Talk to a student in Hindi and ask a set of questions:
(Expected answers are also given here)
• Tell me about Mahatma Gandhi:
Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the leader of the Indian Independence movement against British rule.
• What was his father’s name?
His father was Karamchand Gandhi.
• Where was he born?
• In Porbandar
• In which year?
• He was born on 2 October 1869
• What was his main teaching?
Here is an article on Mahatma Gandhi’s 5 Teachings to Bring About World Peace.
(shows the article).
If the student gives appropriate answers, you may decide that he/she is a good student! Actually, I had asked Google Assistant on my cell phone these questions. The answers shown above were given by that system on my Android phone. Alas, Google Assistant does not speak Hindi as yet, and so I had to use English. I spoke out the questions; did not type anything. I was pleasantly surprised when I got good answers. If your cell phone has a voice assistant, you must try asking similar questions.
The system answered follow-on questions well. I had asked one question about Mahatma Gandhi. Then I had asked "what was his father’s name?". The system recognized that I was talking about the same person. This is not very difficult for a human, but it is impressive when a system shows this ability.
Search engines usually respond to a query by showing a list of relevant articles. That is called document retrieval. To give a short answer in the form of one or more simple sentences is more difficult. Google Assistant automatically analyzes relevant documents to locate answers. Then it gives you a reply in a few sentences. The answers are in spoken as well as in written form. So, I was really “speaking” to the Google Assistant, and it was “talking” to me!
I had seen on TV that British people were wearing red apple badges. I asked Google Assistant a question about that.
Why do British people wear red apple badges?
The system told me that these poppy flower badges were inspired by a poem. It mentioned red poppy flowers that grew quickly around soldiers’ graves. The text also appeared on the cellphone screen and gave me the URL of an article.
This article was about the tragic loss of lives in the first World War which came to an end on Armistice Day, Nov 11, 1918. The flower badges are worn in memory of those who had sacrificed their lives.
The system's performance was amazing! I did not recognize the poppy flower. It is not a common flower in India. I had called it a red apple, yet the search service gave me the right answer to my question!
To be fair, I repeated all my questions mentioned above with the voice assistant Siri, on an Apple iPhone. I found Siri was equally good.
I have more to write about voice assistants. I will keep all that for my next article on this blog. I will also tell you why speech communication with smartphones is going to be very important in future.
Srinivasan Ramani
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