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Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

#91

Post by windlep »

I'll admit I'm not very interested in speech recognition of this nature when it can't disambiguate the speaker. ie. the way Amazon Echo and other voice recognition systems can't tell the difference between a human in the room and the TV. Even when one might be clearly a female voice vs. a male.

None of the voice recognition systems on the market learn my voice distinctly from my wife's or sons, and I don't want their speech triggering things on accident (especially my son's), so I don't use any of them.

I'll be more impressed when I can restrict Amazon Echo or one of these assistants to ignoring any voice that isn't at least rather similar to my own, not merely recognizing the words I'm speaking.

Re: Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

#92

Post by aninhumer »

PravlageTiem wrote: post #48
ralusek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Artificial Intelligence to believe in God would be for it to believe in its makers, which are human. A machine would be intelligent to be aware that it was made by man. A man doesn't need to believe in God to be intelligent. In fact, the two are pretty much inversely related.

Believing in a god is unique to the human species. No other animal does this. Thus, if you want full and complete simulation of human intelligence, this is the ultimate benchmark to test against. Furthermore, the purpose of this thought experiment is that you CANNOT know what god an AI would end up believing in. That should make you rethink everything you think you know about theology and reexamine it under epistemol…

>Believing in a god is unique to the human species. No other animal does this.

Do you have some evidence of that? And even if it's true, is it the only thing that's unique to humans?

Indeed, I suspect the interesting part of "believe in god" in terms of intelligence is probably "construct narratives". Assigning a high probability to those narratives reflecting reality (i.e. believing) seems like an aside to the main complexity involved.

>"The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens ('wise man'). In any case it's an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee." - Terry Pratchett, The Science of Discworld II: The Globe

Re: Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

#93

Post by gingerrr »

ghurtado wrote: post #37
gingerrr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Turing test doesn't test for intelligence , simply human-like communication. Things like lying, typing errors, or reaction to insult aren't indicators of an artificial intelligence, but are requirements for passing the Turing test. One of the biggest criticisms of the Turing test is, because it's a behavioral or functional test, there is no way to ensure that the computer is actually thinking intelligently at all…

I can think of no better test of whether some specific being is intelligent than fooling another human into thinking they are. Can you think of a better one? > because it's a behavioral or functional test What else would you test for in an AI other than its output and behavior? Conversely: how would you test a human for intelligence other than through its output and behavior?

That last bit is a false equivalence - we have no way with current science to truly introspect the "thought process" of another human, so functional judgment is the only kind we can exercise.

With AI - we built it. We can read the code that's running. We can make a distinction, in cases where output or behavior is identical, whether it's a neural network or a 12-million-line switch statement - and that value judgment means something to our determination of intelligence. There are plenty of ways other than (or in addition to) output to determine the "intelligence" of a machine that we simply can't exercise with other people.

Re: Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

#94

Post by PravlageTiem »

aninhumer wrote: post #92
PravlageTiem wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believing in a god is unique to the human species. No other animal does this. Thus, if you want full and complete simulation of human intelligence, this is the ultimate benchmark to test against. Furthermore, the purpose of this thought experiment is that you CANNOT know what god an AI would end up believing in. That should make you rethink everything you think you know about theology and reexamine it under epistemol…

>Believing in a god is unique to the human species. No other animal does this. Do you have some evidence of that? And even if it's true, is it the only thing that's unique to humans? Indeed, I suspect the interesting part of "believe in god" in terms of intelligence is probably "construct narratives". Assigning a high probability to those narratives reflecting reality (i.e. believing) seems like an aside to the main…

The best case for animals demonstrating religious behavior (which is fundamentally different than believing in a god, mind you) is from a very convoluted interpretation of a food coma.

http://bigthink.com/videos/can-animals-be-religious

Outside of that considerable stretching, it doesn't exist. Also, I challenge your premise that conflates "belief" with "constructing narratives"

Do you believe you will be alive tomorrow? If so, are you constructing a grand-weaving narrative... or simply making a singular belief? Or, more simply, are you just extrapolating off of past experiences?

Re: Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

#95

Post by gingerrr »

Retric wrote: post #56
gingerrr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Turing test doesn't test for intelligence , simply human-like communication. Things like lying, typing errors, or reaction to insult aren't indicators of an artificial intelligence, but are requirements for passing the Turing test. One of the biggest criticisms of the Turing test is, because it's a behavioral or functional test, there is no way to ensure that the computer is actually thinking intelligently at all…

It directly tests for intelligence, you confuse false negatives with false positives. An intelligent person that fails the test because they don't know a common language is fine. Note: Medical tests generate both false positives and false negatives, they are still useful.

I don't understand what your example here about common language rebuts - that's something that would be solved for in the premise of the test, or it's not a fair test.

Is your argument that that person is still intelligent even if they've failed the test? Because that's the entirety of my point - the Turing test does not return a measure of intelligence, but of communicability.

Or is your point that if such a person fails it doesn't invalidate the test's measurement of intelligence? In a world where the test is implemented correctly, meaning where things like cross-language barriers are accounted for, failing to pass means failing to convince another person that you can communicate like a human would. If you fail, the only way you can consider that a "false negative" would be if you concede that the test is not a sufficient measure of intelligence but of ability to communicate - that's what makes it a FALSE negative.

Re: Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

#96

Post by PravlageTiem »

ghurtado wrote: post #33
PravlageTiem wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A machine process qualifies as AI if it believes in a god. EDIT: I see the nuances of epistemological problems are lost to HN and knee-jerk culture war atheism still rules supreme.

What a useless definition. I could just as easily say that no being (artificial or not) can be considered intelligent so long as it believes in flying spaghetti monsters.

I didn't say "intelligent". I said "AI", as in "artificial intelligence" which implies a simulation of human intelligence. Machine processes already exist that demonstrate, say, ant-like intelligence.

Re: Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

#98

Post by tempestn »

swagtricker wrote: post #97

Time files like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana. Wake me up when they can match human recognition of context.

At first I wondered whether you meant to type it that way to make a deeper point, but I'm assuming it's just a typo.

Re: Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

#99

Post by PravlageTiem »

joemi wrote: post #89
PravlageTiem wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being made to believe in a god isn't the same as believing in one. Silicon Valley thinks AI is not an epistemological problem, as if neurons can be perfectly simulated atomically and that all intelligence processes can be categorized as structured vs. unstructured. Very naive conclusions. Ironically, they BELIEVE if you simulate the axiomatic neuron perfectly, emergent properties of intelligence will mystically emerg…

> Abrahamic religion explored the alternative intelligence problem in great depth over two thousand years ago. It's a pity the results have been lost to Progressive axe grinding. I'll take the bait: What in the world are you talking about?

What is monotheism but a comprehensive collection of thought experiments regarding the behavior of a Bronze Age singularity? :D

Re: Researchers reach human parity in conversational speech recognition

#100

Post by nattyice »

Meaning will always escape us when it comes to language. Not only will there always be a disconnect between the speaker and his or her audience, there will always be a subjective perspective that cannot be tapped into. Can AI ever really be compared to a subjective perspective?

Although the article recognizes that perfection has not been assumed, parity might not even be a capacity.

Conversation is difficult to measure. Take a look at the philosophical viewpoint of Deconstruction. Food for thought.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/deconst/

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