<p>“Hi, thanks for coming,” the medical assistant says, greeting a mother with her 5-year-old son. “Are you here for your child or yourself?”<br /><br />The boy, the mother replies. He has diarrhea. “Oh no, sorry to hear that,” she says, looking down at the boy. The assistant asks the mother about other symptoms, including fever (‘slight’) and abdominal pain. She turns again to the boy. “Has your tummy been hurting?” Yes, he replies.<br /><br />After a few more questions, the assistant declares herself “not that concerned at this point.” She schedules an appointment with a doctor in a couple of days. The mother leads her son from the room, holding his hand. But he keeps looking back at the assistant, fascinated, as if reluctant to leave.<br /><br />Maybe that is because the assistant is the disembodied likeness of a woman’s face on a computer screen — a no-frills avatar. Her words of sympathy are jerky, flat and mechanical. But she has the right stuff — the ability to understand speech, recognise pediatric conditions and reason according to simple rules — to make an initial diagnosis of a childhood ailment and its seriousness. And to win the trust of a little boy.<br />“Our young children and grandchildren will think it is completely natural to talk to machines that look at them and understand them,” said Eric Horvitz, a computer scientist at Microsoft’s research laboratory who led the medical avatar project, one of several intended to show how people and computers may communicate before long.<br />For decades, computer scientists have been pursuing artificial intelligence — the use of computers to simulate human thinking. But in recent years, rapid progress has been made in machines that can listen, speak, see, reason and learn, in their way. The prospect, according to scientists and economists, is not only that artificial intelligence will transform the way humans and machines communicate and collaborate, but will also eliminate millions of jobs, create many others and change the nature of work and daily routines.<br /><br />The artificial intelligence technology that has moved furthest into the mainstream is computer understanding of what humans are saying. People increasingly talk to their cellphones to find things, instead of typing. Both Google’s and Microsoft’s search services now respond to voice commands. More drivers are asking their cars to do things like find directions or play music.<br /><br />The number of American doctors using speech software to record and transcribe accounts of patient visits and treatments has more than tripled in the past three years to 1,50,000. The progress is striking.<br /><br />“It’s unbelievably better than it was five years ago,” said Dr Michael A Lee, a pediatrician in Norwood who now routinely uses transcription software. “But it struggles with ‘she’ and ‘he,’ for some reason. When I say ‘she,’ it writes ‘he.’ The technology is sexist. It likes to write ‘he’.”<br /><br />Yet if far from perfect, speech recognition software is good enough to be useful in more ways all the time. Take call centres. Today, voice software enables many calls to be automated entirely. And more advanced systems can understand even a perplexed, rambling customer with a misbehaving product well enough to route the caller to someone trained in that product, saving time and frustration for the customer.<br /><br />Digital assistant<br />“Hi, are you looking for Eric?” asks the receptionist outside the office of Eric Horvitz at Microsoft. This assistant is an avatar, a time manager for office workers. Behind the female face on the screen is an arsenal of computing technology including speech understanding, image recognition and machine learning.<br /><br />When a colleague asks when Horvitz’s meeting or phone call may be over, the avatar reviews that data looking for patterns — for example, how long have calls to this person typically lasted, at similar times of day and days of the week, when Horvitz was also browsing the web while talking? “He should be free in five or six minutes,” the avatar decides.<br /><br />Computers with artificial intelligence can be thought of as the machine equivalent of idiot savants. They can be extremely good at skills that challenge the smartest humans, playing chess like a grandmaster or answering ‘Jeopardy!’ questions like a champion. Yet those skills are in narrow domains of knowledge. What is far harder for a computer is common-sense skills like understanding the context of language and social situations when talking — taking turns in conversation, for example.<br /><br />The scheduling assistant can plumb vast data vaults in a fraction of a second to find a pattern, but a few unfamiliar words leave it baffled. Jokes, irony and sarcasm do not compute.<br /><br />That brittleness can lead to mistakes. In the case of the office assistant, it might be a meeting missed or a scheduling mix-up. But the medical assistant could make more serious mistakes, like an incorrect diagnosis or a seriously ill child sent home.<br />The Microsoft projects are only research initiatives, but they suggest where things are headed. And as speech recognition and other artificial intelligence technologies take on more tasks, there are concerns about the social impact of the technology and too little attention paid to its limitations.<br /><br />Smart machines, some warn, could be used as tools to isolate corporations, government and the affluent from the rest of society. Instead of people listening to restive customers and citizens, they say, it will be machines. “Robot voices could be the perfect wall to protect institutions that don’t want to deal with complaints,” said Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and author of “You Are Not a Gadget.”<br /><br />Smarter devices<br />“I’m looking for a reservation for two people tomorrow night at 8 at a romantic restaurant within walking distance.” That spoken request seems simple enough, but for a computer to respond intelligently requires a ballet of more than a dozen technologies.<br />In cars, too, speech recognition systems have vastly improved. In just three years, the Ford Motor Company, using Nuance software, has increased the number of speech commands its vehicles recognise from 100 words to 10,000 words and phrases.<br />Systems like Ford’s Sync are becoming popular options in new cars. They are also seen by some safety specialists as a defence, if imperfect, against the distracting array of small screens for GPS devices, smartphones and the like. Later this summer, a new model of the Ford Edge will recognise complete addresses, including city and state spoken in a single phrase, and respond by offering turn-by-turn directions.<br /><br />Simple problems — like product registration or where to take a product for repairs — can be resolved in the automated system alone. That technology has improved, but callers have also become more comfortable speaking to the system. A surprising number sign off by saying, “Thank you.”<br /><br />Some callers, especially younger ones, also make things easier for the computer by uttering a key phrase like “plasma help,” Szczepaniak said. “I call it the Google-isation of the customer,” he said. Over all, half of the calls to Panasonic are handled in the automated system, up from 10 per cent five years ago, estimated Lorraine Robbins, a manager.<br /><br />The speech technology’s automated problem sorting has enabled Panasonic to globalise its customer service, with inquiries about older and simpler products routed to its call centres in the Philippines and Jamaica. The Virginia centre now focuses on high-end Panasonic products like plasma TVs and home theatre equipment. And while the centre's head count at 200 is the same as five years ago, the workers are more skilled these days. Those who have stayed have often been retrained.<br /><br />Efficient listener<br />“This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes.” But at a growing number of consumer call centres, technical support desks and company hot lines, the listener is a computer. One that can recognise not only words but also emotions — and listen for trends in customer complaints.<br /><br />Certain emotions are now routinely detected at many call centres, by recognising specific words or phrases, or by detecting other attributes in conversations. Voicesense, an Israeli developer of speech analysis software, has algorithms that measure a dozen indicators, including breathing, conversation pace and tone, to warn agents and supervisors that callers have become upset or volatile.<br /><br />The real issue with artificial intelligence, as with any technology, is how it will be used. Automation is a remarkable tool of efficiency and convenience. Using an ATM to make cash deposits and withdrawals beats standing in line to wait for a teller. If an automated voice system in a call centre can answer a question, the machine is a better solution than lingering on hold for a customer service agent.<br /><br />Indeed, the increasing usefulness of artificial intelligence — answering questions, completing simple tasks and assisting professionals — means the technology will spread, despite the risks. It will be up to people to guide how it is used.<br />“It’s not human intelligence, but it’s getting to be very good machine intelligence,” said Andries van Dam, a professor of computer science at Brown University. “There are going to be all sorts of errors and problems, and you need human checks and balances, but having artificial intelligence is way better than not having it.”<br />The New York Times</p>
<p>“Hi, thanks for coming,” the medical assistant says, greeting a mother with her 5-year-old son. “Are you here for your child or yourself?”<br /><br />The boy, the mother replies. He has diarrhea. “Oh no, sorry to hear that,” she says, looking down at the boy. The assistant asks the mother about other symptoms, including fever (‘slight’) and abdominal pain. She turns again to the boy. “Has your tummy been hurting?” Yes, he replies.<br /><br />After a few more questions, the assistant declares herself “not that concerned at this point.” She schedules an appointment with a doctor in a couple of days. The mother leads her son from the room, holding his hand. But he keeps looking back at the assistant, fascinated, as if reluctant to leave.<br /><br />Maybe that is because the assistant is the disembodied likeness of a woman’s face on a computer screen — a no-frills avatar. Her words of sympathy are jerky, flat and mechanical. But she has the right stuff — the ability to understand speech, recognise pediatric conditions and reason according to simple rules — to make an initial diagnosis of a childhood ailment and its seriousness. And to win the trust of a little boy.<br />“Our young children and grandchildren will think it is completely natural to talk to machines that look at them and understand them,” said Eric Horvitz, a computer scientist at Microsoft’s research laboratory who led the medical avatar project, one of several intended to show how people and computers may communicate before long.<br />For decades, computer scientists have been pursuing artificial intelligence — the use of computers to simulate human thinking. But in recent years, rapid progress has been made in machines that can listen, speak, see, reason and learn, in their way. The prospect, according to scientists and economists, is not only that artificial intelligence will transform the way humans and machines communicate and collaborate, but will also eliminate millions of jobs, create many others and change the nature of work and daily routines.<br /><br />The artificial intelligence technology that has moved furthest into the mainstream is computer understanding of what humans are saying. People increasingly talk to their cellphones to find things, instead of typing. Both Google’s and Microsoft’s search services now respond to voice commands. More drivers are asking their cars to do things like find directions or play music.<br /><br />The number of American doctors using speech software to record and transcribe accounts of patient visits and treatments has more than tripled in the past three years to 1,50,000. The progress is striking.<br /><br />“It’s unbelievably better than it was five years ago,” said Dr Michael A Lee, a pediatrician in Norwood who now routinely uses transcription software. “But it struggles with ‘she’ and ‘he,’ for some reason. When I say ‘she,’ it writes ‘he.’ The technology is sexist. It likes to write ‘he’.”<br /><br />Yet if far from perfect, speech recognition software is good enough to be useful in more ways all the time. Take call centres. Today, voice software enables many calls to be automated entirely. And more advanced systems can understand even a perplexed, rambling customer with a misbehaving product well enough to route the caller to someone trained in that product, saving time and frustration for the customer.<br /><br />Digital assistant<br />“Hi, are you looking for Eric?” asks the receptionist outside the office of Eric Horvitz at Microsoft. This assistant is an avatar, a time manager for office workers. Behind the female face on the screen is an arsenal of computing technology including speech understanding, image recognition and machine learning.<br /><br />When a colleague asks when Horvitz’s meeting or phone call may be over, the avatar reviews that data looking for patterns — for example, how long have calls to this person typically lasted, at similar times of day and days of the week, when Horvitz was also browsing the web while talking? “He should be free in five or six minutes,” the avatar decides.<br /><br />Computers with artificial intelligence can be thought of as the machine equivalent of idiot savants. They can be extremely good at skills that challenge the smartest humans, playing chess like a grandmaster or answering ‘Jeopardy!’ questions like a champion. Yet those skills are in narrow domains of knowledge. What is far harder for a computer is common-sense skills like understanding the context of language and social situations when talking — taking turns in conversation, for example.<br /><br />The scheduling assistant can plumb vast data vaults in a fraction of a second to find a pattern, but a few unfamiliar words leave it baffled. Jokes, irony and sarcasm do not compute.<br /><br />That brittleness can lead to mistakes. In the case of the office assistant, it might be a meeting missed or a scheduling mix-up. But the medical assistant could make more serious mistakes, like an incorrect diagnosis or a seriously ill child sent home.<br />The Microsoft projects are only research initiatives, but they suggest where things are headed. And as speech recognition and other artificial intelligence technologies take on more tasks, there are concerns about the social impact of the technology and too little attention paid to its limitations.<br /><br />Smart machines, some warn, could be used as tools to isolate corporations, government and the affluent from the rest of society. Instead of people listening to restive customers and citizens, they say, it will be machines. “Robot voices could be the perfect wall to protect institutions that don’t want to deal with complaints,” said Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and author of “You Are Not a Gadget.”<br /><br />Smarter devices<br />“I’m looking for a reservation for two people tomorrow night at 8 at a romantic restaurant within walking distance.” That spoken request seems simple enough, but for a computer to respond intelligently requires a ballet of more than a dozen technologies.<br />In cars, too, speech recognition systems have vastly improved. In just three years, the Ford Motor Company, using Nuance software, has increased the number of speech commands its vehicles recognise from 100 words to 10,000 words and phrases.<br />Systems like Ford’s Sync are becoming popular options in new cars. They are also seen by some safety specialists as a defence, if imperfect, against the distracting array of small screens for GPS devices, smartphones and the like. Later this summer, a new model of the Ford Edge will recognise complete addresses, including city and state spoken in a single phrase, and respond by offering turn-by-turn directions.<br /><br />Simple problems — like product registration or where to take a product for repairs — can be resolved in the automated system alone. That technology has improved, but callers have also become more comfortable speaking to the system. A surprising number sign off by saying, “Thank you.”<br /><br />Some callers, especially younger ones, also make things easier for the computer by uttering a key phrase like “plasma help,” Szczepaniak said. “I call it the Google-isation of the customer,” he said. Over all, half of the calls to Panasonic are handled in the automated system, up from 10 per cent five years ago, estimated Lorraine Robbins, a manager.<br /><br />The speech technology’s automated problem sorting has enabled Panasonic to globalise its customer service, with inquiries about older and simpler products routed to its call centres in the Philippines and Jamaica. The Virginia centre now focuses on high-end Panasonic products like plasma TVs and home theatre equipment. And while the centre's head count at 200 is the same as five years ago, the workers are more skilled these days. Those who have stayed have often been retrained.<br /><br />Efficient listener<br />“This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes.” But at a growing number of consumer call centres, technical support desks and company hot lines, the listener is a computer. One that can recognise not only words but also emotions — and listen for trends in customer complaints.<br /><br />Certain emotions are now routinely detected at many call centres, by recognising specific words or phrases, or by detecting other attributes in conversations. Voicesense, an Israeli developer of speech analysis software, has algorithms that measure a dozen indicators, including breathing, conversation pace and tone, to warn agents and supervisors that callers have become upset or volatile.<br /><br />The real issue with artificial intelligence, as with any technology, is how it will be used. Automation is a remarkable tool of efficiency and convenience. Using an ATM to make cash deposits and withdrawals beats standing in line to wait for a teller. If an automated voice system in a call centre can answer a question, the machine is a better solution than lingering on hold for a customer service agent.<br /><br />Indeed, the increasing usefulness of artificial intelligence — answering questions, completing simple tasks and assisting professionals — means the technology will spread, despite the risks. It will be up to people to guide how it is used.<br />“It’s not human intelligence, but it’s getting to be very good machine intelligence,” said Andries van Dam, a professor of computer science at Brown University. “There are going to be all sorts of errors and problems, and you need human checks and balances, but having artificial intelligence is way better than not having it.”<br />The New York Times</p>
