Alexa, Please Save The World

Speech recognition is going to change the way we compute and how we think

- Keving Maney

KIDS TODAY will grow up thinking a keyboard is some antediluvian tool like an abacus or butter churn, which they might encounter only because it’s nailed to a wall of a TGI Fridays.

Voice is taking over as the way we interact with technology and input words. Actually, it was supposed to have taken over a long time ago. Back in 1998, I wrote a column for USA Today saying that “speech-recognition technology looks ready to change the world,” though I also noted that when I tried to say “two turntables and a microphone” into the latest and greatest speech-recognition software, it thought I said something like “two torn labels and an ice cream cone.” Turns out that was about 20 years too soon.

But the technology works now. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM, China’s Baidu and a handful of startups have been driving hard to build artificial intelligence software that can understand nuanced speech and reply coherently. Late last year, Microsoft said its speech-recognition technology had caught up to human understanding. Its “word error rate” got down to 5.9 percent, about the same as people who had transcribed the same conversation—and much better than the word error rate in any conversation between a parent and his or her teenage son.

Google’s speech-recognition technology is learning human languages at a rapid clip. In August, it added 30 new ones, including Azerbaijani and Javanese, bringing the total to 119. IBM’s Watson technology has become well known for interacting with humans—you’ve probably seen the commercial showing Watson talking with Bob Dylan. OK, it’s an ad. But even implying that a machine can comprehend what Dylan is saying is groundbreaking.