AI Lip Reading: Eavesdropping Without a Microphone or Laser

 Eavesdropping via lip reading has been around a long time, probably since Og saw Charlie mouth "shhhh" when a bear approached their cave.

My introduction to eavesdropping via lip reading came around 1976. A company president asked for a sweep of his upper floor corner office for bugs. None found. He asked about the possibility of laser eavesdropping. Very unlikely, however, a careful visual scan of nearby buildings directly across on both streets discovered, one floor down, and just off center, there was the glint of a lens, and a darkened room with a desk, and two people. Further investigation established, yes, it was eavesdropping via lip reading.

The concept of AI lip reading actually predated this case. It was 1968, in the movie, 2001, A Space Odyssey. Remember this scene? "Concerned about HAL's behaviour, Bowman and Poole enter an EVA pod so they can talk in private without HAL overhearing. They agree to disconnect HAL if he is proven wrong. HAL follows their conversation by lip reading."

It is now 2024 and real AI lip reading has just arrived from Symphonic Labs. I took advantage of their offer to test the beta app. Of course, it was not 100% accurate, but massively impressive nonetheless.  

For the test, I selected a random YouTube video. (Nate, at the Daily Drop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy2a899yYec) A 10-second video clip was extracted. The clip was processed through Apple's Quicktime to remove the audio track before submitting it to the Symphonic Labs' app. 

This is what Nate is really saying about airport screening: "But if you decide to get Clear and if you do see one of the signs at the airport that has Clear and TSA Precheck then don’t assume that is your fastest option, All right, so hopefully I did a…"

Here is what the AI app reconstructs what Nate is saying:

This is an impressive start, and expected to become much more accurate as the number of training models increases. And, it’s not all for spies. Think about talking to your computer or smartphone without others eavesdropping on you. 

Better start thinking about what you say, where you say it, and establishing a relationship with a technical information security consultant to protect your business.