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 only 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 her position; or those that guess your gender based on your eyes, this one is capable of seeing information invisible to our senses.
In fact, as explained by 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 this artificial intelligence works
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 the intonation and its variations, as well as the intensity.
These researchers used the intonation data and the outcome of the relationship 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 Subsequently, video recordings of the therapy sessions were also given to experts in the field. Now they had to classify whether the couple was going to last or not, taking into account the information presented. Could they beat artificial intelligence?
The final 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 be aware of. 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 changing the intonation, without the need to change the written words.
