Mispredicted Words, Mispredicted Futures

The accuracy of computer speech recognition flat-lined in 2001, before reaching human levels. The funding plug was pulled, but no funeral, no text-to-speech eulogy followed. Words never meant very much to computers—which made them ten times more error-prone than humans. Humans expected that computer understanding of language would lead to artificially intelligent machines, inevitably and quickly. But the mispredicted words of speech recognition have rewritten that narrative. We just haven’t recognized it yet.

After a long gestation period in academia, speech recognition bore twins in 1982: the suggestively-named Kurzweil Applied Intelligence and sibling rival Dragon Systems. Kurzweil’s software, by age three, could understand all of a thousand words—but only when spoken one painstakingly-articulated word at a time. Two years later, in 1987, the computer’s lexicon reached 20,000 words, entering the realm of human vocabularies which range from 10,000 to 150,000 words. But recognition accuracy was horrific: 90% wrong in 1993. Another two years, however, and the error rate pushed below 50%. More importantly, Dragon Systems unveiled its Naturally Speaking software in 1997 which recognized normal human speech. Years of talking to the computer like a speech therapist seemingly paid off.

However, the core language machinery that crushed sounds into words actually dated to the 1950s and ‘60s and had not changed. Progress mainly came from freakishly faster computers and a burgeoning profusion of digital text.

Speech recognizers make educated guesses at what is being said. They play the odds. For example, the phrase “serve as the inspiration,” is ten times more likely than “serve as the installation,” which sounds similar. Such statistical models become more precise given more data. Helpfully, the digital word supply leapt from essentially zero to about a million words in the 1980s when a body of literary text called the Brown Corpus became available. Millions turned to billions as the Internet grew in the 1990s. Inevitably, Google published a trillion-word corpus in 2006. Speech recognition accuracy, borne aloft by exponential trends in text and transistors, rose skyward. But it couldn’t reach human heights.

Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology Benchmark Test History (borrowed from: http://robertfortner.posterous.com/the-unrecognized-death-of-speech-recognition)

Insider Tip One: Voice Recognition Software versus Transcriptionists

What do hospitals, teleseminar hosts, songwriters, and e-book writers have in common? They all need their audio or video files to be transcribed into excellent documents. Which is better? Is it better to have an expensive voice recognition program that will automatically create documents from your dictation? Is it better to hire a live transcriptionist to transcribe your audio and proofread and edit as they go? That's the question we'll explore here.

I suppose you've heard a lot about voice recognition software, especially with companies like Google marketing Google Voice. There are a lot of people selling this type of software on the Web. The thing that they don't tell you in their sales pitch is, in order to get flawless documents from your dictation/audio is to speak perfectly, with perfect annunciation, perfect grammar, without false starts or "Um" or "You know" or "So..." and then you have to count on the software to work perfectly. The problem is, no dictator is perfect, and no voice recognition software is perfect. Thus, you end up with garbled unintelligible mush that you or someone else has to deal with. In the end, you would be much better off hiring a reasonably priced transcriptionist to transcribe your audio or video perfectly the first time. If you don't, you're paying for very expensive software that doesn't do the job completely, then paying for it to be gone over with a fine tooth comb by a paid transcriptionist for errors. That's just not a good use of your money or time. The answer? Hire a freelance transcriptionist to work for you who has your best interests in mind and who is willing to follow your document needs to the letter. You don't have to use a large corporate transcription service. They're too impersonal and deal with such a large volume of documents that you get lost in the shuffle. Find an IC at home transcriptionist who will work for you personally and be your personal transcriptionist. They aim to please, and you will be delighted at the great quality of work they turn out in record time!

For six other "Insider Tips" see the article below.

We Do Medical Transcription

Triple-A Transcription has created a medical transcription 

service designed for its clients in the medical field whose subject matter necessitates specialized knowledge. We provide medical transcription for pharmaceutical firms, medical meeting planners, and Continuing Medical Education organizations with verbatim medical transcripts and summaries for external and internal communications and publishing.
 
Our medical transcriptionists are specialized, with extensive medical backgrounds. Whether you are holding an advisory board meeting, roundtable discussion, lecture, symposium, or panel discussion, we can document your event in our medical transcripts.
 
Triple-A Transcription also offers medical reports and summaries. 
 
Ask for an estimate for our medical transcription service.  We will get back to you within 24 hours.
 
Want to get the best possible quality of audio recording?  See the article above on audio recording.

NEED SOMETHING TRANSCRIBED IN A HURRY FOR A GREAT PRICE?

We Aim to Please at Triple-A Transcription with Accuracy, Alacrity, and Amiability!

Smart clients know that today you need audio products to be transcribed for your customers to get the most value for your efforts.

Perhaps you're an information specialist, a preacher or speaker, an internet marketer, an interviewer, or you do webinars, teleseminars, podcasts, or teaching videos.

Whenever you have audio of any kind, you need hardcopies of your audio!
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*   You can use them as bonuses or freebies for your opt-in customers
*   You can increase the scope of your audio seminars
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*   You can increase the amount of content on your website for higher rank in search engines.

You really can't afford NOT to have transcripts!

We will make your words flow smoothly. Your interviews, calls, or seminars are transformed into accurate, ready-to-use Word or .pdf documents. This will build your business and attract more people to your websites.
If you're thinking about using offshore transcription services or voice recognition software--don't bother. You have much better and more productive things to do than to clean up that mess!

Our rates are very reasonable and competitive at less than $0.01 per word, depending whether you want near-verbatim or you want it edited for readability.

Our Excellent Rates:

PLATINUM: Tier 1 (1 to 2 business days' turnaround) = $100 per audio hour, or $1.66 per audio minute. [This Tier is also for conference calls, medical transcription, or difficult to hear audio.]

GOLD:  Tier 2 (3-5 business days' turnaround) = $90 per audio hour, or $1.50 per audio minute. [This Tier is also for interviews with 2 interviewees or English as a second language audio files.]

BRONZE:  Tier 3 (6-10 business day's turnaround) = $80 per audio hour, or $1.33 per audio minute  [This Tier is also for well-recorded audio with one person talking or interview with one other person.]

[A $10 bad audio fee will be charged for very difficult or inaudible mp3 files.]

*   We use the latest transcription software
*   We accept all standard audio formats
*   We handle everything digitally--a great time and money saver

Just send us your audio link and we'll upload your audio and with quick turnaround time you'll receive an accurate excellent transcript within 1 to 2 business days.

Let us know your specifications and we'll format your transcripts the way you would like.

We are highly trained transcriptionists with many years of experience transcribing foreign accents, as well as just about any type of formatting.

Every project is carefully proofread so you don't have to worry about mistakes or having to do that tedious task yourself.

We want you to have the confidence that Triple-A Transcription is the right solution for all your transcription needs. Your satisfaction is our personal goal and your confidentiality is guaranteed.

Try Triple-A Transcription today, and get ready to be pleased with the results!

Contact us at aaatranscription@sbcglobal.net.