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Rest In Peas — the Death of Speech Recognition

An anonymous reader writes "Speech recognition accuracy flatlined years ago. It works great for small vocabularies on your cell phone, but basically, computers still can't understand language. Prospects for AI are dimmed, and we seem to need AI for computers to make progress in this area. Time to rewrite the story of the future. From the article: 'The language universe is large, Google's trillion words a mere scrawl on its surface. One estimate puts the number of possible sentences at 10^570. Through constant talking and writing, more of the possibilities of language enter into our possession. But plenty of unanticipated combinations remain, which force speech recognizers into risky guesses. Even where data are lush, picking what's most likely can be a mistake because meaning often pools in a key word or two. Recognition systems, by going with the "best" bet, are prone to interpret the meaning-rich terms as more common but similar-sounding words, draining sense from the sentence.'"

27 of 342 comments (clear)

  1. Let me guess by Zerth · · Score: 4, Funny

    That summary was written with speech recognition software?

    1. Re:Let me guess by MollyB · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hesitant grate watts peach wreck ignitions oft where kin dew ferrous?

  2. That's Because... by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 5, Funny

    It only flatlined because nobody tried to write speech recognition software in perl*.

    *Disclaimer: Poster is not responsible for attempts resulting in unintended AI development and/or end of the world scenarios brought on by such an irresponsible endeavor.

  3. Well duh. by bmo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Even humans mishear speech.

    "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy"

    That misheard lyric is so common that there's a book about misheard lyrics with that as the title.

    --
    BMO

    1. Re:Well duh. by CityZen · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

    2. Re:Well duh. by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Funny

      That misheard lyric is so common that there's a book about misheard lyrics with that as the title.

      I know! A surprising number of people think Hendrix was talking about kissing the sky, rather than embracing the experimental, counter-culture, and free-love nature of the 60's, simply because they don't like to think of their testosterone-filled hero sucking face with another dude. Like, get over it! "Kiss the sky" doesn't even make any sense unless you're on some kind of mind-altering substance, and there's no way Jimmy would have put something like that in his body!

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  4. Re:Buffalo buffalo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    This rest ponds was and turd you sings peach recon nation soft where

  5. Re:Key words by SomeJoel · · Score: 4, Funny

    & It's true.

    My own ... is not great. I often miss ... a word or two in a sentence. But they are often ... words, and missing them leaves ... sentence meaningless. If I counted the words I understand ... I'd probably have a 95% success rate. But if I counted the ... I understand correctly, I'd be around ...%. So I get by, but ... tend to annoy people when I ask for ... over one missed word.

    I can see how this would be annoying.

    --
    <Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
  6. Re:Buffalo buffalo by CecilPL · · Score: 5, Funny

    That comma is just out of place and makes the sentence hard to parse.

  7. Re:What are you talk'in about ? by corbettw · · Score: 4, Funny

    Years ago I used viavoice on Warp4, and it had a pretty decend recognitation rate ..

    Looks like whatever you're using now ain't quite as good.

    --
    God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  9. IBM? by Darth+Snowshoe · · Score: 2, Funny

    Didn't IBM a few years ago announce a big five-year-program to crack speech recognition? Whatever came of that?

  10. Tea, Earl Grey, Hot by tokki · · Score: 5, Funny

    How hard is it for a computer to understand the sentence: "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot"? That takes care of 90% of the use case scenarios right there. Next is "Computer, initiate auto-destruct sequence" is the next 8%.

    1. Re:Tea, Earl Grey, Hot by noidentity · · Score: 2, Funny

      Who is Earl Grey, and why do you want him hot? And stop calling me Tea!

    2. Re:Tea, Earl Grey, Hot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      "This tea is grey!"
      "Yes, Captain, just as you ordered."
      "I most certainly did not order this!"
      "Sir, I had Earl make a tea as you requested. Hot and grey."
      "Why would I want that?"
      "Why should I know. You said 'Tea, Earl; Grey, Hot.'"

      Or, worse:

      Earl with tea. Mrs. Grey looking hot.

    3. Re:Tea, Earl Grey, Hot by martin-boundary · · Score: 3, Funny

      Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to make you tea for you. Call that job satisfaction, 'cause I don't.

  11. Forget speech recognition.... by puppetman · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'd settle for a grammar checker. From the fine summary:

    "Even where data are lush"

    A good one would have saved this summary from sounding stupid.

  12. Re:Badger badgers badger Badger badgers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    snaaaaaaake!

  13. Cod am pizza ship by Trogre · · Score: 2, Funny
    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  14. Re:Android Speech Recognition Rules by Trogre · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... so its voice recognition works about as well as that of the average American then? ;)

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  15. Re:Android Speech Recognition Rules by Digero · · Score: 3, Funny

    We might get to the point where we can write text messages by speaking, then the person on the other end could have them read aloud by a computer. That would be so awesome. Maybe some day we'll be able to transfer the actual sound of our voices.

  16. Re:Key words by CarpetShark · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can see how...would be annoying.

    Can see how WHAT would be annoying?

  17. Re:Android Speech Recognition Rules by orangesquid · · Score: 5, Funny

    What Dave said: "Open the pod bay doors, HAL."
    What HAL heard: "Open the hot babe pornz, HAL."

    HAL's speech recognition and morality programming* combined to give the famous reply, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." HAL knew certain things would have been too titillating to an all-ages film audience in 1968.

    * Only for the film version. In the book version, it would have caused undue frustration to the reader, unable to see what Bowman was viewing. In that case, it was HAL's etiquette programming.

    --
    --TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
  18. screw speech recognition by smash · · Score: 2, Funny

    Its just a speed bump on the way to thought recognition, which will be far more useful.

    --
    I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
  19. Re:Focus, Dammit. by linhares · · Score: 4, Funny

    "she helped my uncle jack off a horse"

  20. Re:Mod parent up by Jeremi · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nonsense! For example, a real human could never mishear the phrase "guide dog" as "gay dog" and refuse to let a dog into a restaurant.

    Well to be fair, understanding Australians is an order of magnitude more difficult than understanding English speech.

    (ducks)

    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  21. Re:Mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    (ducks)

    quack?