Tone it down a bit

Let me help you say that a different way ...

This is a story about two kinds of intelligence: artificial intelligence and emotional intelligence.

How often do we hear those two terms together?

But now Softbank, the Japanese mega-conglomerate, says it's using AI to build what one of its designers called a "mental shield" that manipulates angry customers' voices so that call center employees don't have to deal with drama.

The new tool, called SoftVoice, will monitor callers' voices in real-time, detect if they become hostile or abusive, and seamlessly change their tone to make it easier on the employee's ears.

Softbank insists it won't change customers' words, but instead will do things like make a shrill, angry voice lower, to become less grating, or else, raise the pitch of a deep, intimidating voice, so that it goes from a booming bass to a soprano.

"If the customers' yelling voice sounded like Kitaro's Eyeball Dad," one of the developers told the Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shumbun, "it would be less scary."

That example refers to a Japanese anime character with a high-pitched voice. But for readers who might not be familiar (I wasn't until writing this), imagine instead if you could take, say, the booming voice of Samuel L. Jackson in the classic movie, Pulp Fiction, and modulate it so that he sounded like Bugs Bunny, or else the Australian TV character, Bluey.

Much less intimidating.

Softbank says it's addressing a real problem with this idea, which makes its debut in 2025: namely, that customer service jobs can be taxing and emotionally draining, especially when angry customers take out their frustrations on front-line service staff.

As Softbank put it in its official announcement:

While Japan's service sector is widely lauded for its high standards of politeness, punctuality, efficiency and attention to detail, one issue front-line workers are contending with is "customer harassment" in which retail workers or call center operators get subjected to overly aggressive behavior or unreasonable requests.

Known colloquially as "kasu-hara," Softbank says Japan's government is crafting legislation to regulate abusive customers, in addition to tech solutions.

SoftVoice supposedly won't remove 100 percent of the angry inflection, so that call center employees will know objectively that a customer is angry. But it will remove enough to remove any hint of abuse.

As a bonus, the SoftVoice AI product will also detect if a customer's abuse has gone on too long, and play an automated message that says: "We regret to inform you that we will terminate our service."

Now, as much as this is an artificial intelligence development, it's also a compelling example of using AI to increase emotional intelligence.

We define emotional intelligence as the learned ability to leverage emotions -- both yours and other people's -- to make it more likely that you'll achieve your goals.

That's literally what this AI product does: remove the expression of other people's unhelpful emotions, making it easier for employees to do their jobs.

The possibilities seem endless -- and I concede, potentially complicated.

Imagine what things could look like further down the road, where multiple people in the same conversation might use a technology like SoftVoice in real time to modulate others' emotions -- or even to change their word choices.

(Again, the SoftVoice product reportedly doesn't change words, but it's not hard to imagine this as the next step.)

Or else, imagine if people used AI to change the intonation of what they had to say as well. Tone sometimes determines substance; would companies be on the hook for an employee's AI-manipulated promise to a customer, if it subtly changed the meaning?

Brave new world, right?

If a tree falls in the forest with nobody around, does it make a sound?

And if an angry person goes into a tirade on a customer service call, but their words are immediately defanged, does their diatribe even exist?

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7 other things …

• The Republican National Convention started last night, and former President Trump announced his running mate: Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, who will turn 40 years old next month.

• A U.S. judge in Florida on Monday dismissed the criminal case against Trump over illegally keeping classified documents after leaving office, handing him another major legal victory. U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed to his role. (Reuters)

• The photograph we've all seen of Trump raising his fist after the attempt on his life could change America forever, writes Philip Kennicott: “It revealed Trump’s ultimate survival instinct — always look strong — with blinding clarity.” (Wash Post)

• A hacker who claims to have stolen sensitive call and text logs from AT&T Inc. said they were paid about $400,000 to erase the data trove. An analysis of a Bitcoin wallet address provided by the hacker shows a transaction in mid-May that analysts say aligns with an extortion payment. A person familiar with the ransomware negotiations, who asked not to be named to discuss confidential matters, confirmed the payment. (BNN Bloomberg)

• Record-hot temperatures in Las Vegas over the past week have turned the Las Vegas Valley into a giant oven, forcing officials to close public pools and museums, driving people indoors for most of the day and baking sidewalks hot enough to fry an egg on. The city stared down a new record: 7 days in a row of temperatures at or above 115 degrees Fahrenheit. (NBC News)

• Meet investor Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire widow of Steve Jobs who just paid $70 million for the most expensive home ever sold in San Francisco. (Business Insider)

• How to avoid paying vacation rental fees: It takes some work to find a rental you can book directly, but the payoff can be significant. (NY Times)

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Thanks for reading. Photo composite courtesy of fair use. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.