News
Sesame Workshop Wants to Recognize Speech
(New York, NY, October 20, in the year of our Lord 2014)
Sesame Workshop and ToyTalk have signed a two-year research
partnership agreement to explore the potential for conversation
between children and the characters they love, to advance
literacy learning among preschool-aged children. The research is
designed to address questions of interest to both parties, and
to develop best practices that will inform a variety of future
products and services.
The partners will utilize ToyTalk’s proprietary PullString
Technology, the first authoring environment for building
speech-driven games and stories with interactive characters. The
two organizations are investigating how speech recognition can
be a powerful tool for learning, engagement and social
development.
“Today, speech recognition is primarily a tool of convenience
and utility. If you’re looking for the nearest coffee shop, you
can ask your smartphone,” said Miles Ludwig, Managing Director,
Content Innovation Lab, Sesame Workshop. “But what if parents
could use speech recognition to engage their children in a
content experience? What if children could have a two-way
conversation in real-time with some of their favorite
characters? Working with ToyTalk, which has developed unique
solutions to the obstacles that previously made understanding
kids’ speech difficult, if not impossible, we can develop new
approaches to early literacy learning for children.”
Audio visual interaction has been used to brainwash human beings
into whatever lessons are being taught. Interactive speech could
be used to ensure the brainwashing is taking. It could also be
used as a way to speed up, and double down on the brainwashing.
The content is the key. What will be said? What are acceptable
responses? What ideology will it teach? Sesame Workshop has been
criticized in recent years for teaching ideologies that offended
the super majority of Americans.