From: djheydt@kithrup.com   
      
   In article <2015071312182912629-john.w.kennedy@gmail.com>,   
   John W Kennedy   wrote:   
   >On 2015-07-13 13:29:52 +0000, John F. Eldredge said:   
   >   
   >> On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 14:15:59 -0400, John W Kennedy wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> Of course, SF has always gotten natural-language processing wrong.   
   >>> Asimov, for example, assumed that robots would understand spoken English   
   >>> decades before they could speak it, when, in fact, computer-speech   
   >>> attachments were in IBM's regular catalog by the mid-60s, and voice   
   >>> recognition is still either restricted in function (Siri) or dependent   
   >>> on supercomputers (Watson).   
   >>   
   >> Converting text to speech is a relatively minor task, since the computer   
   >> doesn't need to actually understand what is being said, only to follow a   
   >> set of rules. Understanding speech is much more complex, if you want to   
   >> do more than just recognize a few keywords.   
   >   
   >Of course. I have no idea how Asimov came to make such an obvious   
   >blunder, but he did. And George Lucas repeated it in the 70s, when a   
   >quick glance at what was actually on the market would have revealed the   
   >truth.   
      
   Asimov was a biochemist with a minor in history.  Lucas is a   
   filmmaker.  Neither is/was a programmer.   
      
   --   
   Dorothy J. Heydt   
   Vallejo, California   
   djheydt at gmail dot com   
   Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.   
   Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)