Introduced in 2015, Skype’s auto-translate function serves to improve communication between people of different native languages by translating video calls in real-time.17 Imagine speaking with an online friend from halfway across the world, and as you see him on your computer screen, Skype rolls out sentence-by-sentence translations for whatever he is saying, like real-time subtitles.
It is a technology that breaks down language barriers between people. This has huge implications not just in a person’s social life, but also in making other areas of life such as work and travel much easier.
Granted, Skype’s auto-translations are not quite there yet and often fails to give accurate translations of utterances. But what is illuminating is how, just a decade ago, no one would have predicted that such technology would be made possible. Its mere inception is a reminder of how much room there is for development, and even though there are faults in the app’s language processing ability, we can be sure that with more research and improvisation, such faults might be ironed out in the future.
It has already been done with devices that are closer to us. Look at your mobile phone, or even your computer. Within it lies your own personal assistant. Take Apple’s Siri, for example. Its inception in 2011 was not quite successful. People were intrigued by its ability to chat, to answer questions, and to provide route directions. Yet, more often than not, Siri invoked a lot of frustration by misinterpreting commands.18
But that was in 2011. Now, because of rapidly evolving new methods of machine learning (such as deep learning and genetic algorithms, as we’ve discussed earlier), Siri is more intelligent. The difference is that Siri has been supercharged with artificial neural networks. And, according to Eddy Cue (below; inset), Apple’s Vice-President of internet software and services, it has “impacted all of Siri in hugely significant ways” such as its speech recognition, natural language understanding, execution of requests, and responses to the user. Because Siri now understands and uses language so much better than before, she has become an efficient digital personal assistant to whoever owns an Apple device, many of whom find that they cannot do without her in their day-to-day lives.
The repercussions associated with successful language processing abilities in machines are huge. When machines are able to grasp a language and use it well, they have the capacity to make our lives easier. The best thing is that the area of language learning in Artificial Intelligence is continuously evolving and expanding. In fact, one of the big predictions for AI in the year of 2017, according to MIT Review’s Will Knight, is that we can “expect further advances” in the area of language learning.19 It will be more than just voice recognition and obeying commands.
It may prove to be a formidable challenge, but how exciting it would be to finally have machines understand us in ways we never once thought possible.