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Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

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Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#51

Post by shrikant »

danieltillett wrote: post #26
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #24

Its pretty impressive. I haven't touched much upon trying such things for quite a few years when I last had a quick play with Dragon Naturally Speaking. It's getting PRETTY close, with a basic cheap laptop microphone, my Australian accent, and no training. But I did say pretty close. Not exactly right. And I'm only speaking a few sentences. I read out a passage aloud, and apart from not quite getting everything right…

Humans don't follow what you say :) On this topic I have never managed to get my typing above 60 women because this is as about as fast as I can think ahead writing.

Autocorrect misinterpreting what you intended to type is a delicious irony in this context!

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#53

Post by pbhjpbhj »

brotchie wrote: post #18

Super impressive. My wife just spoke full-speed Vietnamese into a Google Doc, 100% correct, even the tone marks.

Is there something particular about Vietnamese that makes it easier than other languages for dictations? Like, does it lack homophones, are letters always pronounced the same way? 100% correct sounds incredible.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#54

Post by spangry »

cellover wrote: post #32
spangry wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what really concerns me, and why I've avoided using 'google now' on my phone. With this data, google could easily construct a 'voice signature' for every one of their users. And those voice signatures are just one FISA warrant away from falling into the hands of various national security agencies. I would rather google had my DNA on file if I had to choose between the two. Why? Because voice signatures can be…

I could not envision living like Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) in Gattaca, making sure you live no trace of yourself anywhere. I you are alive, you already leave traces everywhere. No need for a needle or cotton swab here. Of course I am being paranoid, but we all should be :)

I must admit I don't do a morning scrub-down a la Vincent in Gattaca :)

It's true that DNA can also be 'non-obviously' collected. But there are two key differences between DNA and voice auth, when looked at from the perspective of a national surveillance agency:

1. 'Non-obvious' DNA collection occurs after the fact, and is much more costly. You have to send someone to the physical location, collect samples, and process them in a lab.

2. Because of (1), DNA could never be used as a 'always on' mass surveillance system. As opposed to voice auth, where you just need enough microphones, covering enough area, streaming data back to a server for processing. Sorta like how Batman finds the Joker in 'The Dark Knight' :)

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#56

Post by lovelearning »

amelius wrote: post #35

Why isn't this just built into the browser or the OS?

I've often wondered about this. There are any number of desktop environments for linux, but I haven't come across any that are speech oriented.

One reason I can think of is that there was no incentive to build speech recognition because in most organizations that use computers, people talking to their computers is likely to disturb everyone around. But with more and more jobs becoming work from home, this may not be such a problem in future.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#57

Post by lallysingh »

spangry wrote: post #29
cellover wrote: post #25

They have my emails, they have my documents, they have my pictures, they have my location, they have my browsing history, and now they can have my voice. Only lacks DNA, fingerprints, retina footprint and non-verbal communication. Oh wait, it's only a matter of time.

This is what really concerns me, and why I've avoided using 'google now' on my phone. With this data, google could easily construct a 'voice signature' for every one of their users. And those voice signatures are just one FISA warrant away from falling into the hands of various national security agencies. I would rather google had my DNA on file if I had to choose between the two. Why? Because voice signatures can be…

Your actual voice is one regular warrant away, with a wiretap on your phone.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#58

Post by markatkinson »

danieltillett wrote: post #26
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #24

Its pretty impressive. I haven't touched much upon trying such things for quite a few years when I last had a quick play with Dragon Naturally Speaking. It's getting PRETTY close, with a basic cheap laptop microphone, my Australian accent, and no training. But I did say pretty close. Not exactly right. And I'm only speaking a few sentences. I read out a passage aloud, and apart from not quite getting everything right…

Humans don't follow what you say :) On this topic I have never managed to get my typing above 60 women because this is as about as fast as I can think ahead writing.

Hahaha, this made my day. 60 women indeed.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#59

Post by spangry »

lallysingh wrote: post #57
spangry wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what really concerns me, and why I've avoided using 'google now' on my phone. With this data, google could easily construct a 'voice signature' for every one of their users. And those voice signatures are just one FISA warrant away from falling into the hands of various national security agencies. I would rather google had my DNA on file if I had to choose between the two. Why? Because voice signatures can be…

Your actual voice is one regular warrant away, with a wiretap on your phone.

True, but that warrant can only be obtained from the judicial branch of government by law enforcement officers conducting a criminal investigation, and only if it meets the following criteria (among many others which I've excluded for brevity, see: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2518):

- a full and complete statement of the facts and circumstances relied upon by the applicant, to justify his belief that an order should be issued, including (i) details as to the particular offense that has been, is being, or is about to be committed, (ii) except as provided in subsection (11), a particular description of the nature and location of the facilities from which or the place where the communication is to be intercepted, (iii) a particular description of the type of communications sought to be intercepted, (iv) the identity of the person, if known, committing the offense and whose communications are to be intercepted;

- a full and complete statement as to whether or not other investigative procedures have been tried and failed or why they reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous;

- there is probable cause for belief that an individual is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a particular offense enumerated in section 2516 of this chapter;

- there is probable cause for belief that particular communications concerning that offense will be obtained through such interception;

- normal investigative procedures have been tried and have failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous;

- there is probable cause for belief that the facilities from which, or the place where, the wire, oral, or electronic communications are to be intercepted are being used, or are about to be used, in connection with the commission of such offense, or are leased to, listed in the name of, or commonly used by such person.

- No order entered under this section may authorize or approve the interception of any wire, oral, or electronic communication for any period longer than is necessary to achieve the objective of the authorization, nor in any event longer than thirty days.

In contrast, FISA warrants are indiscriminate and the criteria for acceptance seems to be 'asking for one'. Of the 35,529 FISA warrant applications made up to 2013, only 12 were rejected.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#60

Post by brotchie »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #53
brotchie wrote: post #18

Super impressive. My wife just spoke full-speed Vietnamese into a Google Doc, 100% correct, even the tone marks.

Is there something particular about Vietnamese that makes it easier than other languages for dictations? Like, does it lack homophones, are letters always pronounced the same way? 100% correct sounds incredible.

Vietnamese writing is pretty much phonetic. Technically, you could learn the alphabet and read Vietnamese almost perfectly without prior understanding of word pronunciation (obviously there are some exception, but there much much less variation than English). Also, different regions in Vietnam pronounce certain alphabet letters differently, but within-region per-letter pronunciation is very similar.

I suspect Vietnamese tones (6 tones in total) give an stronger, more consistent, "orthogonal" signal that helps speech-to-text. For example, a word spoken with an "up" tone will always be spoken with an up tone. Whereas in English, depending on the word's position in a sentence, the speaker's emotion, etc, you might have great across-word tonal variation, even within the same speaker's multiple utterances of the word.

When you listen to Vietnamese it's very "short and choppy" with a lot of tonal variation. I suspect that the recurrent neural nets Google is training for speech recognition purposes have better inference over these separable, tonally-consistent utterances compared with harder to separate and highly variable English speech.

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