Artificial SpeechBecause speech is the most convenient form. of communication, in the futu

Artificial Speech

Because speech is the most convenient form. of communication, in the future we want essentially natural conversations with computers． The primary point of contact will be a simple device that will act as our window into the world． It will have to be small enough to slip into your pocket, so there will be a screen but no keyboard．, you will simply talk to it．The device will be permanently connected to the Internet and will beep relevant information up to you as it comes in． Such devices will evolve naturally in the next five to ten years．

Just how quickly people will adapt to a voice-based internet world is uncertain． Many believe that, initially at least, we will need similar conventions for the voice to those we use at present on screen: click, back, forward, and so on． But soon you will undoubtedly be able to interact by voice with all those IT-based services you currently connect with over the Internet by means of a keyboard． This will help the Internet serve the entire population．

Changes like this will encompass (围绕, 包围) the whole world． Because English is the language of science, it will probably remain the language in which the technology is most advanced, but most speech-recognition techniques are transferable to other languagesprovided (假如,若是) there is sufficient motivation to undertake the work．

Of course, in any language there are still huge problems for us to solve． Carefully dietated, clear speech can now be understood by computers with only a 4～5 per cent errorrate, but even the most advanced technology still records 30～40 per cent errors with spontaneous speech． Within ten years we will have computers that respond to goal-directed conversation, but for a computer to have a conversation that takes into account human social behaviors is probably 50 years off． We are not going to be chatting to the big screen in the living room just yet．

In the past insufficient speed and memory have held us back, but these days they are less of an issue． However, there are those in the IT community who believe that current techniques will eventually hit a brick wall． Personally, I believe that incremental (不断增长的) developments in performance are more likely． But it is true that by about 2040 or so, computer architectures will need to become highly parallel (并行的) if performance is to keep increasing． Perhaps that will inspire some radically new approaches to speech understanding that will replace the methods we are developing now．

第 16 题 In the future, people will talk to computer instead of typing and clicking．

A．Right

B．Wrong

C．Not mentioned