Test your fake British or American accent with this AI

If there’s one thing most people probably don’t struggle with, it’s figuring out whether they sound more British or American. But if just one person isn’t sure, then the creators of an AI which does exactly that will have done their job.

Cambridge Consultants, the company that brought us an AI that paints amazing artwork, has a knack for making what it calls “explainable AI.” Along with much more serious work, its developers make fun little use-case scenarios for artificial intelligence that are easy to understand.

With this project the company asks “Can we decode your accent?”

The website asks users to speak a phrase and then, using the power of “accent classification” through AI, it rates your accent in percentages of American and British. It’s by no means an accurate indicator of linguistic origin — but it’s a fun way to participate in the training of a neural network.

I only lament that the programmers chose a boring statement for users to recite. I wanted to say “Walking on little metal bottle caps gives you the sensation of walking on little metal bottle caps” and see just how close my awful attempt at imitating a British accent is. I’d also like to prove my hypothesis that the uniquely American phrase “I’d like to super-size that” gives any speaker a 100% score in American.

But, if you’ve ever wanted to know how good your fake accent was, here’s your chance. Take it with a grain of salt however, because I did my best (see: absolutely awful) Australian impression and got this score:

You can try your luck by pointing your browser here and enabling microphone permissions.