The Benefits and Drawbacks of Speech and Voice Recognition

Speech and voice recognition had traveled a long road before they reached where they are today. People have long considered the possibility of communication between man and robot. Although previous inventions were important in speech recognition, the first machine capable of synthesizing Bell Labs created speech in 1939 called The Voder (Voice Operating Demonstrator) (Grundhauser, 2017). The Voder speech synthesis system allowed the operator to create phrases of speech using a specialized keyboard, and the recognizable speech could be created from the talking machine if the key was a trigger in specific sequences. Similar to modern-day Siri and Alexa, a voice synthesizer is a system that breaks down human speech into its acoustic components. These sounds can be electronically transmitted via a machine once isolated.

In 1962, the Shoebox, developed by William C. Dersch at IBM's Advanced Systems, was able to perform simple math calculations via voice commands spoken to it through a microphone (IBM Archives, 2019). By the early 1980s, voice recognition began making great leaps towards higher viability when IBM began work on Tangora, a technology able to identify 20,000 spoken words. As a result of these sophisticated algorithms, also called artificial intelligence, some invented as far back as the 1950s, we now have software agents like Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Microsoft Cortana. (Moskvitch, 2017).

There are presently over one billion devices that offer access to voice assistant users worldwide, and smartphones, cars, and smart speakers have the highest usage within the United States. According to a recent Pew Research Survey, it is estimated that 45% of Americans use digital assistants, particularly on their smartphones. About 14% of the public has used a laptop or tablet voice assistant, while 8% say they are using a stand-alone system such as an Amazon Echo or Google Home. (Tawfiq, 2019). One main reason people use voice assistants is that they can communicate without the use of their hands in these applications. The Pew Research Survey also indicated the reason why some people did not use a voice assistant and found that these users were just not interested, did not own a device that had a voice assistant, or were concerned about privacy.

Personalized interaction enables the company to connect with customers' management with the device's updates and unscheduled downtime. Interaction in personalization is significant to customers as it allows them to boost the company's name one way, and two allows people to trust the product and the device's creators. (TechSee, 2018). The optimization algorithms for machine learning are a way to build a voice processing system that increases inputs to make correct guesses. AI optimization learns to personalize the experiences of people with their voice assistants and help them guess right every time. people need this interaction between the company and the user in order to be truly satisfied

Some individuals have accused technology firms of discrimination. However, firms offering a virtual assistant did analysis before they selected a voice and a feminine name. According to one study, including 151 men and 334 women, conducted by Karl MacDorman, a professor at Indian University who designed the study, despite the listener's gender, individuals usually favor hearing a male voice when it involves authority, however like a feminine voice when they want assistance.

Technology is a vast field that progresses almost every day or even annually, and as it often increases risks. With such advances, privacy becomes extremely hard to maintain, and security becomes very weak in some situations Cloud use, software discovery, ring the doorbell service. In the process of finding a solution, Alexa home faces privacy and security issues.

Many issues arise in the cloud as it is a significant data processing and storage platform. If we look at it from a business perspective, cloud computing is where ideas are shared, and in the process, they risk their privacy and security over their ideas. The most common risks involved with cloud computing are data replication data loss and APIs. Data loss occurs when unauthorized users can view people's data and gain knowledge and ideas based on people's work. In school, we go by the honor system, hoping all students do their work individually with the help of their resources. In the outer world, things are not always been finish by rules and directions. Cloud computing is a significant platform for sharing data and allowing authorized users to view people's findings. Instances do occur where unauthorized users gain access to viewing files and being able to use it in their work without crediting the person for it. ( CBO, 2019) As technology is rapidly progressing, the advancements have multiple plans to enable trust between businesses and customers. As being said, they are bound to privacy and security threats causing multiple reasons why people tend to steer away from purchasing it.

As voice technology transitions from homes to classrooms, teachers can have spelling practice, history lessons, and overall interact with students in new ways. Many teachers also use voice-compatible devices to improve engagement and develop listening and speaking skills. Amazon features third-party applications on their devices that are known as 'skills' which focus on education. These 'skills' applications for education provide critical thinking prompts, spelling and mathematical games, and brain busters that educators can use to help students change thinking paths between lessons. (Crist, 2019).

At the cutting edge of the voice-user interface design, the healthcare industry is making significant progress in improving patient care through this technology development. It is changing the voice of the industry. Voice technology is already being used by physicians to document patient data within electronic health records. A virtual doctor with whom patients can have an empathetic conversation about their well-being is popular, and in many medical insurance companies, it is offered as a bonus. Buying and obtaining the best health insurance is a complicated job for many. To simplify this, an American insurer, Liberty Mutual, has developed an Alexa Skill that enables insurers to navigate their plans and helps manage the policy using Amazon Echo. (Oberoi, 2019).

In business, it is always necessary to try to stay ahead, employ new technologies, and be creative. Seeking ways to improve service and provide customers with a better experience means improving customer service and making operations more effective. By employing a voice recognition software in the business, project productivity levels of employees would improve because the software would handle answering incoming and routing calls. Results from a study on voice assistants done by Gartner show that by 2021, the increase of AI would produce a business value of $2.9 trillion as well as a recovery of 6.2 billion working hours. Digital assistants and other AI systems can help to improve accuracy and reduce the time it will take for issues to be resolved by automating tasks, which will allow more time for workers to be efficient, innovative and to obtain better results. (Pedersen, 2018).

Some may think that older adults or senior citizens do not like technology simply because they are too expensive and too complicated to use. Still, voice assistant usage can be very beneficial for many older citizens living in their homes by prolonging their independence and reducing social isolation. Many older adults have trouble picking up a device such as a remote or their phone, but they can talk and listen, which makes using a voice assistant much easier. Voice technologies can also help by making life safer for senior citizens by letting family members know when they are not okay. Alexa provides a featured skill called Ask My Buddy by offering a check-in signal that all is well. Voice assistant devices can also set reminders for when people need to take their medications. One area of development researchers are working on is detecting the onset of degenerative neurological diseases by exploring vocal patterns. (Next Avenue, 2018). With the Internet playing an increasingly central role in linking Americans of all ages to news and information, government, health, and social services, new technologies that promote more comfortable computer usage have expanded use by older adults and voice technologies are just the beginning of this older generation.

As there are many benefits to artificial intelligence, technology also has several drawbacks. Such being; high costs, human mind replication, and unemployment are just a few of the many. Artificial intelligence requires large bundles of money to be produced, as they are cumbersome devices that require a lot of time and equipment. (Team, D. F., 2019) When technology progresses day by day, the machine's maintenance for the recent update or model performs almost regularly.

The human mind is the body's most sophisticated yet delicate part, which takes years to study and master. It takes several hours of intense research, analysis, and comparison with technology to replicate the human mind. Because of the use of technology on a device, it can be considered dangerous to create artificial intelligence away. Many technical issues can be faced where either the machine needs to be shut down or immediately fixed.

Ultimately, living in such a fast-paced world where technology grows regularly and was found in almost all day-to-day activities can result in different other complications. The U.S. is known as the land of opportunity, and many individuals are immigrating here. Many people are concerned about AI's success in taking over jobs and increasing unemployment rates. The software is being developed to enable humans to perform daily tasks with the right knowledge and experience. Artificial intelligence can be programmed in a manner that allows it to have more knowledge than an individual.