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Voice Transcription Follies: “I’ll just ask Moses.”
Yesterday, I was reviewing the transcript of a recorded interview. I’d asked a professor specializing in cognitive function about learning new language. “I’ll just ask Moses,” she said in response. What the? I checked the original audio, which revealed her actual response as, “Just by osmosis.”
We can edit genomes. We can measure Black holes. We can land on Mars. So why is the software for voice recognition and transcription still so problematic?
I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I spent many years as a journalist transcribing my own taped interviews. It took forever — type, stop, play, reverse, replay, retype. When I switched to digital recording, and transcription of those mp4s became automated, I was thrilled.
Now I’m a steady customer of an online service, but two problems remain. One — it’s expensive. And two, it’s not that accurate.
No doubt it’s a technical challenge, coping with poor quality recordings, multiple accents and speakers, odd expressions and more. But sometimes reviewing those transcripts feels like I’m stuck in an endless game of Madlibs.
At first, I got frustrated by repeatedly having to reference the original recordings. But now I just laugh, and keep a running list of my favorite transcription boo-boos. Please enjoy recent…
