What is Human Language Technology?
Human Language Technology is an evolving interdisciplinary field covering most sub-disciplines of linguistics and computational linguistics, natural language processing, computer science, artificial intelligence, psychology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and statistics.
Wherever language is exposed to information technology or where humans need to interact with computers, language needs to be adjusted to be controlled and processed through computation. This often requires extensive knowledge of linguistics, languages, computer science, and related fields.
In today's fast-paced technology world, it becomes difficult to keep track of inventions - jargon-filled nuances, images that seem alien to the untrained eye and developments that are staggering and confusing. With each passing day, technology is becoming a bit more complex and hard to follow.
That being said, Computer Speech And Recognition, however, is one of the leading Human Language Technology tools that has become a part of daily life, making it easier.
How Does Speech And Recognition Technology Work?
Today's human language technology works like a child's brain. From day one, they hear the words around them. Parents talk to their child; although the child does not respond, they do receive all kinds of verbal cues, intonation, and pronunciation; their brains form patterns and connections based on how their parents use language. And even though humans have refined ourselves, we are still trying to find better ways for computers. We must teach them as our parents and teachers have taught us. And this education requires modern thinking, workforce, and research.
There are several tools we use every day that influence language technology for a better future:
- Apple's Siri:
Apple's Siri was the first-ever voice assistant to be debuted in 2011 by mainstream companies. Since then, it has all been integrated into the iPhone, iPad, AppleWatch, HomePods, Mac Computers, and Apple TV.
Siri is
also used via mobile phones as the primary user interface for Apple CarPlay
infotainment system for cars and wireless AirPods. With the release of the
SiriKit, a development tool that allows third-party companies to integrate with
Siri and HomePod, Apple itself tried to create smart speakers (following Amazon
Echo and Google Home), and voice assistant functionality becomes even more
uniform.
Compared to its competitors, Siri has the most significant advantage in this space, with more than 700 million iPhones in use globally in mid-2017, which doesn't even count the number of people who own an Apple Watch, Macbook, or iPad.
- Amazon Alexa:
Amazon's Alexa is undoubtedly one of the most popular voice assistants out there, as part of Amazon's hit Amazon Echo smart speakers as well as the newly released Echo Show (a voice-controlled tablet) and Echo Spot (a voice-controlled alarm clock). While Apple focuses on fulfilling Siri's ability to do small tasks instead of expanding its areas of expertise, Amazon Alexa does not impose such restrictions.
While some users have set Alexa's word recognition rate to be a shadow behind other voice platforms, the good news is that Alexa will adjust to your voice over time, compensating for the issues that come with it. This can be done with your specific accent or dialect. To "give your big idea a voice and reach more customers"; hence, it's no wonder developers are rushing to post content on the Skills platform. With Amazon's Alexa only available on their Echo speakers, the number of millions seems to be dwarfed, given the number of devices Alexa can compete on.
● Google Assistant:
The most common response to voicing any question out loud these days is, "let me Google that for you."
Hence, it makes sense that the Google Assistant has priority when answering (and understanding) all of its users' questions. From being asked to translate a sentence into another language to convert the number of butter sticks in a cup, the Google Assistant responds correctly and provides additional context, and cites a source website for the information. Given Google's powerful search technology, this might not be a surprising feature.
Google Home was launched in late 2016, and within a year, it has established itself as Alexa's most worthy opponent. The company's intelligent voice assistant, the Google Assistant, is currently installed on 400 million devices, including Google Home Speakers and some Google-powered Android phones.
- Microsoft Cortana:
Like Google Assistant and Google Search, Cortana supports Microsoft's Bing search engine. This assistant allows you to access all the data needed to answer your burning questions.
Like Amazon, Microsoft has come up with its own home smart speaker, Invoke, which does a lot of its competitors' work. Microsoft has another significant advantage when it comes to the market. Cortana is available on all Windows computers and mobiles running on Windows 10. It discounts the mobiles running on the same system.
- In-Car Speech Recognition:
Voice-enabled
devices and digital content are not just things that make things easy. It's
also about safety - at least when it comes to car talk.
Companies like Apple, Google, and Nuance are entirely changing their vehicles' driver experience. This also allows the driver to keep their eyes on the road to eliminating the distraction of looking down on their mobile phones while driving. Instead of texting while driving, you can now tell your car who to call or which restaurant to navigate. Instead of scrolling through Apple Music to find your favorite playlist, you can ask Siri to find and play it.
Few people in high positions today have personal assistants. With the introduction of AI's digital assistants in the office, everyone can have one. From Cortana's request for access to the company's financials from last week to last year to ask Google Assistant to create a graph showing CTR growth year over year, the benefits of digital assistants in the workplace are never-ending.
The IT companies are focusing more on Artificial Intelligence for Human Language Technology for more competitive results. The intense competition we see in these tech giants in the industry, and the increasing trend of companies creating things in space, suggests that we still have a long way to go.
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