the words. In comparison, the best previous computer method, which focuses on individual letters instead of phonemes, had a 77% word error rate, while professional lip readers had a 93% error rate in the same test, which lacked context or body language. Columbia University's Hassan Akbari says the AI, if incorporated into a phone, would enable hearing-impaired users to have a "translator" with them wherever they go.