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This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
If you've ever used a digital assistant like Siri or Alexa, you know the back and forth doesn't quite have the same rhythm as real human-to-human conversation. The pauses are just a little too long.
"We feel this sort of awkward silence building up." Sebastian Loth, a research psychologist at the University of Bielefeld in Germany. "If I ask you something and you just don't respond, it feels like, oh my god this silence is almost killing the room and you can feel it literally building up. So we try to avoid that. And that's the kind of effect that you're seeing with Siri taking a second to respond, you're kind of feeling odd about it."
To study how humans are able to have such fluent, sometimes even overlapping, conversations, Loth and his team set up what's called a "Ghost in the Machine" experiment, in a barroom situation. Real human customers bellied up to a bar, where a robot bartender was waiting. The robot was actually controlled by human operators behind the scenes, who could see and hear the customers through the robot's eyes and ears.

Then Loth and his team observed how the human operators behaved during a couple hundred orders. They found that when the customers started a phrase with "What," the human operators quickly triggered the robot to repeat the offerings of the bar, like "We have coke, orange juice and water," rather than waiting for customers to complete the sentence. But if the customers began a sentence with "I'd like" or "I want," the human operators tended to hesitate, to listen for what came next, rather than acting quickly—and perhaps incorrectly.
"What we found was that they distinguish between the type of request. And more specifically by the error or cost of that. If I misunderstand you and give you the wrong drink that is actually quite an awkward situation. Because I kind of have to apologize, take the drink away from you, and replace it with the appropriate one. So it's a lot of action and maneuvering involved and it's quite embarrassing if the bartender gets it wrong." The details are in the journal PLOS ONE.
Loth says cataloguing interactions like these might help future robots better navigate the continuum between certainty and time: to be able to act quickly on limited evidence, to provide speedy service, but without getting things wrong so often that it annoys the user.
And no, he doesn't really envision replacing human bartenders with robots. "What you'll probably see is that stuff like that will be incorporated in ticket machines, or in booking systems, or in request systems like Siri where you're asking for a route to be displayed on the phone."
After all, he says, a real human bartender does a lot more than serve drinks.
"Hey, buddy, why the long face?"
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

参考译文

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学7IlPcIuTCnUbKfAu)1。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔xT7AwJctCo~Pq(IH7p。
如果你曾经使用过Siri（苹果智能语音助手）或Alexa（亚马逊语音助手）这种数字助手，你就会知道人与它们的对话节奏和真人之间的对话节奏不太相同#QFC4cjz1~M!|。人与数字助手的对话间隔时间有点过长了GT*c6m!Rx&nR4。
“我们感觉到这种尴尬的沉默在逐渐形成5GABp^Ce)E。”德国比勒费尔德大学的研究心理学家塞巴斯蒂安·洛思说到u,CWdWE7ForH,9-J。“如果我问你一些事，而你就是不回答，那感觉就像：哦我的天哪，这种沉默几乎使整个房间都笼罩在尴尬中，你能感觉到尴尬在慢慢形成K@#&*7r*B%^o#H_RQ+。所以我们会努力避免这种情况ABZhk7xYd|%G。而当Siri在一秒钟之后才回答时，你就会看到这种效果，这会让你感到很奇怪|I;O&i+-h,SXv)。”
为了研究人类如何能进行如此顺畅、有时甚至会出现重叠的对话，洛思及其团队在酒吧间进行了被称为“机器中的幽灵”的实验DSp)[Nb|9^R9~^4。真人顾客挺着肚子走进酒吧，机器人酒保在那里等着他们lqE4i[RnT+F!。机器人实际上由人类操作员在幕后控制，操作员可以通过机器人的眼睛看到顾客，也可以通过机器人的耳朵听到顾客说话5B%KbO(#z4B#Pa。
随后，洛思和团队对人类操作员处理几百个订单的行为进行了观察V8V#p,2aEYtVKtpMne。他们发现，当顾客用“什么”开始一个短语时，人类操作员会迅速触发机器人，让他们重复酒吧供应的酒水，比如“我们有可乐、橙汁和水”，而不是等到顾客说完整个句子LcLMfJd77L-RA;5。但是如果顾客以“我想”或“我要”开始句子，那人类操作员往往会犹豫，仔细听顾客接下来所说的话，而不是迅速做出反应——因为他们可能会做出不正确的回应z7Om4m5RKPV。
“我们发现，他们会区分请求类型fv1uP4)@EH]。更具体地说，是通过错误或成本来进行区分mkR&LL|]KNrf。如果我误解了你的意思，给了你错误的饮料，这实际上会是相当尴尬的情况Cw6ByHCpWU=+。因为我必须道歉，把错误的饮料拿走，再换成正确的饮料rH4aQJVa47hM]=Y。所以，这涉及很多动作和技巧，如果酒保出了差错，那就太尴尬了RD^1hB62*NsspgL。”研究详情刊登在《美国公共科学图书馆·综合》期刊上S+!@qUd5#J95]AR。
洛思说，这种分类互动可能会帮助未来的机器人更好地处理确定性和时间之间的连续体问题：能够根据有限的证据迅速做出反应，提供快速服务，但不会频繁出错令顾客恼火DPI*_=p63Ntt(D+l2*。
但是洛思并不认为机器人会取代人类酒保.!qOz4iN8[*ge。“未来你可能会看到的情况是，这种技术被整合进售票机或订票系统，或是Siri这样的请求系统，你可以要求请求系统在手机上显示路线-&,Z-fU[q5]。”
他说，毕竟，真人酒保能做的不仅仅是送酒vu![;^jYHddk。
“嘿，哥们，为什么愁眉苦脸？”
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学!*V_x*wz!y+0]LOu#80。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔IBiZn6*O7Vs(nC8PzD。

译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！

重点讲解

重点讲解：
1. build up （使）积聚；（使）逐渐增加；
All the pressure built up and he was off work for weeks with stress.
各方面的压力越来越大，他因负荷太重有好几个星期没上班;8iHB#=*dNbq*。
2. behind the scenes 在幕后；秘密地；不公开地；
Some appeared on the stage, while others pulled strings behind the scenes.
有人在前台表演，有人在幕后指挥ntwj5Qh!2RRE。
3. be incorporated in 把…合并；使并入；
Many of your suggestions have been incorporated in the plan.
你的很多建议已纳入计划中VqPpJeeCKgv。
4. after all 毕竟；终究；
Perhaps I had misjudged him, and he was not so predictable after all.
也许我看错了他，毕竟他不是可以让人一眼看透的人M]dky2l~5=]@Lf*。