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Technologies such as mastermind - computer interface , artificial intelligence(AI ) , prognosticative texting and autocomplete are already transform language as we cognize it .
But how important will that change be ? And exactly what will those changes be ? We baby-sit down with Philip Seargeant , author of the book"The Future of Language"(Bloomsbury , 2024 ) , to chew the fat about what language is , why scientist spent years trying to create a special language for atomic waste , and whether we ’ll ever populate in a mum world barren of spoken speech communication .
An artist’s illustration of a chatbot talking to a surprised human.
Ben Turner : Let ’s set off with a question that ’s much easier to ask than it is to answer : How do we define oral communication ?
Philip Seargeant : Language is so constitutional to our lives — our societal life and our genial lives — that often you get this variety of slightly simplistic mind of it being just a mean value of communicating . Sure , it ’s a mean of relay information from one person to another , but that ’s really only a part of it . speech is tied up with the path that we organize society and our relationships , how we present our identity , and how we read other mass ’s identicalness . I think that ’s one of the things that we need to be mindful of as we essay to get a handle on how new technologies are going to change the way we communicate .
BT : A key theme that you hark back to in the book is the myth of the Tower of Babel . It ’s a taradiddle that has articulated our desire to bridge over the gaps between words since history began . How close are we to AI act as a oecumenical translator between human language ? Is a universal translator even possible ?
Philip Seargeant.
PS : These are very dependable query . The Babel myth is an idea from fairly early in the beginning of account that suggests that language role is somehow impaired — that there ’s something wrong with it . It ’s the foundation of what it means to be human , yet at the same time , there ’s some form of essential defect in it . There ’s two aspect to that : One is that we ca n’t speak across language barrier , and two [ is ] that how we use language is n’t precise or precise enough .
It seems we ’re at a point in time where applied science will imminently allow for instant , real - time version between big lyric ( at least the ones we have enough information for ) . The lineament of this transformation is pretty right ; it ’s very viable .
My best shot is that it will work quite functionally for some things but will exist alongside the blanket aspects of how we habituate language .
A proposed pictograph for a long-term nuclear warning message.
BT : It ’s interesting that humans call upon language to explain why we ’re so unique , yet we also feel insecure that we ’re not quite good enough at it .
PS : One of the reason language is so endlessly flexible is because it lack precision . Now we hold out in a world of " ' phoney news , ' " where linguistic process is seen as unreliable and used for malicious purposes . The paradox is that language is so successful because it can be exploited and reshaped all of the clock time .
BT : A fascinating model in the book about the fickleness of language was the U.S. government’sHuman Interference Task Force , which , for warn next generations about where radioactive waste was bury , tried to predict the possible futurity of the English language . But it give out . Why ?
A woman with ALS uses a brain computer interface to brain activity, detected by sensors implanted above her cerebral cortex, to make words appear on a screen.
PS : Their problem was , how do you communicate to future generations when you know that , over the course of millenia , the English language will have change to be almost unrecognizable ?
Unless we had specifically learned it , you and I would not be able to translate something from 1,000 class ago , and when we ’re speak about nuclear waste material , it remains harmful for ten or hundreds of thousands of old age . So how on Earth do we communicate a warning into the future tense when words does n’t have that stability ? The whole point about spoken communication is that it ’s adaptable .
BT : In 1981 , when the task force and the field of atomic semiotics was founded , the scientists turn on it came up with all sort of brainsick marriage offer to communicate that peril — genetically engineering flowers and cats to shine around radiotherapy , for instance . You mention that they realized that even symbols , such as a skull and crossbones , could lose the significance they carry today over metre .
A pod of sperm whales swims off the coast of Sao Miguel Azores. The animals are being studied by scientists working on the CETI project, which is attempting to use AI to decode their songs.
PS : Pretty much , yeah . There ’s no intrinsic relationship between a word and a thing , or a symbolization and a thing . We screw that a skull and crossbones has a traditional meaning of a monition , but it could be interpreted another way . It ’s all about the substance we put into it , and that ’s why it changes and continues to exchange to keep up with an evolving bon ton .
BT : Just how much capacity does spoken communication have to change ? Some technical school business leader — notably , Elon Musk — have hint that brain - computer interface could bypass talk , personify language completely and put us in a wordless future . Is this probable , or is it the result of flawed thought ?
PS : I cerebrate it ’s just flawed thinking . It will be interesting to see what happens if this ever becomes mainstream and sits alongside how we communicate now , but it sounds like it ’s an awful tenacious way off . Right now , multitude can tap out thing on a keyboard using their Einstein undulation very slowly .
Elon Musk has send for the gimmick attempting to do this " telepathy , " but I think that ’s science fiction thinking bleed into genuine initiation . What that actual innovation will cease up as seems improbable to match some of his pronouncements .
Even if it does happen , I ca n’t imagine it will supercede plenty of the ways we use language . As we were saying , language is n’t just about data transfer ; the voice is integral to vast aspects of our lives . Take singing , for example — how are you going to do that telepathically ? The whole creativity and identity aspect of language does n’t seem to fit into that model at all .
What often happens is that , instead of thing replacing each other , raw and old language engineering exist side by side and mix in interesting way . I would conceive of something along those line being much more likely to happen .
BT : People had the same discussion when emoji first made their elbow room into mainstream employment — some feared that they would somehow supplant traditional password .
PS : Yes , and that has n’t happened at all either . Instead , you see them being used together , rather than what the preaching was , which is that we ’re going to draw a blank how to drop a line instead .
BT : Let ’s say we soon have brain - computer interfaces and AI acting as far-flung intermediaries for languages . What are the entailment for destitute oral communication ?
PS : The matter about spare speech is that the more mediation you have — the more people , organizations or apparatus that sit around between a someone and their audience — the more chance there is for communicating to be determine . Laws [ relate to free speech ] seek to make trusted that mediation ca n’t be misused .
In the popular conversation about free speech , most of the word is about " Can I utilise this word or that Scripture ? " and so forth . But in the past , law of nature relate to the freedom of the wardrobe enabled the press to release what it wanted , and if it outsmart the police force , it would then be punished . But with AI , it ’s much well-fixed to do that censorship at the mo someone is speaking .
Chinese societal media , for representative , permeate out speech before you even get a hazard to say it out loud , and you ’re not even going to make love that because the filtering is embed in the mediate applied science .
That could very well be problematic , especially in term of who have the mediating technology — swelled caller who have interracial motivations , want beneficial PR and do n’t require to be criticise . That ’s an issue , because it will become even more easy to interfere purely because of how the technology work .
BT : We ’re not necessarily in a hopeless spot , though , because as you mention in the ledger , multitude throughout history have always been very good at finding inventive ways to sidestep censorship .
PS : Yeah , it ’s still belike quite effective inChina , and there are risks in elude it — especially when you consider the surveillance aspect of data . But masses have always been historically pretty upright at find elbow room to bear on back on it .
That ’s the thing with gratuitous speech : It ’s never one affair or the other . It ’s always a continuing struggle , a incessantly revised political fight . But it ’s because the engineering is impersonate problems in a different and new way that one take to keep on top of it .
BT : Stepping beyond human speech communication for a minute , scientist are also using AI on whale birdcall in a bid to decode what they ’re saying . Is this even a remote possibility , in your view ?
PS : Gosh . Basically , I think yes . Our profound experience of life story is so different that language is just the first part of the challenge .
I imagine it ’s potential to understand how different species intercommunicate in more nuanced way with this form of technology , but that ’s not the same as talk to them . It ’s like trying to teach Pan troglodytes sign terminology — it work insofar as there ’s some sort of communication possible between us and them anyway .
I think the effrontery is that language is the answer to something that it ’s not . Like the idea of a ecumenical spoken communication being the solution to mankind peace — it could help , but in pattern , it ’s much more complicated .
BT : Taking one whole step further , if lyric is so tied to our immediate experience and surroundings , how far can we really anticipate the problems of communicating one solar day with extraterrestrial intelligence ?
PS : I’m by no means an expert on this , but I read a peck about it for the script . It ’s another interesting idea , and the challenge is that we just do n’t make love . With animals , we jazz they live in the first place , we make out the kind of liveliness they have , we know prospect of their cognitive power , and we recognize they can make sounds and gestures . With aliens , we do n’t even have that basic information .
That makes everything we say arrant speculation , but the interesting affair is that that speculation facilitate us get a better approximation of what human language is and does . send a message across millions of lightheaded - yr and reaching anyone is highly improbable , but it ’s still not pointless .
My book , as you say , is a account of futurism , and part of that account is science fiction . Science fiction feeds into genuine technological innovation and the questions we ask ourselves , even though it ’s just fable .
linguistic process is fundamental , and because of that , it ’s enormously complex and there ’s still an awful lot that we have to learn and interpret about it — even without considering all the technical look of it .
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BT : What do you think we still need to learn ?
PS : My fussy interest is sociolinguistics — the relationship between language and society — but there are all sorts of interesting questions in cognitive linguistics and how we generate speech in the mental capacity , and there ’s not a lot of consensus out there .
And how we understand speech , even if it ’s scientifically wrong , feeds into the way we habituate it . mass reckon there ’s " right " and " incorrect " grammar , for illustration , and make judgments based on that , even if a sociolinguist will tell you that everything ’s adequate from a scientific point of perspective .
I think there will always be evolving interrogative about language , so even if there are unresolved questions , it ’s not like there ’s ever going to be a settle noesis about it .
The Future of speech : New Technology , Politics and Utopianism Are Transforming The manner We convey -$24.03 on Amazon
If you enjoyed this interview with Philip Seargeant , you’re able to read more about how technology is transforming speech communication in his new book , " The futurity of Language . " It ’s a enthralling geographic expedition of lyric ’s organic evolution , and how unexampled technology may change it in the futurity .
