AI will revolutionise the way we communicate - and live

Even as social and political scientists struggle to understand the impact of the internet and the social media platforms it has spawned on human societies around the world, a vast new communication revolution is about to burst on humanity within five to 10 years. This upcoming revolution will surpass in its impact on Homo sapiens all revolutions in human communications except perhaps the very first revolution, which was the evolution of verbal communication among our earliest ancestors. This barely acknowledged revolution, which is likely to change the entire course of human history in a few short decades, is the rise of Artificial Intelligence-enabled, fully fluent live audio translation of conversations between humans of all ethnicities. We are not just talking about the literal translation of English or French into Russian or Chinese, but the translation of the subtle meanings wrapped in cultural allegories that even fluent but non-native speakers of a language often miss. This means that armed with nothing more than an Artificial Intelligence, or AI, audio translation app on a mobile phone, an American tourist could enter a farmer's market in Turkey or Germany and, not only haggle over prices, but laugh and joke with a local fruit seller as if he was Turkish or German. Wait another decade and he will be able to do the same thing in China.