In the mood for some Alphabet Soup? Good, because today we dole out N, L, and P. 

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

N for Natural, L for Language, and P for Processing. Let’s teach computers to understand the way humans naturally talk!

That’s right. Natural Language Processing, or NLP, is a branch of artificial intelligence and machine learning that deals with teaching computers how to understand, and even respond, in speech and text in the same way that we do. It is a part of computer science that deals with the interaction of computers and people using the way we normall speak to one another rather than relying on humans to learn a computer langauge.

Why is this important? As the technology continues to grow in accuracy and ability, the tools that have become available to us likewise become increasingly powerful and valuable.

Common Uses for NLP

Today, Natural Language Processing is used by many companies, for a wide variety of purposes. Some of these include text-to-speech and speech-to-text, language translators, targeted advertising, smart assistants and more. 

NLP combines computational linguistics, rule-based modeling of human language, with statistical, machine learning, and deep learning models to enable computers to process human language in the form of text or voice data and to ‘understand’ its full meaning, complete with the speaker or writer’s intent and sentiment. The ability to understand the meaning behind natural language opens the door for applications such as the instant translators we now have available - completely or significantly removing language as a barrier to all kinds of social and business opportunities. 

Learn More:

What Is Natural Language Processing And What Is It Used For?