![]() ![]() To get a better handle on how these programs work, I spoke individually with Broussard and Rudnicky. ![]() ![]() alarm is on”.) And Meredith Broussard, a data journalist and professor at NYU, brought up the “ unreasonable effectiveness of data”: These programs become so good at what they do - improving their knowledge of the way people speak - by gathering and analyzing as many examples as possible. In my quest for knowledge, I learned quite a few cool things.Īlexander Rudnicky, a research professor with the Carnegie Mellon Speech Group explained to me how programs like Alexa or Siri translate the words I say into text, how a program analyzes that text to understand what I want it to do (in this case, wake me at 8:00) and to let me know that it’s done the job (the depressingly familiar announcement “Your 8:00 a.m. Now, several years and dozens of preset alarms later, I’ve set out to get a better sense of a tool I’ve come to rely on, and of the type that has generated some popular concern. If anybody asked me, I would stumble through a vague answer along the lines of “something something waveform analysis, something something machine learning.” Editor’s Note: In “ Make Me Smarter ,” a writer looks at a piece of smarthome technology they don’t understand, and talks to experts about how it actually works.įor more than half a decade, I’ve used Siri to set my alarms.Įvery night, before going to bed, I hold down the button and tell my phone to wake me at a given time, with very little understanding of how that actually happens. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2023
Categories |