James Dacey reviews Now You’re Talking: the Story of Human Conversation from the Neanderthals to Artificial Intelligence by Trevor Cox
A good popular-science book starts a conversation. But Trevor Cox’s latest book is about conversation itself, exploring how the science of speech and hearing can help us to understand what it means to be human. Now You’re Talking: the Story of Human Conversation from the Neanderthals to Artificial Intelligence is a fly-by tour of human history guided by an acoustics engineer who steers smoothly through varied academic terrain.
The book follows on from Cox’s first popular-science book, Sonic Wonderland: a Scientific Odyssey of Sound, which was shortlisted for Physics World’s book of the year in 2014. In his debut, Cox deliberately didn’t focus on speech and music because he felt the “recognizable patterns” can distract from a full appreciation of natural sounds. This time round, however, Cox takes the plunge by embracing all the emotional and political baggage that comes with human communication.
Cox’s epic journey begins with the biomechanics of speaking and listening, alongside the competing theories of how and why human speech developed. Jumping to relatively recent history, Cox looks at how sound-recording transformed our relationship with our voices. He briefly ventures into the dark arts of political rhetoric where vocal charisma can trump the truth when it comes to persuasiveness. Finally, Cox examines some of the new technologies designed to simulate natural human communication. Although clearly impressed, Cox believes these AI systems still lack the “narrative intelligence” to tell a proper human story.
Given the breadth of material, the book could have been tricky to follow. But Cox keeps the tone accessible with pop-culture references throughout, revealing Cox’s taste in music and film. For instance, he observes how recording technologies enabled Amy Winehouse to sing in a far more personal way than if she had used early phonographs.
One final bit of advice – read the book in private, so you can enjoy the various demos. Observe, for instance, how your tongue, lips and soft palate perform gymnastics in switching between the vowel sounds. Or just do that in public, then at least you might start a conversation. And that’s what any good science book should do.
- 2018 Bodley Head 312pp £20.00hb
