Now You’re Talking: Human Conversation from the Neanderthals to Artificial Intelligence

British acoustic engineer Cox (The Sound Book) channels his enthusiasm about the wonders of sound and the possibilities of artificial intelligence into a slow-building essay collection. “Being able to speak is what makes us human,” Cox writes, before excitedly moving through a miscellany of topics related to the evolutionary development of hearing, innovations in amplifying and recording technology, and evolutionary and cultural responses to accents and other distinguishing features of human speech. The chapter “My Voice Is Me” looks at social factors behind speech characteristics, such as the registers women speak in and speech patterns related to sexual identity. Cox is at his best when discussing where speech and technology overlap, as with his examination of how talking robots capture incidental data from tone-of-voice commands in order to more effectively mimic human speech. The final chapter, one of the book’s finest, deals with computer programs that can construct and recite love poems. Cox proves an affable guide, and his sharp history will give casual science buffs a lot to talk about. [em](Sept.) [/em]