Author(s): James Vlahos

Science & Natural History

The next great technological disruption is coming.The titans of Silicon Valley are racing to build the last, best computer that the world will ever need. They know that whoever successfully creates it will revolutionise our relationship with technology - and make billions of dollars in the process. They call it conversational AI. Computers that can speak and think like humans do may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but they are rapidly moving towards reality. In Talk to Me, veteran tech journalist James Vlahos meets the researchers at Google, Amazon and Apple who are leading the way to a voice computing revolution. He explores how voice tech will transform every sector of society- handing untold new powers to businesses, upending traditional notions of privacy, revolutionising access to information, and fundamentally altering the way we understand human consciousness. And he even tries to understand the significance of the revolution firsthand - by building a chatbot version of his terminally ill father. Vlahos?s research leads him to one fundamental question- What happens when our computers become as articulate, compassionate, and creative as we are?