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Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?

#31

Post by fouc »

PaulHoule wrote: post #5

Google and Siri are good at what they do. They aren't good at other things, such as dictation. I see the big problem in voice interaction is that a human being will ask you questions to clarify what you said if they don't understand and current systems don't even try. (Actually the search paradigm lets you do some refinement, "Ok Google" works amazingly well on Android TV.) Superhuman accuracy at dictation doesn't tr…

I would imagine GPT-3 or similar would be able to fix replace the garbled 1 out of 20 words with something that actually make sense in context.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?

#33

Post by sleepingadmin »

Certainly exists and I have setup this for various blind people who make due. Unfortunately dont recall what it was exactly but they bought it and all that.

The thing about voice is how weak it is. Even if you've well trained it and you speak well, which i don't. It wont be as good as a keyboard.

Putting work into voice like this for productivity is pointless. Any effort is best placed in brain computer interfaces. Hopefully not surgically required, like neurolink is doing. More of a headset like Valve and openbci is doing.

Lets just wear a headset and work, keyboards can just be there in case you need them.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?

#35

Post by falcolas »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #18
mertd wrote: post #6

As 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).

This guy's not wrong. You can speak clearly and comfortably at 250 words per minute. Most folks will type at less than half that.

Even shortcuts (which peer comments are relying upon) aren't all that fast - they require additional selection movement with the keyboard or mouse before they can be used.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?

#36

Post by bittercynic »

fouc wrote: post #31
PaulHoule wrote: post #5

Google and Siri are good at what they do. They aren't good at other things, such as dictation. I see the big problem in voice interaction is that a human being will ask you questions to clarify what you said if they don't understand and current systems don't even try. (Actually the search paradigm lets you do some refinement, "Ok Google" works amazingly well on Android TV.) Superhuman accuracy at dictation doesn't tr…

I would imagine GPT-3 or similar would be able to fix replace the garbled 1 out of 20 words with something that actually make sense in context.

That seems worse to me. If there's going to be a transcription error I'd prefer it to be obvious instead of just changing the meaning of the sentence.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?

#38

Post by falcolas »

warrenm wrote: post #23
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #18

Earlier 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"

I timed myself. 2.18 seconds to say it. Less time than it takes to type it.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?

#39

Post by Pxtl »

PaulHoule wrote: post #5

Google and Siri are good at what they do. They aren't good at other things, such as dictation. I see the big problem in voice interaction is that a human being will ask you questions to clarify what you said if they don't understand and current systems don't even try. (Actually the search paradigm lets you do some refinement, "Ok Google" works amazingly well on Android TV.) Superhuman accuracy at dictation doesn't tr…

Whenever I use the Google Assistant, I'm shocked by a) How good the speech-to-text is at figuring out my words, and b) How bad the application layer is at using those words

I tend to over-enunciate, so I don't get many bad bugs in the parsing... but that doesn't stop the Google Assistant from delivering completely the wrong response to the words that it's showing me it has correctly recognized, or simply spinning endlessly and locking up my phone.

As an industry, we suck at everything. We've solved the hard problem but failed the easy part of "once the command has been parsed, either execute the action or show the user an error and then close the dialog".

The only thing I find really awful about speech-to-text on Google is that it can't seem to detect punctuation.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no high quality method for voice control of a PC?

#40

Post by maxwelljoslyn »

I'm in the same boat as you, OP. Talon has proven a lifesaver ... or at least it promises to be one. I'm still getting used to it.

My finding, for text dictation (not code), is that even halfway decent dictation, such as is available on iPhone, still needs much post-dictation editing. I feel that the biggest impact to be made in this area is superior capabilities for this editing phase.

I summarized and wrote up my thoughts as a grant proposal for Scott Alexander's recent "micro grants" project. Get in touch (email in my profile) if you want to read that, or if you'd like to talk about dictation, voice control, voice coding, and editing operations -- or just get some moral support.

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