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The MIT Press Essential Knowledge
AI Assistants
An accessible explanation of the technologies that enable such popular voice-interactive applications as Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant.
Have you talked to a machine lately? Asked Alexa to play a song, asked Siri to call a friend, asked Google Assistant to make a shopping list? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a nontechnical and accessible explanation of the technologies that enable these popular devices. Roberto Pieraccini, drawing on more than thirty years of experience at companies including Bell Labs, IBM, and Google, describes the developments in such fields as artificial intelligence, machine learning, speech recognition, and natural language understanding that allow us to outsource tasks to our ubiquitous virtual assistants.
Pieraccini describes the software components that enable spoken communication between humans and computers, and explains why it's so difficult to build machines that understand humans. He explains speech recognition technology; problems in extracting meaning from utterances in order to execute a request; language and speech generation; the dialog manager module; and interactions with social assistants and robots. Finally, he considers the next big challenge in the development of virtual building in more intelligence--enabling them to do more than communicate in natural language and endowing them with the capacity to know us better, predict our needs more accurately, and perform complex tasks with ease.
Have you talked to a machine lately? Asked Alexa to play a song, asked Siri to call a friend, asked Google Assistant to make a shopping list? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a nontechnical and accessible explanation of the technologies that enable these popular devices. Roberto Pieraccini, drawing on more than thirty years of experience at companies including Bell Labs, IBM, and Google, describes the developments in such fields as artificial intelligence, machine learning, speech recognition, and natural language understanding that allow us to outsource tasks to our ubiquitous virtual assistants.
Pieraccini describes the software components that enable spoken communication between humans and computers, and explains why it's so difficult to build machines that understand humans. He explains speech recognition technology; problems in extracting meaning from utterances in order to execute a request; language and speech generation; the dialog manager module; and interactions with social assistants and robots. Finally, he considers the next big challenge in the development of virtual building in more intelligence--enabling them to do more than communicate in natural language and endowing them with the capacity to know us better, predict our needs more accurately, and perform complex tasks with ease.
288 pages, Paperback
Published September 7, 2021
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About the author
Roberto Pieraccini
7 booksRoberto Pieraccini, an expert in spoken human–machine–interaction, is Director of Engineering at Google. He is the author of The Voice in the Machine: Building Computers That Understand Speech.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 5, 2023
History and current state (before ChatGPT era) of conversational AI is well summarized
February 5, 2022
Come funzionano Siri, Google Assistant e compagnia varia?
Comincio subito con un disclaimer: sono stato un collega di Roberto, quando da neoassunto ero entrato in Cselt a fare riconoscimento della voce e prima che lui prendesse il volo per gli USA. La sua esperienza nel campo è quarantennale, e lo si vede bene in questo testo dove non si limita a parlare di Siri, Google Assistant e compagnia varia ma traccia sia la storia che ha portato alla loro creazione sia tutti i tipi di tecnologia dietro a essi, notando come lo stato dell'arte attuale, sicuramente ancora di gran lunga perfettibile, richiede comunque una collaborazione tra campi diversissimi tra loro. Un bignami utilissimo per non rimanere intrappolati dall'hype e capire come e perché (oltre che "se"...) questi strumenti funzionano.
Comincio subito con un disclaimer: sono stato un collega di Roberto, quando da neoassunto ero entrato in Cselt a fare riconoscimento della voce e prima che lui prendesse il volo per gli USA. La sua esperienza nel campo è quarantennale, e lo si vede bene in questo testo dove non si limita a parlare di Siri, Google Assistant e compagnia varia ma traccia sia la storia che ha portato alla loro creazione sia tutti i tipi di tecnologia dietro a essi, notando come lo stato dell'arte attuale, sicuramente ancora di gran lunga perfettibile, richiede comunque una collaborazione tra campi diversissimi tra loro. Un bignami utilissimo per non rimanere intrappolati dall'hype e capire come e perché (oltre che "se"...) questi strumenti funzionano.
January 15, 2023
This book was a helpful explainer of the models behind today's AI assistants (including speech recognition, natural language understanding, speech generation models etc.). The first chapter is a concise description of machine learning.
July 4, 2023
Although an introductory work on the subject of AI assistants (Siri, Alexa et al) the material covered is quite in-depth in places and is resultingly a somewhat dry read. Still, if you have an interest in this rapidly expanding field, this may be well worth a read.
October 19, 2021
A very good introduction to anyone looking to understand the world of AI assistants
February 27, 2022
An excellent overview of how AI assistants work, what are their limits, and where the field is headed. A pleasant read that also includes a history of AI assistants.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews