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‘Clinical-grade’ AI stress detector doesn't work, study suggests

An AI-powered test that claimed to be “clinical grade” listens for signs of stress in people’s voices. But it provides inconsistent results when tested on the same person twice, according to a study

19 December 2023

New Scientist Default Image — Can AI detect stress from a voice recording?
Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock

An artificial intelligence technology that supposedly detects stress in people’s voices does not deliver consistent results even for individuals taking the test twice in a row, a study has found.

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Brain cells activated by stress may also give you a bad night's sleep

During the second year of the covid-19 pandemic, US healthcare company Cigna launched its StressWaves test – based on AI technology from Ellipsis Health – as a free online tool. Cigna’s website initially claimed the “clinical-grade AI technology underlying…

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