Science and Technology Are the Collective Wisdom of Our Predecessors. It Is Our Mission-the Researchers of Today-to Make Them Even Better

Abstract

People have various feelings and discomforts related to speech as typified by comments such as “The voice of a cartoon character differs from what I imagined, ” “I'm not confident speaking owing to my stuttering, ” and “I want to regain my voice that I lost due to illness or injury.” Hirokazu Kameoka, a senior distinguished researcher at NTT Communication Science Laboratories, aims to create an environment in which all people can communicate comfortably by removing various barriers in communication through signal-processing and machine-learning technologies, which are key elements of artificial intelligence. We interviewed him about the progress in his research and what he enjoys most about his research activities.