Look, Listen, Speak To Me
(07/27/98; 10:00 a.m. ET)
OPINION
By Jeffrey R. Harrow, TechWeb contributor
We may not be any closer to Dr. Dolittle's goal of talking to the animals, but if American Airlines' deployment of speech-recognition technology, described in the July 13 issue of InformationWeek, went as planned, Advantage Platinum frequent fliers who call in are now being greeted by a computer asking them to "speak" their account numbers using normal, continuous speech. That account number is then transferred to the agent taking the call, so the flier's record is displayed as the call is answered. Efficiency.
Of course that's not the airline's, er, last word. Later this year, this technology will be extended to other callers, letting them talk to the computers to request flight times and other information. And in-house tests of full speech-driven reservation systems may see the public light of day.
Actually, the airlines may be "late to the gate" in deploying speech-recognition technology. Etrade, a provider of online investing services; and Charles Schwab, a holding company that engages in securities-brokerage and related financial services, already let customers perform some financial transactions by voice. And Swiss American Securities has its traders trading by voice for phone-based transactions, generating an immediate payoff by reducing the number of people in the trading loop. (Incidentally, speech recognition through the din of traditional trading floors, a uniquely difficult environment, is still undergoing testing.)
The future of speech recognition is yet to be, shall we say, spoken. But as the technology improves, the necessary hardware continues its inevitable shrinkage, and more devices become "active," I suspect the day will come when we can't imagine not being able to communicate with the things around us with just a kind word. (Of course, we might want to be careful about using unkind words: Our silicone servants might develop feelings and decide they've been verbally abused -- and retaliate.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the technology improves, the necessary hardware continues its inevitable shrinkage, and more devices become "active," I suspect the day will come when we can't imagine not being able to communicate with the things around us with just a kind word.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Try it yourself, but don't just read about this new way to communicate with computers -- have some words directly with one of these new beasties. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a prototype voice-interactive computer with its virtual eye on the world's weather, and the school has made it available at 888-573-8255. Give Jupiter a call, and he/she/it (is there a proper pronoun for an anthropomorphic computer?) will answer many of your weather-related questions.
For example, I asked, "What cities do you know about in New Hampshire?" There was a brief beep, and Jupiter played about 15 seconds of Jeopardy music as it thought about my request. It then happily told me the New Hampshire cities it knew about. So I tried some more questions, such as: "What is the weather in Boston?" "What temperature is it in Miami, Florida?" "How windy is it in Chicago?" and "Are there any weather alerts?"
Jupiter answered all of them.
I was also trying rather hard not to speak clearly; I used contractions such as "what's" and spoke rather quickly. Yet to my surprise, Jupiter answered correctly every time.
OK, it was time for a tougher test. I turned on the speakerphone and asked my 14-year-old son to ask Jupiter a question. Not to be intimidated by a faceless computer, he asked, "What's the temperature in Timbuktu?" and to the surprise of both of us, we found out.
Jupiter does deal with a limited set of weather-related information. But I am very impressed with how well it reacts. I did, however, finally stump it on a couple of questions, such as, "Where is the temperature over 100 degrees?" and "What is the temperature in New York right now?" to which Jupiter responded, "Unfortunately, I'm not yet able to provide up-to-the-minute temperature measurements. The temperature in New York this afternoon will be ..."
Nevertheless, even with its limitations and restrictions to a defined topic area, this technology seems, to me, to be very ready for prime time. |
