4 ms·

Swiftkey's new neural network keyboard

23 points by jcrei 11y ago

anon4 11y ago
"Eerie" "creepy" "scary"... You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means… Did someone pay gizmodo to write a faux-praise article, or is this shlock par for the course?
- Grue3 11y ago
  It's Gawker Media, of course shlock is their bread and butter.
tmikaeld 11y ago
How private is it? Does it send keystrokes?
- jcrei 11y ago
  As far as I've read, all keyboards have full access, so they send all info and keystrokes back to their servers
yojo 11y ago
It will be interesting to see what happens to language as these technologies get better. Would you rather type out your ideal word, or tap the suggestion that is close enough? If this type of good prediction grows widespread it could be a force toward standardization/avoidance of language drift. it could also discourage more in depth conversation, which may be less likely to get favorable auto-suggest.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  I do it a lot for Japanese. You need to select a suggestion to get the kanji right, and from there on you're already looking at the suggestion box, so might as well choose from there if it's close enough.
- gtf21 11y ago
  This is a really interesting idea that I hadn't thought of. It could have implications for the ability of people to express their ideas, and thus on their imaginations. It reminds me a little of Newspeak. Not that I'm suggesting that SwiftKey's neural net is some sort of Orwellian thought-controlling tool by design or mistake, but it's an interesting idea that as we get the benefit of accurate autocorrect (I don't actually use autocorrect on any of my devices), we start to lose both the individuality of expression, and then the imagination that fuels that expression.
JulianMorrison 11y ago
Keyception. It was a dark and stormy night, and I will be in touch with you to discuss the position with you and your family are doing well and that you are not the only one I have to say that I am a beautiful person and I love you and I love you and I love you (repeats) What is the best way to get the money to you and I will be in touch with you to discuss the position Who will be able to get the job done and I will be in touch with you Why I was not able to get to the point where I want to be a part of the team and the team will be able to get the job done
- jcrei 11y ago
  It's interesting to see how simplistic these are at the moment
  - JulianMorrison 11y ago
    Probably just a very limited set of bootstrap training data. I'm curious what keyception would look like after a few months of using it.
wowtip 11y ago
Only english, or also for other languages?
- mtgx 11y ago
  English, from what I can see.
mtgx 11y ago
I wonder if it can take advantage of Qualcomm's Zeroth neural processor in the Snapdragon 820.
finstell 11y ago
Swiftkey is great except it does not work at my iPhone. Before neural network enhancements, they should work on the basics. https://www.google.com/search?q=swiftkey+iphone+issues https://www.google.com/search?q=swiftkey+iphone+issues https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/articles/201310402-Why-does-SwiftKey-Keyboard-sometimes-disappear-on-iOS-apps- https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/articles/201310402-Why...
- Karunamon 11y ago
  As per your first link, that's a problem with iOS and the brain dead way they implemented third party keyboards, not Swiftkey. All of them are a little bit glitchy.
- fgtx 11y ago
  Same here. Tried if for a long time until I couldn't bare it anymore and rolled back to the iOS default keyboard.
kawera 11y ago
Does anyone know of a predictive keyboard for the desktop, something geared for natural language and not just IDE's code autocomplete.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  Not for English, but for Japanese and Chinese it is fairly common to have predictive elements. Even the standard IME in at least OSX has predictive elements.
  - kawera 11y ago
    Thanks, I didn't know that. Would love to have something similar for other languages, though.
iLemming 11y ago
Swiftkey's flow still sucks compared to Swype.
taiar 11y ago
I thought that people already stopped using Swiftkey.
wodenokoto 11y ago
It's worth noting that neural networks has been used for Chinese and Japanese keyboards for some years now. Here's a nice (and easy to read, even if you don't know how written Japanese works) paper on the structure of a Japanese IME called Simeji by Baidu: Wu, Xianchao, Rixin Xiao, and Xiaoxin Chen. “Using the Web to Train a Mobile Device Oriented Japanese Input Method Editor,” 2013. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/I/I13/I13-1172.pdf http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/I/I13/I13-1172.pdf

23 points by jcrei 11y ago

anon4 11y ago

"Eerie" "creepy" "scary"... You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means… Did someone pay gizmodo to write a faux-praise article, or is this shlock par for the course?

Grue3 11y ago
It's Gawker Media, of course shlock is their bread and butter.

tmikaeld 11y ago

How private is it? Does it send keystrokes?

jcrei 11y ago
As far as I've read, all keyboards have full access, so they send all info and keystrokes back to their servers

yojo 11y ago

It will be interesting to see what happens to language as these technologies get better. Would you rather type out your ideal word, or tap the suggestion that is close enough? If this type of good prediction grows widespread it could be a force toward standardization/avoidance of language drift. it could also discourage more in depth conversation, which may be less likely to get favorable auto-suggest.

wodenokoto 11y ago
I do it a lot for Japanese. You need to select a suggestion to get the kanji right, and from there on you're already looking at the suggestion box, so might as well choose from there if it's close enough.
gtf21 11y ago
This is a really interesting idea that I hadn't thought of. It could have implications for the ability of people to express their ideas, and thus on their imaginations. It reminds me a little of Newspeak. Not that I'm suggesting that SwiftKey's neural net is some sort of Orwellian thought-controlling tool by design or mistake, but it's an interesting idea that as we get the benefit of accurate autocorrect (I don't actually use autocorrect on any of my devices), we start to lose both the individuality of expression, and then the imagination that fuels that expression.

JulianMorrison 11y ago

Keyception. It was a dark and stormy night, and I will be in touch with you to discuss the position with you and your family are doing well and that you are not the only one I have to say that I am a beautiful person and I love you and I love you and I love you (repeats) What is the best way to get the money to you and I will be in touch with you to discuss the position Who will be able to get the job done and I will be in touch with you Why I was not able to get to the point where I want to be a part of the team and the team will be able to get the job done

jcrei 11y ago
It's interesting to see how simplistic these are at the moment
- JulianMorrison 11y ago
  Probably just a very limited set of bootstrap training data. I'm curious what keyception would look like after a few months of using it.

wowtip 11y ago

Only english, or also for other languages?

mtgx 11y ago
English, from what I can see.

mtgx 11y ago

I wonder if it can take advantage of Qualcomm's Zeroth neural processor in the Snapdragon 820.

finstell 11y ago

Swiftkey is great except it does not work at my iPhone. Before neural network enhancements, they should work on the basics. https://www.google.com/search?q=swiftkey+iphone+issues https://www.google.com/search?q=swiftkey+iphone+issues https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/articles/201310402-Why-does-SwiftKey-Keyboard-sometimes-disappear-on-iOS-apps- https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/articles/201310402-Why...

Karunamon 11y ago
As per your first link, that's a problem with iOS and the brain dead way they implemented third party keyboards, not Swiftkey. All of them are a little bit glitchy.
fgtx 11y ago
Same here. Tried if for a long time until I couldn't bare it anymore and rolled back to the iOS default keyboard.

kawera 11y ago

Does anyone know of a predictive keyboard for the desktop, something geared for natural language and not just IDE's code autocomplete.

wodenokoto 11y ago
Not for English, but for Japanese and Chinese it is fairly common to have predictive elements. Even the standard IME in at least OSX has predictive elements.
- kawera 11y ago
  Thanks, I didn't know that. Would love to have something similar for other languages, though.

iLemming 11y ago

Swiftkey's flow still sucks compared to Swype.

taiar 11y ago

I thought that people already stopped using Swiftkey.

wodenokoto 11y ago

It's worth noting that neural networks has been used for Chinese and Japanese keyboards for some years now. Here's a nice (and easy to read, even if you don't know how written Japanese works) paper on the structure of a Japanese IME called Simeji by Baidu: Wu, Xianchao, Rixin Xiao, and Xiaoxin Chen. “Using the Web to Train a Mobile Device Oriented Japanese Input Method Editor,” 2013. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/I/I13/I13-1172.pdf http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/I/I13/I13-1172.pdf