The human brain has always been a mystery to us. Even though we know much about it, we still cannot explain how exactly it works. For example, the fact that people are able to learn a language while being unable to speak it fluently is still a big mystery to scientists. Another major problem in Artificial intelligence research today is understanding human language.
Artificial intelligence (AI) may be getting smarter every day but it seems like there are certain aspects of language that are just impossible for Artificial intelligence algorithms to understand.
How do people learn a language?
Humans have the remarkable ability to learn a new language. The only species that can do this is the human species. Researchers have come up with many theories to explain how we are able to learn a new language. The most popular theory is the ‘critical period’ theory. It states that during the early years of our lives, we have the ability to learn almost any language. However, due to increasing obstacles, as we get older, this ability is eventually lost.
AI and comprehension: an uneven start
Achieving human-level Artificial intelligence comprehension is incredibly difficult. Researchers have already achieved a lot of progress in Artificial intelligence, but the overall goal of being able to understand human language is far away. People often compare the current state of Artificial intelligence with human understanding to the situation of a ‘20-year-old high school graduate who can type well.’
This analogy is extremely misleading. In reality, Artificial intelligence is at a very different level right now. AI is still very much at the ‘high school level’ when it comes to understanding human language. At any given moment, the field of Artificial intelligence is making tremendous advancements.
Researchers have also figured out many of the common challenges that Artificial intelligence faces, which can be used to predict the future developments of Artificial intelligence. These challenges may change over time, but they will always exist as long as humans are creating software that can think.
Mimicking human speech is surprisingly hard
The process of mimicking human speech has been a big focus in the research of Artificial intelligence for a long time. After all, how can we expect Artificial intelligence to understand human language if it does not know how to speak? The problem here is that mimicking human speech is surprisingly difficult. Researchers often compare speech recognition to playing the piano for the first time.
However, this analogy is extremely misleading. The fact is that people do not just hear a piano play. They hear a specific combination of sounds that never exist in nature. Humans are able to process these sounds and make something out of them. When Artificial intelligence researchers try to create software that can mimic the sounds of human speech, they are faced with a few hurdles.
For example, human speech sounds are created by air passing over vocal cords, which have a complicated structure. As a result, you cannot expect AI software to create these sounds exactly.
Different ways of talking can confuse an AI
AI is often compared to the human brain because both are comprised of neurons. However, the structure of the human brain is vastly different from the structure of an AI. The human brain is a network of neurons that process signals by exchanging chemicals between neurons. Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, has a ‘master plan’ that it follows. One of the major issues in the AI world today is the diversity of the human population.
This issue is created by the fact that people from different countries and backgrounds have very different ideas. When Artificial intelligence researchers try to create an algorithm that can understand human language, they end up creating an algorithm that cannot understand different people from different backgrounds. This leads to confusion among the algorithm and makes it difficult for Artificial intelligence to learn from new data.
Conclusion
There are many challenges involved in creating artificial intelligence. One of the major challenges that AI researchers face is understanding human language. This article will take you through the common challenges Artificial intelligence researchers face when creating software that can understand human speech better than we can. The human brain has always been a mystery to us.
Even though we know much about it, we still cannot explain how exactly it works. For example, the fact that people are able to learn a language while being unable to speak it fluently is still a big mystery to scientists. Another major problem in Artificial intelligence research today is understanding human language.
Artificial intelligence may be getting smarter every day but it seems like there are certain aspects of language that are just impossible for Artificial intelligence algorithms to understand. This article will take you through the common challenges Artificial intelligence researchers face when creating software that can understand human speech better than we do.
