In a recent development highlighting the pervasive influence of artificial intelligence, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) temporarily suspended public access to its docket system. This measure was enacted after the agency discovered that the voices of pilots, tragically lost in a UPS plane crash last year, had been digitally recreated using AI technologies and were circulating across the internet.
Federal law explicitly prohibits the NTSB from including raw cockpit audio recordings within its publicly accessible docket system, which otherwise serves as a comprehensive repository of data from its investigations. However, the accident docket for the aforementioned flight contained a spectrogram file derived from the voice recorder. A spectrogram is a visual representation generated through a mathematical process that transforms sound signals, encompassing both low and high frequencies, into an image.
Scott Manley, a prominent YouTuber known for his content blending physics, astronomy, and video games, observed on X that the megabytes of data encoded within such an image could potentially enable the reconstruction of audio.
Indeed, this proved to be the case. Individuals utilized the spectrogram, alongside the publicly available transcript, to generate approximations of the cockpit voice recorder audio from UPS flight 2976, which occurred in Louisville, Kentucky. The NTSB confirmed this reconstruction, noting that social media posts indicated the use of AI tools such as Codex in the process.
The agency subsequently reinstated public access to its docket system on Friday. However, 42 specific investigations, including the one pertinent to Flight 2976, remain restricted until their comprehensive reviews are finalized.
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