Researchers at Oxford University have recently developed a new program called LipNet which uses video frames to put together different movements of the mouth to make sentences which it then outputs as words. While this seems like a fairly simple way of doing lip reading, it has actually been amazingly successful. This new system of reading lips has reached an astonishing 93% accuracy
which trumps the previous best computer rating of 79% and smashes the human expert level of 52%.
The importance of this new software has implications way beyond just another creative example of a computer taking an input and returning an output. The social opportunities are massive for this type of software. From a human welfare perspective, over 360 million people worldwide struggle with hearing problems and a program such as this could drastically improve their lives. Additionally, commercially this software could be incredibly helpful anywhere from reading opposing teams lips in sports, reading the lips of people speaking far away without a microphone, or reading lips in a noisy environment. There could also be national defense implications with being able to read peoples lips through video footage without sound or by spying on people's conversations from a distance with binoculars. Regardless of how this could eventually be used, the possibilities are endless.
The biggest concern however is privacy. We live in a world where almost everything you do is being recorded whether by phones, street cameras, or even satellite surveillance. If this lip-reading software is used by the wrong groups it could be a massive breach of privacy to people whose conversations could be intruded on by outside sources. This will most likely become one of the developing hot topics, like drone use and cybersecurity, that will require new laws and regulations to keep under control.
Resources:
1. http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/lipreading-artificial-intelligence/
2. http://www.signlanguagenyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lip-reading-asl-cart-services-nyc-02-219x300.jpg
3. http://www.notbored.org/watching-all-day.jpg
4. http://wwwhatsnew.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LipNet-730x480.jpg
I think its pretty incredible that the technology has gotten to the point where it far surpasses human experts, as I hadn't previously heard of lip reading technology. I wonder what sort of limitations they will put on this technology and how i may shape our world in the future.
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