Speaking with machines: interacting with bots for language teaching and learning

What is it? This piece explores technologies for freer communication with machines, i.e. bots (chatbots or conversational agents), rather than the concept of speaking to machines, such as Intelligent Assistants (IA) like Alexa. Bots are computer programmes which simulate natural intelligent communication using text or speech technologies. The first chatbot claimed to pass the Turing Test (a test to identify whether a computer is intelligent), ELIZA, was created by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966 to imitate a psychotherapist. More recently, interest in chatbots appears to have shifted from whether they can be perceived as human to their ability to imitate natural conversations to achieve specific purposes and provide efficient customer services.

Speaking to machines: motivating speaking through oral interaction with intelligent assistants

What is it? Daring to voice new sounds, words, and phrases is an essential part of learning to speak a language. However, getting students, particularly in mono-lingual classes, to try to speak a foreign language can be a significant challenge. Voice interaction assistants, such as Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant, offer new opportunities to create meaningful, fun tasks for language learning that require accurate spoken production. Designing good tasks requires an understanding of the learning context and needs as well as the interactional opportunities, constraints, and risks associated with any particular technology.

Intelligent Assistants and the Internet of Things as the Next Marketing Landscape

This entry explores the ramifications of this latest technology platform shift. Just as the Web precipitated the emergence of e-commerce and the smartphone enabled the explosion of social media, the advent of a voice-based interface that allows people access to, communication with, and control of most anything in our world—via the IoT. Accordingly, the objectives of this entry are threefold: review the findings of these initial, and other related articles, in the context of their relevance to the changing business/ marketing landscape defined by voice based interface (VBI) to a world connected to an Internet of Intelligent Things (IoIT); understand the technical specifications and broad-based applications of VBI will be delineated along with the ramifications occasioned by the global diffusion of the IoIT; and, explore the ramifications of this new landscape will be examined through analyses of the most prominent examples of digital assistants that are in use or development.

Robots as intelligent assistants to face COVID-19 pandemic

Motivation The epidemic at the beginning of this year, due to a new virus in the coronavirus family, is causing many deaths and is bringing the world economy to its knees. Moreover, situations of this kind are historically cyclical. The symptoms and treatment of infected patients are, for better or worse even for new viruses, always the same: more or less severe flu symptoms, isolation and full hygiene. By now man has learned how to manage epidemic situations, but deaths and negative effects continue to occur. What about technology? What effect has the actual technological progress we have achieved? In this review, we wonder about the role of robotics in the fight against COVID. It presents the analysis of scientific articles, industrial initiatives and project calls for applications from March to now highlighting how much robotics was ready to face this situation, what is expected from robots and what remains to do. Results The analysis was made by focusing on what research groups offer as a means of support for therapies and prevention actions. We then reported some remarks on what we think is the state of maturity of robotics in dealing with situations like COVID-19.

Intelligent assistants in language learning: an analysis of features and limitations

Learning a second language is a challenging endeavour which requires various degrees of support. The proliferation of smart technologies includes chatbots and conversational agents which have the potential to ‘assist’ language learners (Kukulska-Hulme, 2019). However, whilst a growing number of researchers and developers are working on such intelligent assistants across different disciplines, little is known about their application to language learning. The aim of this project was to review relevant research literature over a ten-year period (2010-2020) in order to uncover the capabilities and limitations of Intelligent Assistants (IAs) in relation to language learning. Results suggest that IAs can assist learners in a variety of ways, including provision for conversation and pronunciation practice. These tools can also fail to comprehend meaning or accented pronunciation. The analysis highlighted gaps in research around skills development, task design, pedagogy, and the use of chatbots in virtual worlds.

Making the Automaton Speak

What might the eighteenth-century history of automata tell us about the relationships between voice, the human, machines and fiction? Given the rise in our daily lives of voice-operated ‘intelligent assistants’ at this time, the question is especially pertinent. By examining the eighteenth-century case of the speaking doll and the cultural values and desires that its representation in a 1784 pamphlet entitled The Speaking Figure, and the Automaton Chess-Player, Exposed and Detected reveals, this chapter will provide a historical framework for probing how the experiences and possibilities of artificial voice shed light on our deep investments in the notion of voice as a vital sign of being ‘real’ as humans.