About chatbots emulating human speech:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61793984
Excerpts (my emphases):
“Mr Laporte adds that chatbots are now “10 times better than they were 10 years ago“, and that after initial programming, and then using machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), they can learn and understand what the user is saying, or typing, and thus know what to reply.
Yet, he cautions that industry-wide chatbots are still not perfect, and that there still needs to be a human backup in place. “So the understanding rate differs between different companies and different industries. It can vary between 30% and 90%“ ”
“Prof Sandra Wachter, a senior research fellow in AI at Oxford University, says that chatbots are currently “still far away from appearing lifelike, or humanlike”.
“But as we move forward, we also need to think about ethical responsibilities,” she adds. “At first glance, chatbots might give the impression that we are chatting with actual humans. And we have an ethical responsibility to avoid this confusion because it can lead to potential harm.
“In the ‘best’ case, it merely leads to frustration when chatting with the bot – due to their limited functionality. In the worst case, we might trust them and share information that we otherwise would not.”
…
“Yet, many people hate chatbots and just want to talk to a human every time. Psychologist, Stuart Duff of UK practice, Pearn Kandola, says he understands this sentiment.
“Many people dislike chatbots for a number of reasons, but especially when they try too hard to be human,” he says. “Transparency, empathy and the ability to pick up on subtle tones in our communication are all important ingredients in building trust with other people.
“These are the reason why we can quickly ‘click’ with someone. But it is also why we put up our guard, if people don’t understand our perspective or empathise with us. “
He says while chatbots may have improved over the years, “they are still basic programmed communicators, prone to misread (or just miss) important words, tone and humour in what we are saying.“ “
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
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