[Lightning Star]

Today my dad was discussing how helpful it would have been if he had his speech to text program set up. He was trying to type his paper, while our 8 month old kitten was begging him for attention, and getting into mischief if he didn't pick her up. But then we got onto the topic of how these technologies aren't always the best.

Later that night he showed me a website that's dedicated to all the bloopers people have gotten from using these programs, and they're pretty hilarious, especially the medically related ones (Medical SR bloopers). These are a couple of my favorite bloopers:

Dictated: The instrument was then withdrawn from the colon.
SR: The infant was then withdrawn from the colon.

Dictated: The generator was inserted into the subcutaneous pocket.
SR: The janitor was inserted into the subcutaneous pocket.

Dictated: The patient will be discharged on K-Dur.
SR: The patient will be discharged on a skatebooard

These are some others I found to be pretty funny:
Dictated: Your e-mail touched my heartstrings.
Interpreted: Your e-mail attacked my hamstrings.
Dictated: soak fruit and sugar in cold tea overnight.
Interpreted: soak fruit and children in cold tea overnight.
Dictated: Sociopathic
Interpreted: Go see a catholic


And this story, copied from speechwiki (also where I got the previous three) was pretty good:

Bill O'Brien contributed this tale, involving yet another technology, a speech-activated telephone answering program. It picks up the phone on the third ring to answer incoming calls and uses a synthesized voice to direct the caller. Here's the story: Recently the phone was about to ring for the third time, but when I answered there was no one on the other end, so I hung up. About 5 minutes later I picked up the phone to make another call and was instantly hysterical when I heard the following "conversation" between two machine-generated voices:

Phone system's synthesizer: "If you would like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. If you need help, hang up and dial your operator."

Computer's synthesizer: "I did not understand you, 'say how much is, for sales,' 'say please help me, for customer support'" and the rest of the spiel.

Phone system's synthesizer: "If you would like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. If you need help, hang up and dial your operator."

Computer synthesizer: "I did not understand you, 'say how much is, for sales,' 'say please help me, for customer support' ...."

Phone system's synthesizer: "If you would like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. If you need help, hang up and dial your operator."

[Folcon]

lol, that is pretty funny. I've been debating picking up this kind of software so I can just dictate what I want the computer to write for me. It would work great for when I have a lot of written stuff to convert to a word doc and don't have time to type it, like if I want to get laundry done at the same time. Of course, given the inaccuracies that occur, I would still have someone proof it before doing anything with it.

[Nosferatu]

Icy, on Jan 16 2008, 09:39 PM, said:

[font="Verdana"][size=2]Dictated: Sociopathic
Interpreted: Go see a catholic

Whoever saw this topic and didn't know I would point that out obviously doesn't know me that well.

I personally don't need one of these programs. I type fast and well enough to not need something that rights it down for me.

And if I wanted inaccuracies and mistakes in a paper I'd just let a Grade 8 type it.

[Toasty]

I'm lazy, so this would be great for typeing up my reports. Of course, I'd go back over it before it was printed, but I'd still keep a copy of the uncorrected version for refrence. And possible laughs.

[Platinum Sun]

My favorite thing to do with those it like a telephone game. Read a paragraph, then read what it typed, and repeat until there's nothing coherant left.