Artifact Details

Title

The Understanding Computer

Catalog Number

102740219

Type

Moving image

Description

At Google’s annual developer conference in 2016, the search giant unveiled Google Assistant, an AI-powered robot that many compared to Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. However, Google hopes that Assistant will be far more capable than making reservations and playing your favorite songs on command. Since its launch, the tool has quietly collected data from the millions of users who regularly use it. Through machine learning, the software is capable of training itself to understand the words users are saying and even how the physical world works.

What are some of the biggest challenges with teaching a machine to extract meaning from our everyday voice and text commands? How are neural networks being used to show devices the complexities and limitations of the human language? Google VP and Engineering Fellow Dr. Fernando Pereira, who currently leads projects in natural language understanding, believes the answers to these questions will allow him to further create a virtual assistant equipped with the ability to do anything you ask.

Dr. Fernando Pereirajoined Google in 2008 after leaving his post as the chair of the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh in 1982. He has several patents and over 120 research publications on computational linguistics, machine learning, bioinformatics, speech recognition, and logic programming.

Date

2017-10-10

Participants

Markoff, John, Moderator
Pereira, Fernando, Speaker

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Mountain View, CA

Duration

01:17:06

Format

MOv

Category

Talk

Collection Title

CHM Live

Credit

Computer History Museum

Lot Number

X8353.2018