In 1999, having a virtual assistant at the touch of your fingertips seemed inconceivably far in the future. Virtual assistant technology brought to mind Rosie from the Jetsons all the way in 2062. Today, this is no longer the case.
Due to advances in narrow artificial intelligence, virtual assistants are as commonplace as cellphones. That is because they are in most cellphones. One of the most commonplace virtual assistants is Siri, the system incorporated with Apple’s iOS operating system. Virtual assistants are popping up in other places as well. They are starting to help us place our orders at fast food places. They are being built into cars to help us change lanes and avoid collisions.
As defined by technology writer, Tannya D Jajal, narrow artificial intelligence, or narrow AI, is when a machine is programmed to perform a defined set of predetermined tasks. The next evolutionary steps of artificial intelligence are general artificial intelligence and then super artificial intelligence. General AI is defined as having the same capabilities of a human along with human wisdom, logic, and creativity. Super AI is subsequently superior.
Siri is still limited to narrow AI, which is why we do not have to make small talk before we ask her what song is playing.
The business world is benefiting from narrow artificial intelligence as well. Here at Katalyst Software Services Limited, we have three different virtual assistant software: EditGenie™, Casper™, and Sesame™.
EditGenie™ is a sophisticated, XML-based, Online Correction Tool (OCT) that offers a Word-like display and allows authors to incorporate corrections directly into the XML. This is enabled through an intuitive graphical user interface where the author can see all corrections in real-time and generate either PDF or HTML instantly to visualize the online deliverable. This tool can be customized to publisher- and content-specific requirements. EditGenie is hosted in a cloud environment and accelerates the author correction cycle significantly, leading to faster turnaround times and increased speed of publication.
Casper™ is an automated, server-based, interactive copyediting system developed by Nova Techset that can be customized per a publisher’s specific requirements.
Casper cleans up the content, adds content tags, moves all the floating content to the bottom of the file, removes any junk characters, and inserts all required content markup. It also structures references and front matter with one click (including author names, with a direct integration with online DOI sites such as CrossRef and PubMed Central). When pre-editing work is completed, Casper converts the file to XML to be worked on by Nova Techset (or freelance or publisher-based) copyeditors within the EditGenie interface.
A “stylecheck” module within Casper handles automatable style points and can be customized to meet specific journal styles. The “editing” module within Casper has several features to reduce the time-consuming aspects of copyediting. It identifies inconsistencies in hyphenation, spelling, capitalization, contractions, abbreviations, US-UK English usage and so forth.
The “grammar” module within Casper has approximately 1,000 built-in rules to identify problematic words/phrases that copyeditors encounter during the content editing process. Rules are categorized into numerous categories (preposition usage, commonly misused words, plural noun usage, contextual usage, etc.). Suggestions offered by the tool include scientific sentences as examples for copyeditors to consider. This tool can be customized to meet the specific word usage needs of the publishers.
Together, EditGenie and Casper create an integrated interface in which each program’s AI complement each other. Katalyst’s Senior Vice President of Innovation, Nixon Xavier, and his team are further enhancing Casper and EditGenie’s ease of use with the development of ChatBots. A ChatBot is a responsive virtual assistant that is designed to respond to any customer enquiry about a service. This customer service feature simplifies the user experience of a product, which increases customer satisfaction.
Sesame™ is a highly intuitive and functional virtual project management that can check the completeness of files and identify any missing content. It raises automatic editor queries and author queries. Once the incoming content set is complete, Sesame analyzes the complexity of the content based on AI-based logic. Sesame then tracks and follows up on the content in process until all workflow components are completed, including raising queries and sending emails to customers.
To learn more about Katalyst’s ePublishing programs and other products, visit https://katalysttech.com/product/.
