Real-time captioning of conversation.
Highly accurate instant translation. Auto voice mimicry
making it sound like you
speaking the translation. Real-time AR facial augmentation
making it also look like you speaking the
translation. Meanwhile, super-intelligent Turing-test-passing
chatbots that look real and can talk
tirelessly about any topic, in different languages, in
anyone’s voice. Then, a little further into the future, brain-machine interfaces
that turn your thoughts into language, saving you the effort of
talking at all. All this will bring us into the ‘human-machine
era’, a time when the tech has moved out of our hands and into our
ears, eyes, and brains.
These technologies are the subject of vast (and competing) venture
capital. They are coming. When these are no longer futuristic but
widespread everyday devices, what will language and interaction
actually be like? Would you trust instant auto-translation while
shopping? On a date? At a hospital? How much would you interact
with virtual characters? Debate with them? Learn a new language
from them? Socialise with them,
or more? Would you wear a
device that lets you communicate without talking? And with all
this new tech, would you trust tech companies
with the bountiful
new data they gather?
Meanwhile, what about the people who get left behind as these
shiny new gadgets spread? As always with new tech, they will be
prohibitively expensive for many. And despite rapid
improvements, still for some years progress will be slower
for smaller languages
around the world – and much slower still for sign language – despite the hype.
‘Language
in the Human-Machine Era’ is an EU-funded research network
putting together all these pieces. Watch our animations setting out
future scenarios, read our open access forecast report, and
contribute to our big survey!
Please forward this message anywhere it might be of interest, and
retweet
us!
Technologically yours,
Dave
__________________
Dr. Dave Sayers, ORCID no. 0000-0003-1124-7132
Senior Lecturer & Docent, Dept Language & Communication Studies, U. Jyväskylä, Finland | www.jyu.fi
Chair, EU COST Action CA19102 'Language in the Human-Machine Era' | www.lithme.eu
Founder & Moderator, TeachLing | https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/teachling
[log in to unmask] | https://jyu.academia.edu/DaveSayers