What is?

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a field of artificial intelligence that uses algorithms to analyze, interpret, and understand human language. NLP combines computational linguistics with statistical models and machine learning, to enable machines to understand and generate both text and speech.

The story

The origins of NLP date back to the early days of AI, in the ’50, when the mathematician Alan Turing suggested the “Turing Text”, a criterion to determine whether a machine could be considered capable of “thinking.”

1954

An IBM computer successfully translated over 60 sentences from Russian to English using a rule-based and logic-driven approach to execute specific natural language processing tasks.

‘70s

there was a surge in interest and research in AI, leading to the development of more advanced algorithms, such as the backpropagation algorithm. This breakthrough enabled neural networks to “learn” and improve their performance over time.

‘80s

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) were introduced, allowing two neural networks to “train each other” until the generator network could successfully deceive the discriminator network. This process enhances the quality of generated data and improves the ability to distinguish real data from synthetic ones.
At the same time, Deep Learning technology became more widespread, enabling advancements in text generation, speech synthesis, and music creation.

‘90s

The first GPT model, in its modern form, was developed, demonstrating exceptional abilities in text and image generation.

Today

GPT models have been enhanced over time. Today, they are larger, more intelligent, trained on better data, and designed to be safer.

How does Natural Language Processing work?

The interaction between humans and computers involves various tasks to perform actions such as:

Language detection

Breaking down the sentence into single parts

Semantic analysis

Tone of voice analysis

Let’s take a look at the NLP tasks:

  • Text Analysis: text analysis and identification of key points
  • Text Classification: interpretation of a text to classify it into a category
  • Sentiment Analysis: tone of voice detection
  • Intent Monitoring: understanding text to predict future actions
  • Smart Search: searching archives for documents that best match a query expressed in natural language.
  • Text Generation
  • Automatic Summarization: creation of document summaries.
  • Language Translation: translating text while identifying the most accurate meaning based on context.

Where is NLP applied?

The use of NLP systems in businesses is becoming increasingly common. For example they are used to classify corporate emails, extract and analyze data from documents, analyze sentiment in social media posts and understand user queries on web sitese. In Italy, the adoption of these systems is still relatively low. This is sometimes due to a lack of high-quality datasets, which are essential for training AI models, as well as challenges in accurately interpreting sentiment to provide correct and coherent responses.

How we have applied NLP technology

Challenges are part of our daily work at Neurally. We specialize in experimenting with and developing high-performance AI solutions that help businesses enhance their workflows.
So we created the Sophia Suite, a Speech-to-text translator that enables instant and accurate translation of spoken language. It is a solution that can be integrated with other functions and software, allowing businesses to communicate during a meeting, conference and negotiations.