ASR, NLU, NLP, TTS... The terminology of Artificial Intelligence simplified
When humans communicate with each other, it often turns into a dialogue of the deaf, not to mention the exchanges between humans and bots; especially when the bot is a conversational agent! To help everyone find their footing, here is a small glossary of the most recurrent terms regarding artificial intelligence (AI)…
The “ASR” or “Automatic Speech Recognition”
The “speech recognition software” allows a user (via Google, for example) to make a voice request. The software then transforms this request into text after analyzing the context. This context analysis is the main challenge of ASR because the pronunciation of a phoneme can have several meanings.
Example: If I say, in English: “for the time” ... Am I referring to “tea time” or to the time: “forty times”? This is when the AI comes into play to find the true meaning of my question, based on the context…
The “NLU” or “Natural Language Understanding”
The “natural language processing” allows decoding and analyzing messages to define a meaning and extract structured information. It serves, for example, voice assistants that will analyze a request based on the meaning of the words and a trusted annotator.
Example: “I want to take a flight from Marseille to Paris on June 30.” The software first detects the intent: “take a flight,” then the following entities: Marseille – Paris – June 30. Thanks to the semantic analysis of these elements, it understands the request and responds…
The “NLP” or “Natural Language Processing”
This technology allows analyzing, understanding human language, and generating interactions by transforming raw data into intelligent conversation. Most natural language processing techniques rely on Deep Learning.
The “TTS” or “Text To Speech”
The voice synthesizer instantly and accurately reads any text with a clear and natural voice. The software allows selecting a language and a type of voice, according to a multitude of choices…
The “DM” or “Dialog Manager”
A dialog manager is software that decides actions to be taken based on the “decision tree” defined during the bot's construction. It thus validates actions one after another, after analyzing the context with the servers and keeping a record of previous conversations…
The “NLG” or “Natural Language Generation”
NLG is software that ensures automated content production. This type of technology can be used, for example, by newsrooms or brands, allowing for the processing of large amounts of data to produce quality content at lower costs and immediately shareable.
Last updated: January 24, 2022
