AI is killing spoken (American) English
Say you are watching a history post on TikTok and it is about a feudal battle. The narrator is an AI, all intense and professional sounding, talking about the English archers and the bows they use. The narrator seems confused because he says bow, as in the bow of a ship, over and over again. Most AI's use one pronunciation of any spelling even though that spelling may have multiple pronunciations each of which have a different meaning. If the watcher is a young person, they may start to repeat their mistake in schoolwork, say in an oral book report.
However, the person that repeats this mistake may be a Millennial journalist. It is true. I see it over and over. The media too often has too much gibberish and we do not need to add to it.
Why can't programmers who code AI fix this. Do they even know it is a problem? Do users of AI who create the videos even notice it, do they proof their work? Sentence context should provide the clue to which pronunciation is accurate. To me this error is created when programmers have not been educated enough to realize, ahead of their coding that there is a difference and coding needs to take into consideration context in its controlling how the AI voice speaks. Why is that not happening? Where are the English majors and linguists working in the development of AI code. My research says they are not even there in most cases and in the few corporations which use them they are often ignored because, you guessed it, it costs more to program in the context issues than to cruise along without the assumption that pronouncing every word correctly matters. That assumption is perhaps correct now but how long will it be before AI teaches a whole generation of young people to mispronounce?
The AI issue, broadly, has huge numbers of pros and cons. Text to speech is one place where AI in its current form, does a very bad job with simple language. It could result in confused communication in critical issues in say: diplomatic negotiation, or in commands given in the military in the field by AI controlled drones.
I am complaining here about American English usage. Does this issue affect other languages. I would like to hear feedback on this issue. As is I will warn children to use caution when listening to their videos.
