AI AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING WAS FIRST INTRODUCED TO ME SOME 20 YEARS AGO.  I REMEMBER SITTING IN A CLASSROOM WHERE A REPRESENTATIVE FROM AT&T CAME TO COLLEGE TO DEMONSTATE THEIR LATEST INNOVATION, VOICE ACTIVATION.  TWO STUDENTS WERE CHOSEN FOR THE DEMONSTRATION.  FIRST STUDENT’S VOICE WAS PROGRAMMED TO THE TELEPHONE DEVICE AS MAIN USERS.  HE WAS ABLE TO PLACE PHONE CALLS.  BUT WHEN THE SECOND STUDENT TRIED TO PLACE THE CALL, THE TELEPHONE SIMPLIY SAID “YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO PLACE THE CALL.  GOODBYE”. EVERYONE IN THE LECTURE HALL WAS DUMBFOUNDED HOW THE PHONE HAD REJECTED THE SECOND STUDENT’S REQUEST.  (IT WAS THE TIME WHEN MICROSOFT WINDOWS HAD NOT BEEN IN THE MARKET AND THE LIMITED INFORMATION WEB WAS USED ONLY BY COMPUTER SCIENCE MAJORS.)

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING IS A FIELD THAT INTEGRATES THE HUMAN LANGUAGE TO THE COMPUTER. ONE GOAL OF AI WORK IN NATURAL LANGUAGE IS TO ENABLE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PEOPLE AND COMPUTERS WITHOUT RESORTING TO MEMORIZATION OF COMPLEX COMMANDS AND PROCEDURES. AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION---ENABLING SCIENTISTS, BUSINESS PEOPLE AND JUST PLAIN FOLKS TO INTERACT EASILY WITH PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD---IS ANOTHER GOAL. BOTH ARE JUST PART OF THE BROAD FIELD OF AI AND NATURAL LANGUAGE, ALONG WITH THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE ASPECT OF USING COMPUTERS TO STUDY HOW HUMANS UNDERSTAND LANGUAGE.¹ 

CHATTERBOTS ARE ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF NLP SYSTEM.  THEY ARE USED FOR CONVERSATIONAL PURPOSES WITH HUMANS.  THEIR LANGUAGE (NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING, NLP) SKILLS VARY FROM EXTREMELY POOR TO VERY CLEVER INTELLIGENT, HELPFUL AND FUNNY.² ELIZA AND A.L.I.C.E. ARE ORIGINAL AND SPECIFIC EXPAMLES OF CHATBOX CREATED TO INTERACT WITH HUMANS.  TURING TEST DETERMINE HOW WELL A CHATBOX CAN RESPONSE LIKE A HUMAN BEING.  MANY BANKS ARE USING NPL SYSTEMS WITH CHATTEBOTS TO FILL-IN THE WAIT TIME DURING THE SERVICE CALL.  ONE WOULD WANT TO BE CAREFUL, BECAUSE THE NEGATIVE IMPLICATION IS THE MISUSE OF IT TO GAIN PERSONAL INFORMANTION. 

TWENTY YEARS LATER, I SAW THE THREE EPISODES OF JEOPARDY STARRING TWO CONTESTANTS WITH THE MOST WINS, KEN JENNINGS AND BRAD RUTTER AND THE THIRD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CONTESTANT, WATSON.  WATSON AS BEEN DEVELOPED USING MANY BRANCHES OF AI INCLUDING NLP AND LEARNING SYSTEMS.  IBM WATSON PASSED ITS FIRST TEST ON JEOPARDY! IN FEBRUARY 2011, BUT THE REAL TEST WILL BE IN APPLYING THE UNDERLYING SYSTEMS, DATA MANAGEMENT AND ANALYTICS TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS AND ACROSS DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES.³  THE INTENTION OF  DEVELOPING WATSON WAS FOR IT TO PROVIDE KNOWLEDGE FOR FUTURE USE IN VARYING CONTENT AREAS.  THE VIDEO GIVES A BRIEF INTO TO WATSON.⁴

FROM VOICE RECOGNITION TO WATSON, NLP HAS IMPACTED THE TECHNOLOGICAL WORLD IN MOST POSITIVE WAYS.  THE MARGIN OF ERROR GETS SLIMMER WITH MORE PRECISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS.  ONE CAN ONLY HOPE TO SEE GREAT ADVANCES USING AI AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING.

 1.  NATURAL LANGUAGE, UNDERSTANDING AND GENERATING TEXT & SPEECH, http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/AITopics/NaturalLanguage

2.  CHATBOTS, http://www.chatbots.org/chatbot/

3.  IBM WATSON, http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/what-is-watson/index.html

4. WATSON FOR A SMARTER PLANET, http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/watson-for-a-smarter-planet/smarter-answers-for-a-smarter-planet.html