THE Moment People First Heard An Automated Voice

Back in 1990 and 1991 when I filmed this, I didn't really realize I was recording history. But looking at it now, this was an amazing moment. You spoke to a machine and it understood you and it spoke back to you. Very strange. Many people from my generation immediately missed the human voice operators we used to speak with all the time – not just when we needed help on the phone, but with any kind of emergency. 99% of the time the operators were women and 98% of the time, in my experience, they truly try to help. These days, it is rare for us to speak with a human being and my young sons prefer speaking to an automated voice then to a real person. For me, the support that I can get when I call Paypal is just comforting and the person on the other end of the phone understands English and always seems to be able to help. I find that this is not the case with the AI voices although younger generations may disagree. The AT&T telephone operator – a live person – is now history. And I suspect that in the near future, AI will continually improve the virtual voices we speak with. Someday, they may even feel our emotions and respond with an understanding that at least today, no machine voice is capable of.

Видео THE Moment People First Heard An Automated Voice канала David Hoffman