Natural language processing studies computational methods for analyzing, transforming and generating human language. Tasks include translation, extracting information from text, and predicting a missing or subsequent word. A system must resolve ambiguity from context: “bank” in a sentence about a river and in a sentence about a loan has different meanings.
A neural language model tackles one precise part of the problem by assigning probabilities to word sequences. For example, after “the cat sat on the”, its distribution can rank “mat” above “democracy”, without thereby proving that it understands the scene. Evaluating a specific task and its errors is more informative than treating fluent text as a universal test of language competence.[ref]
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Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield of artificial intelligence (AI) and computer science focused on the interaction between computers and human (natural) languages. The goal of NLP is to enable machines to understand, interpret, and respond to human language in a way that is both meaningful and useful. NLP incorporates techniques from various disciplines, including linguistics, computer science, and machine learning.
An impossible AI-complete dream!
It is impossible to understand speech, and take meaningful actions from it, if you don't understand what is being talked about.