Why Computers Can’t Understand Us | Dirk Hovy | TEDxBocconiU?

Computers are really good at following rules, but they don't get what we're saying like we do.

Imagine you have a friend who only knows how to count from 1 to 10 and can’t understand anything else. That's kind of like how computers work when it comes to understanding language. They see words as just symbols, like letters on a page or numbers in a calculator, and don't know what those symbols mean.

When you say something, like "I'm hungry", a computer might break that down into separate pieces: I, am, hungry. It sees them as individual parts, not as one idea. So even if it knows the meaning of each word, it doesn't always understand how they fit together to make meaningful sentences.

It's like trying to read a book where every sentence is out of order, you can recognize the words, but you don’t know what the story is. Computers are good at doing tasks we give them, but when it comes to understanding our thoughts and feelings, they're still just following rules, not really getting us.