If you sow a seed, it will surely sprout. In Buddhism, this is called the “law of cause and effect.” Of course, we always wish to sow good seeds and see good sprouts. Sometimes, however, unexpected gifts come when we take a bold step forward.
In 2023, right after my conference presentations, I received two such “gifts.” One was from a Nissan engineer who attended my JSAE talk and later invited me to present on the influence of AI in automotive sound quality. I gladly accepted and gave a presentation at the JSAE symposium in late 2023.
The other gift came from Dr. Serkan Atmar at TU Dresden, who spoke with me about his sound quality research work and I hinted an idea about unsupervised AI models for wine evaluation. His research matched perfectly with what I had been envisioning for applying AI to sound quality. That conversation led to a collaborative project on vacuum cleaner sounds.
At first, I wondered whether a wine evaluation model could really work for sound quality. Theoretically, it seemed possible, but practical application always requires trial and error. To my surprise, the results were exactly as Dr. Atmar anticipated. With that confirmation, I gained great confidence in the “tasting sounds” approach, and so I traveled to Nantes, in France—a country well known for its wine—to present this concept at inter-noise 2024.
Now in 2025, just one year later, my work has expanded. I am no longer focusing only on the “sound sommelier” method, but also on two additional AI approaches. Together, these form what I call AI-SQ Engineering—three AI-based frameworks for sound quality evaluation. This is the outcome of my “Shin-Sound Quality Evaluation Aufhebung” project, now developed for broader application.
Thank you, Serkan, for that conversation which started it all. I’m happy to know you enjoy working with me. Next time, let’s talk about AI-SQ Engineering together—I believe it will interest you just as much.
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