INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Software for Business

Roberto Celestino , Expert in Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) at IBM Brazil , tells us about the history of AI and discusses the secrets of virtual assistant technology .

But the participation of technology in the lives of human beings goes through different phases , media and conceptions . Today , the cognitive , previously restricted to the human mind , already inhabits the world of machines with virtual assistants and artificial influencers , for example , which are already part of our daily lives . But did you know that its origins predate the Internet or social media ? For a better understanding , just look at the history of the itself .

The forerunner

It was in 1961 that IBM developed and demonstrated the so-called ‘ Shoebox ’, a forerunner of today ’ s speech recognition systems . This device was able to perform mathematical functions and recognized 16 spoken words in addition to the digits ‘ 0 ’ to ‘ 9 ’. Operated through a microphone , the apparatus converted voice sounds into electrical impulses . Discussions started around Natural Language Processing here : IBM Shoebox represented the threshold of research in this field and also influenced development in sectors such as speech recognition , including voice dialing systems , call routings and automated handset control .

The beginning of chatbots

In 1965 , computer scientist Joseph Weinzenbaum programmed ‘ Eliza ’, the forerunner of chatbots , a system capable of simulating the process of conversation between machines and humans . It ran on the IBM 7094 Mainframe , with only 37 bits .

The role of Natural Language Processing ( NLP )

Object of great debate among academics , technologists and other specialists in the sector , it is a fundamental component for analyzing and interpreting unstructured data , such as emails , electronic health whitepapers , posts on social networks , etc . Through coding algorithms , NLP allows machines to be able to extract the essense of the text and , from that , create reports and meanings . The solution aims to help businesses keep virtual assistants up-to-date with the latest responses and reduce the time consuming manual updates process .

Machine Learning and the future

When a set of Machine Learning is developed , the system learns as it is used : algorithms are created from the analyzed data and the generation of answers / insights , in a pre-built engineering with rules . Data makes the machine evolve over time . In the traditional method , a set of rules is created to generate an answer from the processing of the entered data .

When we insert this whole context in different spheres of society , we have a revolution : banks , stores , educational institutions , government entities , the health industry and many others seek , at a steady pace , the technological solutions that virtual assistants and AI can offer . If this technology has escalated at rapid speed over the past five years , we have a promising decade ahead . p

Roberto Celestino , Expert in Artificial Intelligence at IBM Brazil

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