Smarter Than You Think - Computers Make Strides in Recognizing Speech - NYTimes.com

A timely snapshot

For decades, computer scientists have been pursuing artificial intelligence — the use of computers to simulate human thinking. But in recent years, rapid progress has been made in machines that can listen, speak, see, reason and learn, in their way. The prospect, according to scientists and economists, is not only that artificial intelligence will transform the way humans and machines communicate and collaborate, but will also eliminate millions of jobs, create many others and change the nature of work and daily routines.

[…]

“It’s not human intelligence, but it’s getting to be very good machine intelligence,” said Andries van Dam, a professor of computer science at Brown University. “There are going to be all sorts of errors and problems, and you need human checks and balances, but having artificial intelligence is way better than not having it.”

Smarter Than You Think - Computers Make Strides in Recognizing Speech - NYTimes.com