In older films computers are sometimes shown doing a calculation while making lots of bleeps and bloops – sounds that indicate ‘something technical is happening’. In reality computers are generally very quiet (you might hear the sound of the fan, that’s just keeping everything cool) and they don’t normally make a peep. But computer scientists have been wondering if some sound added in might help people make sense of what’s going on.
People who use artificial intelligence tools often have no idea what is happening inside (it’s a bit hidden, like a ‘black box’), or even how much they can trust the results they produce. Explainable AI (“XAI”) is the idea that people should have a better understanding of how an AI tool has reached its answer.
Cars that are powered by batteries don’t have a physical engine so don’t make as much noise (other than the sound of the tyres on the road) but car manufacturers have added in artificial ‘engine sounds’ to make it easier for pedestrians and cyclists to know that a car is heading towards them. This is ‘sonification’, adding sounds that aren’t naturally there to make things more audible. Computer scientists have begun to consider whether it might be possible to sonify the way some language generating AI tools process and produce information, to make their inner workings easier for people to interpret. Whether that might be a microwave-style ‘ping’ to let you know when it’s done something, or a tuneful melody to accompany the AI’s processes remains to be seen…
– by Jo Brodie, Queen Mary University of London
Other added sounds
Can you think of other examples where a sound has been added (sonification) to help people make sense of something?
Examples might include these, which are also helpful for visually impaired people
- ‘This vehicle is turning left / reversing’ warnings from lorries
- A lift / elevator making a ‘ping’ sound to alert you that it’s arrived
- At pedestrian crossings the traffic lights might make an audible sound when the little red man goes green.
Further reading
See our portal on Data visualisation and sonification and our free magazine (PDF) on Computing Sounds Wild.
Related Magazine …
Subscribe to be notified whenever we publish a new post to the CS4FN blog.
cs4fn 