Beware! AI is listening, study shows it can steal password by decoding your laptop keystrokes

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) tools may have a big down-side, too, apparently. Hackers can potentially train AI to listen to your keystrokes and decipher the sound you make while typing to predict sensitive data like passwords with a great deal of accuracy. The “startling” findings are part of a new combined study done by researchers from Durham, Surrey, and Royal Holloway universities.

The researchers have found that it is possible to train AI to detect and decode keystrokes through microphones with an accuracy far exceeding 90 percent. In short, it can get scary close to sneaking on you and stealing your personal data, without your knowledge. To prove this startling revelation, the researchers took a MacBook Pro and pressed each of its 36 keys 25 times while recording the sound that accompanied each interaction.