The Japanese company SoftBank is developing an “emotion-cancelling” filter called SoftVoice for call centre workers to screen out the inevitable parade of angry people who have been waiting 2½ hours to speak with a human, just to be told that, while their call is very important, they are unable to help them with their request.

“The AI isn’t designed to remove all of the angry notes entirely, but to keep just a slight hint of the frustration so that the call centre responder is still able to get some vague sense of how to respond,” Kate Irwin wrote in PC Mag.

You’re not quite hearing me.Credit: iStock

We know that call centre workers are probably the most yelled-at people, aside from parents of toddlers or parking enforcement officers, but surely censoring human emotion is the most dystopian use of AI being dreamed up right now?

I mean, we could all use a bit of AI emotion-altering software, like removing passive-aggression in your voice when reminding your husband for the fifth time to take out the bins, toning down the sarcasm when your........

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