Speech recognition software isn’t perfect, but it is a little closer to human this week, as a Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research team reached a major milestone in speech-to-text development: The system reached a historically low word error rate of 5.9 percent, equal to the accuracy of a professional (human) transcriptionist. The system can discern words as clearly and accurately as two people having a conversation might understand one another. (1)

Computers listening to humans.

Computers understanding humans.

We finally did it.

But at what cost?

The computers managed to understand us and listen to us, only because we spent zero time and effort in trying to evolve our thought beyond its current level. Instead, we spent all of our effort and time to try to think like computers, thus making the phrase “The computers managed to understand us” more like a tautology or self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yes, the computers now understand us.

And we should not be happy about that…