Auto Correct This! - NYTimes.com
►http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/auto-correct-this.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1_20120805&pagewante
In the past, we were responsible for our own typographical errors. Now Autocorrect has taken charge. This is no small matter. It is a step in our evolution — the grafting of silicon into our formerly carbon-based species, in the name of collective intelligence. Or unintelligence as the case may be.
“A dictionary can be more of a liability than you might expect,” Mr. Paskin says. “Dictionaries have a lot of trouble keeping up with the real world, right?” Instead Google has access to a decent subset of all the words people type — “a constantly evolving list of words and phrases,” he says; “the parlance of our times.”
If you type “kofee” into a search box, Google would like to save a few milliseconds by guessing whether you’ve misspelled the caffeinated beverage or the former United Nations secretary-general. It uses a probabilistic algorithm with roots in work done at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the early 1990s. The probabilities are based on a “noisy channel” model, a fundamental concept of information theory. The model envisions a message source — an idealized user with clear intentions — passing through a noisy channel that introduces typos by omitting letters, reversing letters or inserting letters.