全球*大呼叫中心用AI“漂白”印度口音，引发热议

2025/4/9 1:53:11

在全球化浪潮下，跨国交流日益频繁，口音差异却常成沟通绊脚石...

在全球化浪潮下，跨国交流日益频繁，口音差异却常成沟通绊脚石。全球*大呼叫中心公司Teleperformance竟出奇招，利用人工智能实时“消除”印度口音，只为让西方客户沟通更顺畅！这一创新技术，不仅宣称能增进通话双方“人性同理”，还助力员工提效、减少误解。然而，技术背后也引发诸多争议，比如声音“更白人化”的批评。究竟这项技术能否真正架起理解之桥，还是带来新的文化隔阂？让我们一探究竟，看看这场口音“变形记”背后的故事。

The world"s biggest call centre company is using artificial intelligence to "neutralise" Indian accents for Western customers.全球*大的呼叫中心公司正在使用人工智能为西方客户“消除”印度口音。Teleperformance said it was applying real-time AI software on phone calls in order to increase "human empathy" between two people on the phone.Teleperformance表示，他们正在电话通话中应用实时人工智能软件，以增加通话双方之间的“人性同理”。The French company"s customers in the UK include parts of the Government, the NHS, Vodafone and eBay.这家法国公司在英国的客户包括政府部门、NHS（英国国家医疗服务体系）、沃达丰和易贝等。Teleperformance has 90,000 employees in India and tens of thousands more in other countries.Teleperformance在印度拥有90,000名员工，在其他国家还有数万名员工。It is using software from Sanas, an American company that says the system helps "build a more understanding world" and reduces miscommunication.它正在使用一家美国公司Sanas的软件。Sanas公司表示，该系统有助于“构建一个更加理解彼此的世界”，并减少沟通误解。The company"s website says it makes call centre workers more productive and means customer service calls are resolved more quickly. The company also says it means call centre workers are less likely to be abused and customers are less likely to demand to speak to a supervisor.该公司的网站称，该软件能提高呼叫中心员工的工作效率，使客户服务电话能更快得到解决。同时，这也意味着呼叫中心员工受言语攻击的可能性降低，客户要求与主管通话的可能性也减少。It is already used by companies including Walmart and UPS.该技术已被包括沃尔玛和联合包裹运送服务公司（UPS）在内的多家公司采用。"It"s a technology that allows us to neutralise accents in real time without any data storage," Teleperformance"s Thomas Mackenbrock told investors on Thursday.“这是一项允许我们实时消除口音而不需存储任何数据的技术，” Teleperformance的托马斯·麦肯布罗克周四向投资者介绍道。"You have obviously the issue we talked about human connection, human empathy. We have first implemented Sanas with clients in India. And sometimes, there is a difficulty people in India talking and vice versa with clients from the US."“显然，我们之前谈过人与人之间的联系、人与人之间的同理心。我们首先在印度的客户中实施了Sanas技术。有时候，印度人与美国客户通话时会遇到困难，反之亦然。”He said it would mean "closer and more intimate relationships" between workers and customers.他表示，这将意味着员工与客户之间会建立“更加紧密和亲密的关系”。The company said it had introduced the technology in India and would expand to other countries.该公司表示，它已在印度引入了这项技术，并将扩展到其他国家。Demos of Sanas"s technology show Indian accents acquiring a distinctively American twang, as well as reducing background noise.Sanas技术的演示显示，印度口音会明显带上美国腔调，同时背景噪音也会减少。Sanas has been criticised in the past for making people"s voices "sound whiter". The company says that call centre workers like the technology and it leads to more opportunities in countries such as India and The Philippines.Sanas过去曾因使人的声音听起来“更白人化”而受到批评。该公司表示，呼叫中心员工喜欢这项技术，并且它为印度和菲律宾等国家带来了更多机会。Teleperformance has taken a stake in the US company through a $13m (￡10m) investment and a deal that will see Teleperformance"s calls used to train the company"s accent software.Teleperformance通过1300万美元（1000万英镑）的投资以及一项将使用Teleperformance通话来培训该公司口音软件的协议，获得了这家美国公司的股权。Call centre companies have been under potential pressure from AI owing to the rise of chatbots that can handle many customer queries automatically.由于能够自动处理许多客户查询的聊天机器人的兴起，呼叫中心公司可能面临人工智能带来的压力。Mr Mackenbrock said: "In a world that is ubiquitous with AI, the element of the human ... will be also equally important because it"s about building human connection and having this element of human empathy, connectivity will be something that will be equally valuable in the future."麦肯布罗克先生表示：“在人工智能无处不在的世界里，人的因素…… 也将同样重要，因为建立人与人之间的联系以及具备这种人的同理心，在未来将同样具有价值，这种连通性也将变得同样重要。”Mr Mackenbrock told Bloomberg that the company was not disclosing which customers were using the AI tool.麦肯布罗克先生告诉彭博社，公司没有透露哪些客户正在使用这款人工智能工具。综合来源：每日电讯报等