Researchers built an AI that translates babies' cries

Babies can cry because they're sick or in pain, but sometimes -- okay, a lot of the time -- they cry because they're hungry, cranky, or just feel like stretching their developing vocal cords. Now, researchers from Northern Illinois University have found a way to use artificial intelligence to decipher between the two types of vocalizations -- and not only could the AI save new parents from a lot of unnecessary worry, it could also save sick babies' lives. In a study published in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, the researchers detail how they designed an algorithm based on automatic speech recognition technology that could distinguish between "normal" and "abnormal" cries, the latter being the kind often caused by a medical problem. They gathered their training data for the algorithm from 26 infants in a hospital's neonatal intensive care unit. Then they asked experienced nurses and caregivers to parse the probable reason for each cry -- "hungry," "diaper," "attention," "sleepy," or "discomfort" -- with the first four reasons considered "normal" and the fifth "abnormal."