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A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

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Re: A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

#61

Post by throwup238 »

torben-friis wrote: post #52
throwup238 wrote: post #2

I really hope they have because I’ve also been experimenting with LLMs to automate searching through old archival handwritten documents. I’m interested in the Conquistadors and their extensive accounts of their expeditions, but holy cow reading 16th century handwritten Spanish and translating it at the same time is a nightmare, requiring a ton of expertise and inside field knowledge. It doesn’t help that they were of…

>I’m interested in the Conquistadors and their extensive accounts of their expeditions, but holy cow reading 16th century handwritten Spanish and translating it at the same time is a nightmare, requiring a ton of expertise and inside field knowledge Completely off topic, but out of curiosity, where are you reading these documents? As a Spaniard I’m kinda interested.

I use the Portal de Archivos Españoles [1] for Spanish colonial documents. Each country has their own archive but the Spanish one has the most content (35 million digitized pages)

The hard part is knowing where to look since most of the images haven’t gone through HRT/OCR or indexing so you have to understand Spanish colonial administration and go through the collections to find stuff.

[1] https://pares.cultura.gob.es/pares/en/inicio.html

Re: A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

#62

Post by scubbo »

fragmede wrote: post #46
joshstrange wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to listen to the line from Portal 2 it's on this page (second line in the section linked): https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/GLaDOS_voice_lines_(Portal_2)...

Just because "Die motherfucker die motherfucker die" appeared in a song once doesn't mean it's not also death threat when someone's pointing a gun at you and saying that.

...what?

Re: A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

#63

Post by Workaccount2 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #40
snickerbockers wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical that they're actually capable of making something novel. There are thousands of hobby operating systems and video game emulators on github for it to train off of so it's not particularly surprising that it can copy somebody else's homework.

I remain confused but still somewhat interested as to a definition of "novel", given how often this idea is wielded in the AI context. How is everyone so good at identifying "novel"? For example, I can't wrap my head around how a) a human could come up with a piece of writing that inarguably reads "novel" writing, while b) an AI could be guaranteed to not be able to do the same, under the same standard.

[flagged]

Re: A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

#64

Post by imiric »

flatline wrote: post #15
snickerbockers wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical that they're actually capable of making something novel. There are thousands of hobby operating systems and video game emulators on github for it to train off of so it's not particularly surprising that it can copy somebody else's homework.

I believe they can create a novel instance of a system from a sufficient number of relevant references - i.e. implement a set of already-known features without (much) code duplication. LLMs are certainly capable of this level of generalization due to their huge non-relevant reference set. Whether they can expand beyond that into something truly novel from a feature/functionality standpoint is a whole other, and less…

Here's a thought experiment: if modern machine learning systems existed in the early 20th century, would they have been able to produce an equivalent to the theory of relativity? How about advance our understanding of the universe? Teach us about flight dynamics and take us into space? Invent the Turing machine, Von Neumann architecture, transistors?

If yes, why aren't we seeing glimpses of such genius today? If we've truly invented artificial intelligence, and on our way to super and general intelligence, why aren't we seeing breakthroughs in all fields of science? Why are state of the art applications of this technology based on pattern recognition and applied statistics?

Can we explain this by saying that we're only a few years into it, and that it's too early to expect fundamental breakthroughs? And that by 2027, or 2030, or surely by 2040, all of these things will suddenly materialize?

I have my doubts.

Re: A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

#65

Post by muixoozie »

conception wrote: post #14

I will note that 2.5 pro preview… march? Was maybe the best model I’ve used yet. The actual release model was… less. I suspect Google found the preview too expensive and optimized it down but it was interesting to see there was some hidden horsepower there. Google has always been poised to be the AI leader/winner - excited to see if this is fluff or the real deal or another preview that gets nerfed.

Dunno if you're right, but I'd like to point out that I've been reading comments like these about every model since GPT 3. It's just starting to seem more likely to me to be a cognitive bias than not.

Re: A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

#67

Post by Workaccount2 »

neom wrote: post #58

I've been complaining on hn for some time now that my only real test of an LLM is that it can help my poor wife with her research, she spends all day every day in small town archives pouring over 18th century American historical documents. I thought maybe that day had come, I showed her the article and she said "good for him I'm still not transcribing important historical documents with a chat bot and nor should he"…

People have had spotty access to this model for brief periods (gemini 3 pro) for a few weeks now, but its strongly expected to be released next week, and definitely by year end.

Re: A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

#68

Post by conception »

muixoozie wrote: post #65
conception wrote: post #14

I will note that 2.5 pro preview… march? Was maybe the best model I’ve used yet. The actual release model was… less. I suspect Google found the preview too expensive and optimized it down but it was interesting to see there was some hidden horsepower there. Google has always been poised to be the AI leader/winner - excited to see if this is fluff or the real deal or another preview that gets nerfed.

Dunno if you're right, but I'd like to point out that I've been reading comments like these about every model since GPT 3. It's just starting to seem more likely to me to be a cognitive bias than not.

I haven’t noticed the effect of things getting worse after a release but definitely 2.5’s abilities got worse. Or perhaps they optimized for something else? But I haven’t noticed the usual “things got worse after release!” Except for when sonnet had a bug for a month and gpt5’s autorouter broke.

Re: A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

#69

Post by Workaccount2 »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #41
energy123 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predicting the next word requires understanding, they're not separate things. If you don't know what comes after the next word, then you don't know what the next word should be. So the task implicitly forces a more long-horizon understanding of the future sequence.

This is utterly wrong. Predicting the next word requires a large sample of data made into a statistical model. It has nothing to do with "understanding", which implies it knows why rather than what.

"Understanding" is just a trap to get wrapped up in. A word with no definition and no test to prove it.

Whether or not the model are "understanding" is ultimately immaterial, as their ability to do things is all that matters.

Re: A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition

#70

Post by neom »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #67
neom wrote: post #58

I've been complaining on hn for some time now that my only real test of an LLM is that it can help my poor wife with her research, she spends all day every day in small town archives pouring over 18th century American historical documents. I thought maybe that day had come, I showed her the article and she said "good for him I'm still not transcribing important historical documents with a chat bot and nor should he"…

People have had spotty access to this model for brief periods (gemini 3 pro) for a few weeks now, but its strongly expected to be released next week, and definitely by year end.

Oh I didn't realize this wasn't 2.5 pro (I skimmed, sorry) - i also haven't had time to run some of her docs on 5.1 yet, I should.
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