I’m not really into it but one of the guys on late night linux podcast, generally resistant to LLMs and shiny new things, is a fan of speech to text for general computing, as in every input field in the OS should support speech. In a recent episode he said that he believes it to be the way of the future.
I remember Dragon SpeechDragon Naturally Speaking saying the same thing in the 90’s. It’s improved, but not enough to make it useful as more than an aide for people who can’t type. I do agree, that for simple accessibility, it should be integrated into every field, but I doubt it’s ever going to take over.
As others have noted, that it’s only technically true that dictation is faster than typing. In a practical sense, there’s a fair number of reasons why that’s not the case, including that usually thinking about the entry is what’s the slowest, and also the errors in both are typically what slows people down.
there’s also the problem of, for example, keeping entries confidential. You don’t want to speak your passwords where others can hear you.
It’s improved, but not enough to make it useful as more than an aide for people who can’t type.
I don’t think this is true.
There’s a locally hostable model called whisper that is very impressive.
My plumber uses speech to text to send text messages all day.
Late Night Linux guy says he uses it for microsoft teams quite a bit.
You’re only partially correct about input speed. If you want to dictate an email then yes you need to think about each word you want to say and the order in which to say them. Coupled with an LLM that problem is diminished because you can just kind of have a conversation with the LLM and tell it to draft an email.
The hard part of both speech and typing is thinking about what you say. Typing nor speaking are going to change the speed I can get information into the computer.
Did the CEOs unplug their keyboards? Wtf even is this?
Well the mask is a steno mask
Theoretically most people will speak faster than they type. You have to type around 180-200 wpm to be faster than speaking.
(I say theoretically, because usually typing speed ratings also ding you for errors, and uh, speech transcription isn’t really there, either.)
I’m not really into it but one of the guys on late night linux podcast, generally resistant to LLMs and shiny new things, is a fan of speech to text for general computing, as in every input field in the OS should support speech. In a recent episode he said that he believes it to be the way of the future.
I remember
Dragon SpeechDragon Naturally Speaking saying the same thing in the 90’s. It’s improved, but not enough to make it useful as more than an aide for people who can’t type. I do agree, that for simple accessibility, it should be integrated into every field, but I doubt it’s ever going to take over.As others have noted, that it’s only technically true that dictation is faster than typing. In a practical sense, there’s a fair number of reasons why that’s not the case, including that usually thinking about the entry is what’s the slowest, and also the errors in both are typically what slows people down.
there’s also the problem of, for example, keeping entries confidential. You don’t want to speak your passwords where others can hear you.
I don’t think this is true.
There’s a locally hostable model called whisper that is very impressive.
My plumber uses speech to text to send text messages all day.
Late Night Linux guy says he uses it for microsoft teams quite a bit.
You’re only partially correct about input speed. If you want to dictate an email then yes you need to think about each word you want to say and the order in which to say them. Coupled with an LLM that problem is diminished because you can just kind of have a conversation with the LLM and tell it to draft an email.
The hard part of both speech and typing is thinking about what you say. Typing nor speaking are going to change the speed I can get information into the computer.
Maybe we could ask the AI to do that thinking bit then tell us what to say.
Hey Siri, tell ChatGPT what it wants to hear to generate a million dollar code piece.