TechDispatch #1: Smart Speakers and Virtual Assistants
Ever since Alan Turing published his paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence in 1950, computer scientists have tried to get machines to mimic human behaviour and make them as intelligent or as smart as human beings, by having them play imitation games.
Turing raised the question: Can machines think? He suggested that something “resembling thinking” could be achieved if we provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. This is the main reason why we call modern machines with some imitation capacity smart devices.
Today, a new generation of speaking devices interact with us in human-like ways to execute simple tasks and answer questions, and not only in English. How is this possible?
To read the HTML edition, click the title above.
To read the PDF edition, click the EN button below.