Thursday 23 February 2006

Pic of the day: Moekoi, Robot Fighter. Screenshot from City of Heroes. Not that the real future is anything like it. Then again, the real future always comes while we look another way, doesn't it?

Robots replace 70 secretaries

The secretaries work in hospitals on the south coast of Norway. And the robots are not humanoid, but rather are speech recognition systems similar to the one I use some days. But that's what I have been saying for a while: The robots are coming, but not in such a way that we recognize them with our eyes. They do not look like humanoid tin boxes. They are built into things, and do special, limited tasks. And yet the effect is the same. The secretaries are just as much out of their job.

I just read quickly through the article in the local newspaper, and could not find any reference to the specific brand of software that was used. For all I know it could be the same as I'm using right now, "Dragon NaturallySpeaking" version 8. They are after all the market leaders, and I know they sell to the medical communities as well as other professions. ("They" used to be called ScanSoft, but are now called Nuance, I think. I can't check it right now since I still don't have Internet access at home. I'm sure I'm going to write more about them if I live long enough.) On the other hand, they did not write software for smaller languages like Norwegian last I heard. But then again, I don't know of anyone else who does either. In the field of speech recognition software, I mean; there is certainly enough of business software in Norwegian.

***

Actually I have entertained the thought that speech recognition software might be the one thing that would bring about the end of the Norwegian languages. Until now, speech recognition has not been good enough to invade the office. It is still too error-prone, and errors can be very costly in the workplace. It is an awesome tool for those who cannot use their arms for one reason or another, but you have to be alone in a fairly quiet room. Most offices probably don't fit that bill, either. Neither do most homes, for that matter. But with the version I'm using, the software is already very close to human levels as long as there is no one else talking, and it is certainly a lot cheaper than having your own secretary! If the next generation of speech recognition improves as much as the earlier three, it could easily become reliable enough to take over the office. In Norway, most young people are able to speak decent English. Also in Norway, salaries are among the highest in the world. So it would make sense to speak to computers in English whenever this was an alternative to speaking to a human in Norwegian.

Of course, in most cases it is not an alternative, since any letters to customers or suppliers or the government would still have to be in the national languages. (And yes, that is "languages", not "language". Norway has two official languages, not counting the Sami language of our northern aboriginal people.)

I suppose in the future there may also come into existence translation software that is actually useful for laymen. I haven't seen any such programs yet, not even for the main world languages. But as processing power becomes ever cheaper, it becomes ever more tempting to take on new challenges. As the history of speech recognition shows, sometimes gradual improvement can be as good as a sudden breakthrough.

Or as bad, if you ask the secretaries...

(Oh, and I dictated the last part of this entry while playing Sims2 at the normal sound level on the other machine on my desk. The ability to filter out unrelated noise has certainly improved from earlier versions.)