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25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

matthewkaras.medium.com

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Re: 25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

#51

Post by dheera »

hirako2000 wrote: post #30
dheera wrote: post #5

A big problem with the assistants is that as soon as they fail at a query they seem stupid, I feel stupid, and I stop using them for a long time. Last weekend I had the following failed queries: "OK Google, what is the air quality like at Mt. Shasta today?" "OK Google, add a waypoint for the last gas station before the mountain pass" "OK Google, what percentage of people can you detect to be wearing masks on recent I…

But your examples are way harder than they sound. Speech or non speech analysers have a hard time with context. What do you mean by "recent" photos. And what percentage? Of people wearing mask in each photo, or of 1 or more people with a mask in the whole set of photos? Or the percentage of photo having all people wearing a mask. We humans make a lot of deduction from context. We haven't been able to teach computers…

Absolutely, but you could start with reasonable assumptions and refine from there. Just the percentage of individual humans wearing a mask. Recent = past week. Start somewhere. Give me an answer first, or ASK for clarification instead of "Sorry, I couldn't understand your query."

I understand it's a hard problem, but with current software capabilities and given Google's compute infrastructure I honestly think some of these things are well within the realm of what a team of several hundred Google engineers can do.

I'm not asking it to write Shakespeare, I'm asking it to crunch data with a sentence that could reasonably easily be parsed into a graph and be turned into a MapReduce query. I thought they were good at that stuff.

Context? I know it's hard, but I thought Google has been working on that. I'm very much adjusting my expectations to what I think Google should be able to accomplish in a decade. I expect some basic context capability now, at the very least these data-crunching type use cases.

Re: 25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

#52

Post by duxup »

dheera wrote: post #5

A big problem with the assistants is that as soon as they fail at a query they seem stupid, I feel stupid, and I stop using them for a long time. Last weekend I had the following failed queries: "OK Google, what is the air quality like at Mt. Shasta today?" "OK Google, add a waypoint for the last gas station before the mountain pass" "OK Google, what percentage of people can you detect to be wearing masks on recent I…

Agreed, the error rate before I just give up on something is pretty low.

The real frustration is when it fails on tasks I swear it has done before easily.

Like 'ok google' ends up googling ... the ok google command word for word sometimes. 'ok google set timer 10 minutes'

As soon as I have to babysit an assistant like that I'd rather just make sure the clock is on my home screen so I set a timer.

Re: 25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

#53

Post by bserge »

coldcode wrote: post #16
dheera wrote: post #5

A big problem with the assistants is that as soon as they fail at a query they seem stupid, I feel stupid, and I stop using them for a long time. Last weekend I had the following failed queries: "OK Google, what is the air quality like at Mt. Shasta today?" "OK Google, add a waypoint for the last gas station before the mountain pass" "OK Google, what percentage of people can you detect to be wearing masks on recent I…

I use my voice assistant on my phone to set timers. That's it.

The other day, I wanted it to open an app and start recording when I say "Hey Google, take a voice note"... but no dice :/

Re: 25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

#54

Post by [deleted] »

lm28469 wrote: post #49
dheera wrote: post #5

A big problem with the assistants is that as soon as they fail at a query they seem stupid, I feel stupid, and I stop using them for a long time. Last weekend I had the following failed queries: "OK Google, what is the air quality like at Mt. Shasta today?" "OK Google, add a waypoint for the last gas station before the mountain pass" "OK Google, what percentage of people can you detect to be wearing masks on recent I…

As soon as you see them for what they are it makes perfect sense. They're basically a proxy to google search with extra dumb features on top. Every single feature that isn't google search has been hard coded (map directions, setup alarms, &c.), as soon as you get out of the hard coded cases it's blatantly obvious these things are anything but "smart" imho they're just used to give google/amazon a few more data points…

[deleted]

Re: 25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

#55

Post by fred_is_fred »

Progress does seem very slow since I could first talk to an Android phone - which was at least 10 years ago. I'm using iPhones now but even simple things such as "show me pictures of a Boeing 737" or "call the Home Depot on 1st Avenue in Amarillo" only have about a 50% success rate - enough that unless my hands are actively busy, I'd rather just type it.

Re: 25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

#56

Post by b112 »

bserge wrote: post #37
dheera wrote: post #5

A big problem with the assistants is that as soon as they fail at a query they seem stupid, I feel stupid, and I stop using them for a long time. Last weekend I had the following failed queries: "OK Google, what is the air quality like at Mt. Shasta today?" "OK Google, add a waypoint for the last gas station before the mountain pass" "OK Google, what percentage of people can you detect to be wearing masks on recent I…

That is all doable with Huggin/IFTTT/Automate/Tasker/Snowboy. It could even be done on the phone itself, although battery life and heat would likely be a problem. The fact that it doesn't work just shows that Google isn't that interested in their Assistant. Which is rather strange, but maybe they're looking for better ways to monetize it? Or maybe it's going the way of Reader once AR gains momentum or something... th…

Probably, they get more ad revenue from:

- you doing a manual search, and being tracked/targeted - them displaying ads as a result - them displaying contextual, higher paying ads

I've noticed that some things over the years, many things in fact, have been removed from Google Maps. I hypothesize that the entire reason is, these things reduce profit.

For example, you used to be able to pause Google Maps. You can't now, and therefore, if you have 'history' off, you have to stop, and manually re-start your destination by typing it in.

Well, history profits them.

And pausing is not the best, because then, you're not active 100% of the trip. Having you active lets them determine all sorts of things, like traffic patterns, where you go, who you're near, and so on.

There are lots of little things like this, which seem to be gone from earlier versions of Maps. Again, I presume, all to make more $.

Which is logical, and fine, but it gets a bit tiresome and sad at times.

Re: 25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

#57

Post by Wowfunhappy »

jkaptur wrote: post #13
dheera wrote: post #5

A big problem with the assistants is that as soon as they fail at a query they seem stupid, I feel stupid, and I stop using them for a long time. Last weekend I had the following failed queries: "OK Google, what is the air quality like at Mt. Shasta today?" "OK Google, add a waypoint for the last gas station before the mountain pass" "OK Google, what percentage of people can you detect to be wearing masks on recent I…

> I can set my own alarms, thank you. And not only that, but a specialized user interface is often preferable to voice even when the assistant passes the Turing test. There's a reason that people use apps to get food delivery rather than calling.

> There's a reason that people use apps to get food delivery rather than calling.

Well, if I had some type of personal assistant who worked for me (as in, a real human), I would just call out "Hey, Sam, please order pizza for me" and continue with whatever I was doing.

The reason people don't make phone calls is they add a lot of additional friction. You have to dial the number, and wait for someone to pick up, and give them your address, and deal with frequently-questionable voice quality.

Re: 25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

#59

Post by dheera »

dreamer7 wrote: post #41
jkaptur wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can set my own alarms, thank you. And not only that, but a specialized user interface is often preferable to voice even when the assistant passes the Turing test. There's a reason that people use apps to get food delivery rather than calling.

That doesn't seem correct. People prefer apps because they are better at providing the information we need (menus, products, services etc) and the alternative for engaging through calls is either talking with overworked humans or a painful IVR service. For me, the ideal interface to engage (order something, create a note etc) when you know what you want is through speech. It just feels so effortless.

I can definitely say that for food I MUCH prefer the web/app interface. I can swipe through a bunch of nice-looking food and just tap on something that looks appetizing.

You can't get that with voice no matter how you do it. It's like if a restaurant had no menu and the wait staff just recited the menu in your face and asked you to pick. Even with real humans, voice isn't the best interface for presenting food choices.

Re: 25 Years In Speech Technology and I still don’t talk to my computer

#60

Post by Swizec »

joombaga wrote: post #50
Swizec wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Alexa, play punk rock” “Playing ” “Alexa stop. Alexa play punk rock playlist” “Cannot find punk rock playlist” “Alexa play punk rock 00’s playlist” “Can’t find” “Alexa play early 2000’s punk rock” “Playing punk rock 00’s playlist” It’s like she’s trying to mock me.

How do you say "00's"? Does Alexa say it the same way?

Yep, oh-ohs. We said it the same.

My fav is when she decides to interpret your words instead of playing the exact playlist you’re telling her to play.

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