6 ms·

On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. So maybe it's just that the subfield of natural language un

On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. So maybe it's just that the subfield of natural language understanding is still too early to be really useful. Speech recognition itself has gotten really good but then understanding the context, the intent, etc, all that is natural language understanding, and that is often the problem.

moffkalast 4y ago
> have been fine Citation needed, there's a lot of disagreements and misunderstandings (some have cost lives) that could've been avoided if we didn't have 10 different ways to say the same vague thing that can be interpreted in 20 ways. You think the military uses a phonetic alphabet and specifically structured communications for fun? Or the way planes talk to ATC for example. Where precision and unambiguity is crucial, natural language always gets ditched for something more formal.
- groestl 4y ago
  Thanks for that. A lot of energy is currently sunk because of natural language, and I'd argue gains from employing software (instead of human processes) for various tasks is in part due to scaling up the results of many confusing discussions in natural language about what a specific process actually comprises.
  - b112 4y ago
    This is part of the reason Google search sucks more and more. Around when Android appeared, and the first voice searches began, Google suddenly started to alias everything. Search for 'Andy', 'Andrew' appears. Search for 'there', and 'they're' appears. This has been taken further, now silly aliases such as debian .. ubuntu exist, and as google happily drops words in your search, to find a match, this makes precision impossible. But, that's the only way to make voice search remotely work, so...
    - jefftk 4y ago
      I don't think this is to support voice search: Google generally knows whether a query was initiated by voice or typing. Instead, I think it's because most users find what they're looking for faster with it. If you have terms you don't want interpreted broadly you can put them in quotes.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        Most people are not precise enough in their terminology.
      - Zach_the_Lizard 4y ago
        Google "helpfully" ignores the quotes sometimes too. They're not the hard and fast rule they used to be. I preached the Gospel of Google when the competition was composed of web rings and Altavista, but Google in its infinite wisdom has abandoned the advanced user with changes of this nature.
        thfuran 4y ago
        So what is the gospel de jour, or are we forsaken in these benighted times?
        jvolkman 4y ago
        Pretty sure quote support has improved recently. https://blog.google/products/search/how-were-improving-search-results-when-you-use-quotes/ https://blog.google/products/search/how-were-improving-searc...
        b112 4y ago
        Considering the article lies, and tries to claim quotes always are respected, I wouldn't put much faith in it.
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      I find voice-assistant often useful for using the phone such as opening a given setting, say make the display brighter. Trying to navigate the settings pages is very error-prone. There seems to be no universal standard as to where each setting should be found.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    There is a widely accepted and straightforward thinking that humans has ideas, which are expressed in languages, and that languages being ambiguous is problematic: this I'm starting to have doubts on. Maybe we don't have clear intentions in the first place, maybe languages are not just ambiguous, but only meant to narrow realms of valid interpretations down to a desired precision, rather than intended to form a logically fully constrained statements. Maybe this is why intelligent entities are needed to "correctly" interpret natural language statements, because an act of interpretation itself is a decision making and an action. Just my thoughts but I do think there are more to be said than "natural languages are ambiguous".
- _jpys 4y ago
  This is actually an interesting point. In the Army, we used terms that limited ambiguity thereby increasing efficiency. Even if one eliminates the complexity of language, there's still a specification problem. I only use voice assistants to set alarms. I cannot imagine voice as a primary input. Then again, many have opted out of owning desktops and laptops in favor of mobile phones. That also seems terribly inefficient.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >Then again, many have opted out of owning desktops and laptops in favor of mobile phones. That also seems terribly inefficient A lot of people don't need computers in the general purpose sense. I admit my mind boggles a bit when co-workers tell me their kids don't want a computer to do their school papers because their phone is fine. But, then, I'm used to keyboards and what we think of as a "computer" and have been using one for decades--and grab one when I can for any remotely complex or input-heavy task.
    - moffkalast 4y ago
      It sounds ridiculous, but I'll admit that when you've got something like Dex that lets you dock the phone for usb and hdmi out and gives you close to a full desktop OS I'd imagine it really is enough for the casual user.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        I certainly know colleagues in the industry who travel with just a tablet and external keyboard. No, they're not running IDEs etc., but they find it OK for emails, editing docs, taking notes, etc. Personally I'll spend the extra few pounds to also carry along a laptop. But I can imagine not needing/wanting a dedicated laptop when I travel at some point.
        iso1631 4y ago
        Is a tablet and keyboard really much lighter than a laptop? https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21227741/apple-ipad-pro-magic-keyboard-weight https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21227741/apple-ipad-pro-m... Suggests a keyboard and large tablet is heavier than a laptop
heavyset_go 4y ago
> On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. On the other hand, legalese exists and is the lingua franca of telling people what to do, and math exists.
missjellyfish 4y ago
> On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. And that's why all of aviation has moved to a tight phraseology, such that delegated commands are universally understood and their meaning is set in stone. Natural language has cost many lives.
stubish 4y ago
> On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. Using language to instruct humans goes wrong all the time. Just a short while ago on British Bakeoff I saw 2 of the contestants make white chocolate feathering on their biscuits by making actual feathers out of white chocolate and placing them on their biscuits. And I'm sure that will confuse quite a few people reading this too. It certainly confuses image searches. Language is a fuzzy interface. Compare to interface like clicking on a button that does the thing I want done.
- Closi 4y ago
  How would you (easily) describe the concept of chocolate feathering to a computer without using natural language? (e.g. if you wanted the computer to generate an image, or search for an image of / recipe with chocolate feathering).
denton-scratch 4y ago
> humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. Not always resulting in unambiguous instructions: "Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns." ~Lord Raglan, Balaclava "I wish him to take Cemetery Hill if practicable." ~Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg
psadri 4y ago
I agree with this. We have evidence that natural language works well enough to run most of the world. AI will eventually get there.
marcosdumay 4y ago
> humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. Every time we try to minimize errors, we formalize a language. I don't even think people use natural language to issue commands often. Commanding people is often considered rude.
ska 4y ago
> On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. I think this is really a characterization. Mostly human communication is full of errors and problems. What is true is that when it is important enough, humans have come up with ways that minimize communication errors and frameworks to deal with ambiguity - mostly these involve training and effort though, it really doesn't come naturally.
- ska 4y ago
  "really a problematic characterization"...

moffkalast 4y ago

> have been fine Citation needed, there's a lot of disagreements and misunderstandings (some have cost lives) that could've been avoided if we didn't have 10 different ways to say the same vague thing that can be interpreted in 20 ways. You think the military uses a phonetic alphabet and specifically structured communications for fun? Or the way planes talk to ATC for example. Where precision and unambiguity is crucial, natural language always gets ditched for something more formal.

groestl 4y ago
Thanks for that. A lot of energy is currently sunk because of natural language, and I'd argue gains from employing software (instead of human processes) for various tasks is in part due to scaling up the results of many confusing discussions in natural language about what a specific process actually comprises.
- b112 4y ago
  This is part of the reason Google search sucks more and more. Around when Android appeared, and the first voice searches began, Google suddenly started to alias everything. Search for 'Andy', 'Andrew' appears. Search for 'there', and 'they're' appears. This has been taken further, now silly aliases such as debian .. ubuntu exist, and as google happily drops words in your search, to find a match, this makes precision impossible. But, that's the only way to make voice search remotely work, so...
  - jefftk 4y ago
    I don't think this is to support voice search: Google generally knows whether a query was initiated by voice or typing. Instead, I think it's because most users find what they're looking for faster with it. If you have terms you don't want interpreted broadly you can put them in quotes.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      Most people are not precise enough in their terminology.
    - Zach_the_Lizard 4y ago
      Google "helpfully" ignores the quotes sometimes too. They're not the hard and fast rule they used to be. I preached the Gospel of Google when the competition was composed of web rings and Altavista, but Google in its infinite wisdom has abandoned the advanced user with changes of this nature.
      - thfuran 4y ago
        So what is the gospel de jour, or are we forsaken in these benighted times?
      - jvolkman 4y ago
        Pretty sure quote support has improved recently. https://blog.google/products/search/how-were-improving-search-results-when-you-use-quotes/ https://blog.google/products/search/how-were-improving-searc...
        b112 4y ago
        Considering the article lies, and tries to claim quotes always are respected, I wouldn't put much faith in it.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    I find voice-assistant often useful for using the phone such as opening a given setting, say make the display brighter. Trying to navigate the settings pages is very error-prone. There seems to be no universal standard as to where each setting should be found.
- numpad0 4y ago
  There is a widely accepted and straightforward thinking that humans has ideas, which are expressed in languages, and that languages being ambiguous is problematic: this I'm starting to have doubts on. Maybe we don't have clear intentions in the first place, maybe languages are not just ambiguous, but only meant to narrow realms of valid interpretations down to a desired precision, rather than intended to form a logically fully constrained statements. Maybe this is why intelligent entities are needed to "correctly" interpret natural language statements, because an act of interpretation itself is a decision making and an action. Just my thoughts but I do think there are more to be said than "natural languages are ambiguous".
_jpys 4y ago
This is actually an interesting point. In the Army, we used terms that limited ambiguity thereby increasing efficiency. Even if one eliminates the complexity of language, there's still a specification problem. I only use voice assistants to set alarms. I cannot imagine voice as a primary input. Then again, many have opted out of owning desktops and laptops in favor of mobile phones. That also seems terribly inefficient.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >Then again, many have opted out of owning desktops and laptops in favor of mobile phones. That also seems terribly inefficient A lot of people don't need computers in the general purpose sense. I admit my mind boggles a bit when co-workers tell me their kids don't want a computer to do their school papers because their phone is fine. But, then, I'm used to keyboards and what we think of as a "computer" and have been using one for decades--and grab one when I can for any remotely complex or input-heavy task.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    It sounds ridiculous, but I'll admit that when you've got something like Dex that lets you dock the phone for usb and hdmi out and gives you close to a full desktop OS I'd imagine it really is enough for the casual user.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      I certainly know colleagues in the industry who travel with just a tablet and external keyboard. No, they're not running IDEs etc., but they find it OK for emails, editing docs, taking notes, etc. Personally I'll spend the extra few pounds to also carry along a laptop. But I can imagine not needing/wanting a dedicated laptop when I travel at some point.
      - iso1631 4y ago
        Is a tablet and keyboard really much lighter than a laptop? https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21227741/apple-ipad-pro-magic-keyboard-weight https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21227741/apple-ipad-pro-m... Suggests a keyboard and large tablet is heavier than a laptop

heavyset_go 4y ago

> On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. On the other hand, legalese exists and is the lingua franca of telling people what to do, and math exists.

missjellyfish 4y ago

> On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. And that's why all of aviation has moved to a tight phraseology, such that delegated commands are universally understood and their meaning is set in stone. Natural language has cost many lives.

stubish 4y ago

> On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. Using language to instruct humans goes wrong all the time. Just a short while ago on British Bakeoff I saw 2 of the contestants make white chocolate feathering on their biscuits by making actual feathers out of white chocolate and placing them on their biscuits. And I'm sure that will confuse quite a few people reading this too. It certainly confuses image searches. Language is a fuzzy interface. Compare to interface like clicking on a button that does the thing I want done.

Closi 4y ago
How would you (easily) describe the concept of chocolate feathering to a computer without using natural language? (e.g. if you wanted the computer to generate an image, or search for an image of / recipe with chocolate feathering).

denton-scratch 4y ago

> humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. Not always resulting in unambiguous instructions: "Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns." ~Lord Raglan, Balaclava "I wish him to take Cemetery Hill if practicable." ~Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg

psadri 4y ago

I agree with this. We have evidence that natural language works well enough to run most of the world. AI will eventually get there.

marcosdumay 4y ago

> humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. Every time we try to minimize errors, we formalize a language. I don't even think people use natural language to issue commands often. Commanding people is often considered rude.

ska 4y ago

> On the other side, humans have been fine using natural language to delegate commands to each other. I think this is really a characterization. Mostly human communication is full of errors and problems. What is true is that when it is important enough, humans have come up with ways that minimize communication errors and frameworks to deal with ambiguity - mostly these involve training and effort though, it really doesn't come naturally.

ska 4y ago
"really a problematic characterization"...