If you’ve ever felt the urge to snack discreetly during a work call without the fear of your crunching giving you away, there might be a solution at hand. Today, Doritos introduced “Doritos Silent,” an AI-powered app designed to cancel out crunching noises.
So, how does one train AI to suppress crunching sounds? Doritos engaged around 500 individuals to crunch on chips (specifically Doritos) into a microphone ten times each. These 5,000 crunching instances were utilized to train the AI to recognize and isolate the sound of crunching. Subsequently, these crunching sounds were combined with speech sounds to simulate the scenario of someone munching while conversing.
While the primary target audience for this app is gamers who often communicate via headsets for extended periods, it is compatible with any device that supports a microphone, including platforms like Zoom, Google Voice, and Discord. Once installed, the app operates by substituting your default microphone. Users are required to access the settings of their chosen program and switch the microphone input to “Doritos Silent” to activate the feature.
Interestingly, the app is not limited to Doritos but can work with any crunchy snack. Upon testing the app personally, I found that it effectively muted the crunching sounds when I made calls using Google Voice after switching to “Doritos Silent.” Even attempts to deceive the program with fake crunch sounds were unsuccessful, as the AI accurately distinguished authentic crunching noises.
Regrettably, the app is currently exclusive to Windows PCs, but there are plans to expand support to other devices in the future. While there’s no AI solution yet for concealing video evidence of snacking during Zoom calls, the “Camera off” option serves as a viable workaround for such situations.
