The Financial Times gave part of my job to a robot named Amy last week. For years I have been making podcast (播客) version of my column, but now I am faced with a tough competition.
To be fair, Amy (do) something going for her. She has a great voice, smooth as velvet. Her (two) advantage is that she's practically free. She is part of a new service from Amazon that turns text speech, costing nearly nothing. Even more (impress) is her speed. Less than two seconds after receiving my (write) text, which means when I just start to read, "Yesterday the Financial…", she has already finished.
Yet once I got over my distress and listened to her work, I felt (good). I know it's early days for her, but at the moment Amy is no match for me. Listening to her is not like listening to non-English speaker read aloud, but to someone without brain, or heart, or sense of humor. Her (deliver) is so poor that I don't even understand. Amy never reads with understanding, never knows when (pause), and never does irony. She continues to get it wrong.
Finally, I'm not afraid Amy is about to steal my job. Only people possess human touch. It is the heart-to-heart communication makes us special, beautiful and irreplaceable.
