... because it's not a good way to control a computer?
Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
21–30 of 124 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
#22Speech models today can mine the entire corpus of published conversation and return the most likely response to a given statement. That's not how we converse. Every relationship you have is a little model in your brain that we call a person's "personality." Every one talks differently, has different frames of reference, uses different codes of language, different assumptions. Cutting edge speech models work perfectly…
> Cutting edge speech models work perfectly for the perfectly average speaker, but that person does not exist!
This is a well known pit in statistics, I would think, given there are extremely famous stories about this exact issue causing deaths. In the 1950's, the air force was trying to figure out why their pilots were dying, and determined it was because their cockpit designs which used "average" pilots were a poor fit for almost ever real world pilot.[1]
1: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
#23As far as human computer interfaces go, keyboard and mouse probably win comfortably in both bandwidth and latency against speech to text in almost all tasks. Former also requires a less physical effort and is creates less noise for others. My guess is that this shrinks the demand for good quality voice HCI significantly and those who really need it end up being overlooked.
Keyboard and mouse certainly don't beat voice for bandwidth (assuming error-free ASR, which doesn't exist today).
Sure they do: `cp file1 file2`
Vs properly enunciating "Kah-Pee f-i-l-e-1 to f-i-l-e-2"
Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
#24Once automatic speech recognition (ASR) gets closer to bullet-proof, I expect this to become a huge thing, but right now, it seems like you're getting better error rates than typical.
Any input method where you frequently have to repeat yourself and undo things won't get mainstream. I'd bet people's mainstream tolerance for errors would have to be like one per five to ten minutes before you could get them to really adopt something like this (barring disability reasons, like RSI). Until then, the tech and market don't match.
Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
#25That sounds exhausting. "Open this program" "Minimize" "Focus on this text input" ..dictate.. "switch to command mode" "save and close" i'd rather just: "click click tab type ctrl-S"
The post is about people who physically can't do that.
OP claims the market is "huge"
It's not
It's tiny (at best)
Tiny markets don't tend to get much attention
Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
#26... because it's not a good way to control a computer?
Why not? "Open hacker news", "go back", "Play liked playlist in Spotify"
Seems fairly reasonable. It need not be the only way, but not having to use my mouse to do stupidly simple tasks wouldn't break my heart.
Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
#27Voice input is good for high level tasks and goals, requiring a high level comprehension.
For detailed work though the more direct method of translating movements is far more efficient.
When you can describe an abstract end goal voice is great. When you have to actually do all the individual steps towards some high level goal then it's like telling a newbie programmer through some high level database optimization. You only use voice because your main goal here is to teach someone. If the PC could be taught that way, then voice would be in demand for such tasks too.
Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keyboard and mouse certainly don't beat voice for bandwidth (assuming error-free ASR, which doesn't exist today).
Sure they do: `cp file1 file2` Vs properly enunciating "Kah-Pee f-i-l-e-1 to f-i-l-e-2"
When I did hands-free coding, I named my variables things that I could say as words. So you'd be saying 'copy file-num-one file-num-two' or something, rather than spelling it out letter by letter. I actually ended up naming things more verbose names because I didn't have to type it all out. So it might be:
enunciating: 'copy snake-geary-street-financial-report snake-divisadero-street-financial-report'
versus typing: 'cp gearyStreetFinancialReport divisaderoStreetFinancialReport'
If you're trying to exactly replicate something designed (and named) for text input, you're absolutely right, but I thought we were talking about hypothetical designed-for-voice systems.
Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
#29That sounds exhausting. "Open this program" "Minimize" "Focus on this text input" ..dictate.. "switch to command mode" "save and close" i'd rather just: "click click tab type ctrl-S"
The actions are a bit more like
"move mouse to this 100x100 pixel square, click twice within 100ms"
"move mouse to this 20x20 pixel square, click once"
"Move mouse to this 100x1000 pixel rectangle, click once"
"Type text at a rate 1/5 (1/2 if you're particularly fast) speaking rate"
"Move your pinkie (your weakest finger) to 'ctrl' and click, move your index to 's' and click, release both, verify it worked with a visual cue then either another 20x20 mouse maneuver, or "move your thumb to 'alt', and your index finger to 'f4' (assuming you have access to the function keys), click and release"
Moving a mouse to a very specific spot on a screen is a relatively slow - and hard if you have any motor control issues - task.
Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
The post is about people who physically can't do that.
OP claims the market is "huge" It's not It's tiny (at best) Tiny markets don't tend to get much attention
It's a market (that is, the market for people with motor control issues in their hands) that every single human on earth (that doesn't die first) will be in later in their lives.