Taking fake sick leaves? AI can catch if you have a cold from tone of your voice; here's how

While fears about the influence of artificial intelligence on jobs increase, the technology may be able to help prevent people from calling in sick when they are genuinely fine.

New research showed that AI can detect a person’s cold from the tone of their voice. This could prove to be problematic for those who often tell lies that they are suffering from 'cold' even when they are perfectly fine.

The researchers from the Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology in Surat successfully analysed the voice patterns of 630 persons in which 111 of these people were having a cold. The speech patterns were analysed in an attempt to identify persons who were truly suffering from a cold.

The Economist reported that the study used voice patterns observed in human speech, which may be described as harmonics that drop in loudness as their frequency increases.

In general, the amplitude of harmonics decreases as their frequency increases. In addition, a person suffering from a cold may exhibit an uneven pattern of the same. Researchers used machine-learning algorithms to analyse the amplification differences of distinct individuals and identify those who had a cold, based on the same phenomenon.

As per The Economist, the test volunteers were asked to count from 1 to 40 before reporting what they did over the weekend. They were then instructed to recite The North Wind and the Sun, an Aesop's story. The accuracy of the study in detecting cold was 70 per cent.

According to the researchers, the idea behind doing such a research was to determine whether a person had a cold or not without having to go to the doctor. Nevertheless, as per the report, the study may also be of interest to companies who want to catch employees who pretend to be unwell in order to take time off from work.

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