Microsoft built technology that's better than a human at understanding a conversation

Back row, left to right: Wayne Xiong, Geoffrey Zweig, Frank Seide. In December 2015, Microsoft Chief Scientist of Speech Xuedong Huang told Business Insider that "in the next four to five years, computers will be as good as humans" at understanding the words that come out of your mouth. Less than a year later, and Microsoft just set a record with the announcement of a system that can transcribe the contents of a phone call with "the same or fewer errors" than real actual human professionals trained in transcription. It's a huge milestone for speech recognition, even as gadgets like Amazon Echo and Apple's Airpods prove that voice is going to play a big role in the future of technology. And by Huang's standard, that's mission accomplished.