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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

#221

Post by KorematsuFred »

jldugger wrote: post #17
KorematsuFred wrote: post #2

Very unlikely I will ever talk to my computer irrespective of how good the speed technology gets. If I have to talk to my computer how will I work in crowded places ? How does it work ?

If you had two mics, you could probably work out a filter that captures audio roughly 'in front of the laptop' which would probably work well enough. But I think the wins are going to be in places where you don't normally have a computer, where a mouse and keyboard aren't natural companions to the task at hand. Yes, some environments will be noisy enough that speaking is a bad modality, but not all of them.

I do not see the advantage of talking to computer. I can see the advantage of talking to my Google mini in my bathroom while I am showering. I see the advantage of asking my car to change music while driving. But literally zero advantages of talking to my laptop. My hands can move lot faster than my mouth. I can set shortcuts that help me do things lot faster than the whole pain of talking to the computer.

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

#222

Post by KorematsuFred »

jldugger wrote: post #17
KorematsuFred wrote: post #2

Very unlikely I will ever talk to my computer irrespective of how good the speed technology gets. If I have to talk to my computer how will I work in crowded places ? How does it work ?

If you had two mics, you could probably work out a filter that captures audio roughly 'in front of the laptop' which would probably work well enough. But I think the wins are going to be in places where you don't normally have a computer, where a mouse and keyboard aren't natural companions to the task at hand. Yes, some environments will be noisy enough that speaking is a bad modality, but not all of them.

Sorry I was not clear. The problem here is that I am annoying other people and I am getting annoyed by other people around me. Imagine saying "Hey Computer, what is my credit card bill for this year", "Hey Computer, Open word",

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

#223

Post by heavyset_go »

ketzo wrote: post #48
lqet wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is exactly why I prefer formal query languages over NLP queries. In both cases (at least with most state of the art NLP techniques), you have to learn certain patterns and ways to phrase a query so that the system will reliably understand it. With formal query languages, these patterns are well-defined, can be looked up and will most likely not change significantly (so there is value in memorizing them). With N…

Well, to extend the GUI/console metaphor, it means that at some point soon, we'll all be using NLP because it's dramatically more user-friendly for the vast majority of people.

From my observations, people have reduced their voice assistants to objects that sometimes tell them the weather or switch their lights on and off, and sometimes do something completely unrelated when activated.

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

#224

Post by heavyset_go »

ryandrake wrote: post #150
PeterisP wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GUIs won over console workflows because GUIs have better discoverability and the "recall vs recognize" difference; it's mentally much easier to recognize the option you want when presented it than to recall the existence or the naming of that option. In those aspects of UX, voice interfaces have the same drawbacks as console apps when compared to a good GUI. Also, they have to work within the "bandwidth bottleneck" o…

> Also, they have to work within the "bandwidth bottleneck" of audio - just imagine a phone system that tells you all the options you have, "Press 1 for something, Press 2 for another thing..." - they are so annoying because they are slow and inherently linear They're even slower now because the brain trust decided adding voice control to the phone menu system was a great idea. So before, it said "For prescription re…

I see you've run into CVS or Walgreens' automated phone system.

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

#225

Post by dheera »

ineedasername wrote: post #162
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…

On your searches: 1) I get the correct response; Assistant first asks me if I want to use "air check", I say yes, and get the correct response. 2) I get appropriate responses when I ask "What is the closest gas station to Mt. Shasta." Because the approaches are mostly from Rt. 5, you'll have no problem getting a usable response. Another approach from Rt 89 exists, so I don't know how you expect Google to know which "…

> 1) I get the correct response; Assistant first asks me if I want to use "air check", I say yes, and get the correct response.

Yeah, I don't. I just get "Sorry. I could not understand that." if I remember correctly.

> 3) I don't know why you expect a computer to answer this question well at all. [...] Instagram photos are unlikely to be representative of a whole

Sure, but I defined the query pretty clearly, and I just want to answer the "general" question of "Are people generally wearing masks in that area or not" and I already babysat that question into a data query that could use the Instagram API plus some object detectors.

I understand it's hard for one person to write code that could formulate and piece together that graph, but I feel like it should be a tractable engineering problem for Google.

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

#226

Post by dheera »

dragonwriter wrote: post #219
stickfigure wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct title for Californians is " The 5".

> The correct title for Californians is "The 5". You have omitted the rather important qualifier “Southern” from your description, as that usage is a key differentiator between Northern and Southern California.

I live in the bay area and everyone I know calls it "I-5". "Everyone I know" of course could be biased though as most of my circle did not grow up in California.

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

#227

Post by jldugger »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #222
jldugger wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had two mics, you could probably work out a filter that captures audio roughly 'in front of the laptop' which would probably work well enough. But I think the wins are going to be in places where you don't normally have a computer, where a mouse and keyboard aren't natural companions to the task at hand. Yes, some environments will be noisy enough that speaking is a bad modality, but not all of them.

Sorry I was not clear. The problem here is that I am annoying other people and I am getting annoyed by other people around me. Imagine saying "Hey Computer, what is my credit card bill for this year", "Hey Computer, Open word",

Shades of that asshole in line at Starbucks holding conference call over a bluetooth headset.

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

#229

Post by nitrogen »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #180
ineedasername wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On your searches: 1) I get the correct response; Assistant first asks me if I want to use "air check", I say yes, and get the correct response. 2) I get appropriate responses when I ask "What is the closest gas station to Mt. Shasta." Because the approaches are mostly from Rt. 5, you'll have no problem getting a usable response. Another approach from Rt 89 exists, so I don't know how you expect Google to know which "…

I don’t believe he’s looking for a voice assistant. He’s in the market for Lieutenant Data.

The operative word is assistant. Voice assistants should be able to do everything a human assistant can do.

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

#230

Post by nitrogen »

Dig1t wrote: post #202
matthewdgreen wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe he’s looking for a voice assistant. He’s in the market for Lieutenant Data.

Rather, I think he's looking for the shipboard computer in Star Trek. Which is actually an excellent example of the untapped potential that voice-based computing holds.

It's also an excellent example of designing a user interface to look and sound cool on screen, rather than for usability, which is how I feel about most voice controls.
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