Science fiction? Researchers have developed an algorithm that uses artificial intelligence to lip - read sentences more accurately than human experts . The team from Oxford University and Google used thousands of hours of subtitled BBC television footage to train the system , which used Google 's Deep Learning neural network . The footage showed a broad range of people in different situations , activities and lighting conditions , replicating conditions " in the dark , " as the researchers put it . The digital model was able to decipher around half of the spoken words from the footage , significantly better than a professional lip - reader , who managed less than a quarter .
Researchers have developed an algorithm that uses artificial intelligence to lip - read sentences more accurately than human experts . The team from Oxford University and Google used thousands of hours of subtitled BBC television footage to train the system , which used Google 's Deep Learning neural network . The footage showed a broad range of people in different situations , activities and lighting conditions , replicating conditions " in the dark , " as the researchers put it . The digital model was able to decipher around half of the spoken words from the footage , significantly better than a professional lip - reader , who managed less than a quarter .