Intel Bleep

About

Intel Bleep is an AI application for detecting and redacting audio based on user preferences in real-time. Announced and planned for a beta release in 2021, the app allows users to have hateful or abusive speech automatically filtered in voice chats for video games. After its announcement, Intel Bleep became the subject of memes in early April 2021, which parodied or mocked its various functions.

History

On March 18th, 2021, at GDC Showcase 2021, Intel^[1][2] announced Bleep, an AI solution for detecting and redacting audio in real-time based on user preferences, aimed at curbing the amount of toxicity in voice chats while gaming (seen below).

We realize technology isn't the complete answer, but we believe it can help mitigate the problem while deeper solutions are explored. […] We can use the intelligence of bleep to remove toxic speech from our in-game chat.

The product is planned for a beta release sometime in 2021, though an exact date is still TBD.

Features

Bleep automatically detects and bleeps out hateful and abusive speech in voice chat. The user can customize the categories of speech that are bleeped out, as well as the severity of the censorship. On beta launch, users will be able to customize the application to automatically bleep out ableisms, body shaming, aggressive speech, LGBTQ+ hate speech, misogyny, name-calling, n-word slurs, racism and xenophobic speech, sexually explicit language and white nationalism (examples shown below).

Highlights

The announcement did not receive widespread attention until April 7th, 2021, when Twitter^[3] user @beesmygod_ made a tweet about it (shown below, left). The tweet received over 11,700 retweets and 61,500 likes and was followed by multiple jokes about Bleep on Twitter^[4][5] (examples shown below, center and right).

In the following days, multiple news outlets reported on the announcement, including articles by The Verge^[6] and Eurogamer.^[7]

Search Interest

External References