So, while a software agent may supply a variable or two (e.g., the user's name, the time of day, a relevant sentence from a Wikipedia entry), the shape of most sentences and each variable's place within them have been set by human hands. 3 Meanwhile, company lawyers have rightly worried that the public or the courts might treat such digital characters as "-level spokespeople" for the company. Such systems are still too erratic, their voices too inconsistent, their "beliefs" too easily deformed by training data. I repeat: vanishingly few of the words spoken to date by Siri, Alexa, and their ilk have been the products of natural language generation (or, NLG). In reality, it means calling up the right script for your device to perform - a script that, in almost every instance, has been written word-for-word by human beings. In Sandra, this "decision" involves forwarding your call to the right cubicle. Then, in Sandra, as in reality, the software decides how to respond. This process is indeed "AI-driven," and it's called natural language understanding (or, NLU). In real life, as in the fictional world of Sandra, intelligent software parses your speech and interprets your words. Sandra's "real-world counterparts" aren't "AI-driven" either - at least, not in the way this critic means. 2 Imagine that.Įxcept you don't have to imagine it - you're living it. Unlike "its real-world counterparts," one podcast critic explained, the fictional Sandra is not "AI-driven" at all. The notion of a Wizard-of-Oz Alexa, a supposed AI that's just a front for human workers - this, they agreed, was an edgy thought experiment, a mind-bending twist on reality as we know it. Critics blamed the podcast's plot, which went haywire - but not its premise, which they adored. 1 Some big Hollywood names were involved (Kristen Wiig, Ethan Hawke, Alia Shawkat), but despite this star-studded cast, Sandra was a flop. This scenario is the premise of Sandra, an audio drama released in 2018 by the podcast network Gimlet. You may never even know a human being was involved! That's how good this company is at keeping secrets. Because at some point between her lips and your device, her voice becomes robotic. But you never hear her voice - not exactly. She listens in, asks some follow-up questions, then shares her conclusions. When you ask your device a question - for example, "What bird is this?" - you're connected to a specialist in bird calls. Imagine that your queries and commands are sent not to servers where they're processed by proprietary algorithms, but to call centers where they're fielded by low-wage workers. Imagine a world where your virtual personal assistant - Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant - is more human than you know.
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