Do you want to know if your relationship is destined to last? Well, it seems that soon you will. Although this is something that has been done for millennia, this time you will not need unreliable tarot readings, or light candles to entities that probably do not exist. With just an internet connection, this AI is capable of actually predicting the end of your love relationship.
That's how it is. Like other artificial intelligences capable of predicting if an employee will leave their position; or those that guess your sex based on your eyes, this is capable of seeing information invisible to our senses.
In fact, as they explain from The Conversation, said artificial intelligence is capable of knowing if your relationship will come to an early end just by analyzing how you speak to your partner. Remember that words are not the only method of communication. Our tone of voice carries a large percentage of it, as well as our conversation patterns. With both data, computer systems can predict the future.
How does this artificial intelligence work?
The research was published in the specialized journal PLOS-ONE. As described, the study analyzed the vocal characteristics of 134 couples who were undergoing therapy. To do this, researchers from the University of Southern California analyzed the participants' therapy sessions, which spanned a two-year period. In this way, they were able to shape intonation and its variations, as well as intensity.
These researchers used intonation data and relationship outcome at the end of the therapy process. With both, they managed to train a computer learning algorithm to recognize certain patterns in a pair. Of course, the process wasn't as easy as detecting shouting or raised tones in the conversation. It also included the interaction of the conversation, who was speaking and for how long.
It turned out that ignoring what was being said and taking into account only these speech patterns was enough to predict whether couples would stay together or not.
The Conversation
The end results
The experts were correct in 75.6%, a number lower than that achieved by the artificial intelligence trained by the team, which reached 79.3% reliability in the test. In this way, we know that there are alterations in our communication that human beings cannot notice. Of course, combining the results of experts and those of artificial intelligence, it was possible to achieve a 79.6 percent reliability in the prediction.
The importance of this lies not so much in involving AI in marriage counseling, or in getting couples to speak more nicely to each other (as laudable as that is). The importance lies in revealing how much information about our underlying feelings is encoded in the way we speak, some of it completely unknown to us.
The Conversation
Written communication is capable of transmitting information and emotions. It is a method that is not without complexity, and that many have mastered to make great things feel in millions of people. However, when the words are spoken, the level of stress in the voices, the volume, the intonation and other elements are capable of offering much more detailed information.
A sentence can be written in only one way, but it can be pronounced in a thousand different ways. Thus, we can change the semantic meaning of a text just by varying the intonation, without the need to change the written words.
