Is technology changing the way we speak?

01/16/24 • 39 min

In this episode, we'll explore how technology is changing the way we communicate. But much more than that, we're going to be looking at how it's actually changing our relationship with language itself.

Ever since the first pictograms which date way back over 5000 years, we've been searching for technologies to communicate with each other in more widespread, more efficient ways. The printing press, the telegram, the telephone, and the internet have all evolved into what we're now using today: live streaming; chatbots; VR and AR technologies and, of course, social media. The thing is, the pace of change has grown remarkably in recent decades. We're more connected than ever.

And nothing is changing that faster than AI, in particular generative AI. It’s a core area of interest for HPE Chief Technologist, Matt Armstrong-Barnes. He can see the incredible potential for globe-spanning communication that AI brings, from instant translation to live captioning, but he’s also wary of taking the human out of the loop and losing the important context, nuance and difference that makes language so special and effective.

That’s also a challenge for Courtney Napoles. She’s Linguistic Engineering Director at Grammarly, an AI-enabled software platform which aids human writing. Despite being a tech firm with a strong machine learning underpinning, they rely on humans in the loop to ensure that communication remains effective for us, rather than trying to pull us towards homogenised, machine-learning inspired writing styles.

The rise in assistive technology is having unintended benefits, too – in particular, it’s opening up the door to greater representation in the workplace, and bridging communication barriers when it comes to accessibility needs. Rob Koch is a data engineer and principal at Slalom Build, and heads the group Deaf In The Cloud Dot Com. He’s seen a remarkable breaking down of barriers in the last few years as technology has enabled him to communicate more effectively with colleagues and customers. There’s a way to go, but he’s optimistic about the future.

And speaking of the future, where are we headed next? Leslie Shannon is Nokia’s head of trend scouting. She’s keeping a keen eye on the way we communicate and the language we use, and is seeing a stark generational shift away from text and towards video and augmented reality solutions, embracing the additional context that body language and gesture can add to traditional, ‘flat’ conversations – and changing the way we speak to our tech and the language we use in the process.

Statistics and sources cited in this episode:
Global communications market value: https://www.statista.com/outlook/tmo/communication-services/worldwide
US communcations market value: https://www.statista.com/outlook/tmo/communication-services/united-states
Size of the Digital Acessibility market: https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/digital-accessibility-software-market

Previous Episode

Connectivity in sports: How are connectivity and bandwidth creating the venues of the future?

Sports and data are closely intertwined – and that’s especially true for spectators. So how can data, analytics, IoT and connectivity create better experiences fans? In this episode, we’re taking a look at how major sports venues and events are using technology to create the perfect experience for their customers.

It's something that’s been a recurring goal for clients of HPE Aruba Networking over the last few years. Simon Wilson is their Chief Technology Officer for the UK, and helps clients bring exceptional connected experiences. He explains that, in part, the demand has been driven by our own improved connectivity: In particular, smartphones are now used for everything from payments to ticketing. And thousands of devices means there’s a demand for rock-solid Wi-Fi and private 5G networks.

And that’s particularly important over large, outdoors sporting arenas where connectivity can be naturally spotty. Michael Cole is the Chief Technology Officer for the European Tour Group and Ryder Cup Europe. Not content with being responsible for laying tens of kilometers of cabling and fiber optic lines for golf’s marquee events, he’s been developing the concept of an Intelligent Course – a vast network of connected sensors and IoT devices which allow central control over every aspect of the event, from assessing queue length to measuring wind speed to account for wayward golf balls and moving spectators out of the way.

Daniel Brusilovsky is on a similar mission. He’s the vice president of technology for the Golden State Warriors and Chase Center in San Fransisco. Their campus contains over 700 Wi-Fi access points, connecting upwards of 18,000 devices at key points. These devices not only provide seamless access, they allow the Chase Center to use intelligence and insight to perfect the flow of people through their site. Insight and analytics from the data they collect is being used for everything from stocking concession stands to streaming fans’ phones right onto the largest score screen in North America.

And that idea of fan experience is what really excites Leslie Shannon. She’s Nokia's head of trend and innovation scouting, and is impressed by some of the connected fan experiences that sports teams are trying out, from 3D cameras positioned on top of the goal posts, to apps using Augmented Reality to overlay a player’s stats and map their previous performance whilst they are playing.

Next Episode

The future of storage tech: Can the tech of the past influence the tech of tomorrow?

In this episode, we’re taking a look at how the explosion in our demand for data storage has led to needing more capacity than ever before, and whether long-vanished ideas from our computing past could influence technological innovation in the future.

In 2022 the world generated 97 Zettabytes of data. It has been predicted that, by 2025, that number will almost have doubled to 181 Zettabytes. Although at the rate generative AI and machine learning is expanding, that figure could be even higher.

As the Head of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise storage division, Senior Vice President Patrick Osborne has storage at the forefront of everything he does. He sees just how much his customers' needs are growing every year and is always actively looking for new methods and fabrics to meet those needs.

Alongside those requirements for greater data storage also sits the need for faster data processing - and there are a number of technologies nearing maturity which could revolutionise the space. Aidong Xu is Head of Semiconductor Capability at Cambridge Consultants, and is keeping a close eye on these technologies, especially in the memory space. For him, the big challenge is combining performance with efficiency.

However, whilst we’re looking at the future of data storage, it’s hard not to draw parallels with the past. Colin Eby from the National Museum of Computing knows a thing or two about that, guiding us through the history of the storage technologies which marked our pathway to today - some of which, in the decades since they fell out of favour, may have come round once more.

But what if the future of data storage isn’t data at all, but something more organic. Mark Bathe is a professor of biological engineering at MIT, specialising in DNA storage, and what that can mean for the future of our digital archiving needs.

Sources and statistics cited in this episode:
Zettabytes usage - https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/
Sales of storage units - https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1251240/worldwide-storage-unit-sales-volume
Hard drive shipment figures - https://www.statista.com/statistics/398951/global-shipment-figures-for-hard-disk-drives/
Random access DNA memory using Boolean search in an archival file storage system - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-021-01021-3