5 ms·

This is the #1 problem with anything based on voice recognition and natural language processing IMO. It has to work 99% of the time to overcome this issue, but

by mwfunk 10y ago

This is the #1 problem with anything based on voice recognition and natural language processing IMO. It has to work 99% of the time to overcome this issue, but it seems like the nature of the technologies ensure that it will only asymptotically approach this threshold, and is currently stuck at 75% reliability at best. Plus, even if it did work, it's just a really inexact and inefficient way to do anything. You always end up trying to see through the abstraction layer (natural language in this case) to the much more well-defined hidden system underneath. It's like reverse engineering an expert system, as a UI paradigm. Programming languages made to resemble natural language face a similar poison pill, AppleScript being a prime example. I totally get the appeal of trying to make software understand people better instead of forcing people to understand software, but in practice it just ends up being one more abstraction layer users have to struggle to get past in order to unlock the functionality of the underlying system.

modeless 10y ago
The funny thing is that voice recognition is no longer the problem. For years the reason you couldn't do voice command interfaces was that transcription didn't work, but today transcription works amazingly well. My commands are transcribed perfectly, even in my car when I'm doing 65 on the freeway with my phone stuck in a cupholder. The problem now is Android randomly kills the "OK Google" background listening process, or it fails because it can't handle a handover between wifi and cell data, or it "can't open microphone" even though it just heard me say OK Google, or any one of many other Android problems rears its ugly head. The reliability of voice transcription now is far better than the general reliability of Android on my Nexus 5X, and the Android team ought to feel pretty bad about that.
- jordanthoms 10y ago
  Exactly this - There is a bug where if your phone is locked, and in a position where it thinks it's in landscape, when you say 'OK Google' the phone will unlock in portrait, start listening, rotate to landscape and in the process kill the app listening to your voice, and then rotate back to portrait and lock itself again. It's also incredibly easy to fall off the blessed path where you can interact solely with voice - when setting a reminder, for example, if it doesn't hear 'Yes' when it's expecting to it'll just sit there and you need to touch the screen to continue - defeating the whole point of voice interaction. Google's voice search has incredible voice recognition and text to speech and can tap into an amazing amount of information through the knowledge graph, but they don't seem to be capable of fixing the basic bugs and UX issues preventing all that technology from actually being usable.
  - visarga 10y ago
    I was recently trying to find why this happens. For me, sometimes the phone hears "Ok Google" but then just sits there as if there is no microphone, while being in portrait mode all the time, so, no screen rotation. Other times, as you said, being screen-locked makes it deaf. I have to manually unlock it to restart OK Google. We're not suffering from too stupid AI, we're suffering from stupid app design and laziness when it comes to adding more variations to conversation. Just put a team of script writers to imagine thousands of replies, it is not that hard, people have been doing this kind of rudimentary chat bot scripts for decades now. I'd like to be able to install an App and suddenly, new commands are available to me.
  - Stratoscope 10y ago
    > It's also incredibly easy to fall off the blessed path where you can interact solely with voice... I had this happen with Google Maps the other day. I was driving into San Francisco with the turn-by-turn directions when it said something like, "There is a faster route available in two miles. It will save 5 minutes. Tap 'Accept' to take this route." So I had to fiddle with my phone in a hurry, in traffic (after all, traffic was why there was a faster route coming up), and hope I don't tap the wrong button or crash into anyone while looking for it. Why couldn't I just have said "Yes! Please and thank you. Of course I want the faster route, why wouldn't I? Oh, sorry, I mean 'Accept'!" The funny part was that the "faster route" was the way I usually go into that part of town anyway, but Maps had been sending me a different way because of congestion on the usually-faster route. Why did it even ask me to "accept" the faster route instead of just redirecting me the way it does automatically on most occasions? Like the time I was heading south on 101 through Morgan Hill and Gilroy and Maps had me get off the freeway and take a side street for a couple of miles because traffic was stopped on the freeway due to a car fire. It didn't ask me to tap Accept then, it just gave me some very practical directions on the fly. That's how it should work.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  More and more I get back my Moto G with the OK Google widget on because of something on TV triggered it. Meanwhile it rarely understand me when I want. Fun.
- Animats 10y ago
  It's a touchscreen device with voice as an afterthought. Devices where voice is primary will be designed differently. Car navigation systems would be a good place to start.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  I have to disagree. Mostly your right, but I have a very specific fail case that happens every time with Siri. I can't call my wife by name. I have to always call her "wife", because it thinks I want to change my name. Now it's a name in the address book, but it never matches against it. I can also use it dictate an email or search the web, and occasionally it fails (maybe 10% of the time?), but it almost never gets my wife's name.
  - eric-hu 10y ago
    Okay I'll bite. What's your wife's name?
    - WillAbides 10y ago
      Cortana
    - michael_h 10y ago
      Something that starts with 'me'. As in: 'call miyuki' --> 'ok, I'll call you yuki'
      - jonathankoren 10y ago
        Ding! Ding! Ding! You have found the fail case. In a somewhat related note, I've noticed people search on some websites fail with Vietnamese names because surnames are interpreted as prepositions, and thus dropped as a stop word.
  - modeless 10y ago
    Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Google's voice recognition is better than Apple's (which is powered by Nuance, right?). Also, recognition for search queries and voice actions tends to work better than completely unconstrained text transcription. Of course "perfect" is an exaggeration, but my point is that Google's voice query transcription has passed a threshold and it is no longer the least reliable part of the system.
visarga 10y ago
> It's like reverse engineering an expert system, as a UI paradigm. The rate of adoption will skyrocket when we reach a certain threshold, people will see other people speaking to their phones and they will learn to form useful voice commands as well. It has a big social factor.

by mwfunk 10y ago

modeless 10y ago

The funny thing is that voice recognition is no longer the problem. For years the reason you couldn't do voice command interfaces was that transcription didn't work, but today transcription works amazingly well. My commands are transcribed perfectly, even in my car when I'm doing 65 on the freeway with my phone stuck in a cupholder. The problem now is Android randomly kills the "OK Google" background listening process, or it fails because it can't handle a handover between wifi and cell data, or it "can't open microphone" even though it just heard me say OK Google, or any one of many other Android problems rears its ugly head. The reliability of voice transcription now is far better than the general reliability of Android on my Nexus 5X, and the Android team ought to feel pretty bad about that.

jordanthoms 10y ago
Exactly this - There is a bug where if your phone is locked, and in a position where it thinks it's in landscape, when you say 'OK Google' the phone will unlock in portrait, start listening, rotate to landscape and in the process kill the app listening to your voice, and then rotate back to portrait and lock itself again. It's also incredibly easy to fall off the blessed path where you can interact solely with voice - when setting a reminder, for example, if it doesn't hear 'Yes' when it's expecting to it'll just sit there and you need to touch the screen to continue - defeating the whole point of voice interaction. Google's voice search has incredible voice recognition and text to speech and can tap into an amazing amount of information through the knowledge graph, but they don't seem to be capable of fixing the basic bugs and UX issues preventing all that technology from actually being usable.
- visarga 10y ago
  I was recently trying to find why this happens. For me, sometimes the phone hears "Ok Google" but then just sits there as if there is no microphone, while being in portrait mode all the time, so, no screen rotation. Other times, as you said, being screen-locked makes it deaf. I have to manually unlock it to restart OK Google. We're not suffering from too stupid AI, we're suffering from stupid app design and laziness when it comes to adding more variations to conversation. Just put a team of script writers to imagine thousands of replies, it is not that hard, people have been doing this kind of rudimentary chat bot scripts for decades now. I'd like to be able to install an App and suddenly, new commands are available to me.
- Stratoscope 10y ago
  > It's also incredibly easy to fall off the blessed path where you can interact solely with voice... I had this happen with Google Maps the other day. I was driving into San Francisco with the turn-by-turn directions when it said something like, "There is a faster route available in two miles. It will save 5 minutes. Tap 'Accept' to take this route." So I had to fiddle with my phone in a hurry, in traffic (after all, traffic was why there was a faster route coming up), and hope I don't tap the wrong button or crash into anyone while looking for it. Why couldn't I just have said "Yes! Please and thank you. Of course I want the faster route, why wouldn't I? Oh, sorry, I mean 'Accept'!" The funny part was that the "faster route" was the way I usually go into that part of town anyway, but Maps had been sending me a different way because of congestion on the usually-faster route. Why did it even ask me to "accept" the faster route instead of just redirecting me the way it does automatically on most occasions? Like the time I was heading south on 101 through Morgan Hill and Gilroy and Maps had me get off the freeway and take a side street for a couple of miles because traffic was stopped on the freeway due to a car fire. It didn't ask me to tap Accept then, it just gave me some very practical directions on the fly. That's how it should work.
agumonkey 10y ago
More and more I get back my Moto G with the OK Google widget on because of something on TV triggered it. Meanwhile it rarely understand me when I want. Fun.
Animats 10y ago
It's a touchscreen device with voice as an afterthought. Devices where voice is primary will be designed differently. Car navigation systems would be a good place to start.
jonathankoren 10y ago
I have to disagree. Mostly your right, but I have a very specific fail case that happens every time with Siri. I can't call my wife by name. I have to always call her "wife", because it thinks I want to change my name. Now it's a name in the address book, but it never matches against it. I can also use it dictate an email or search the web, and occasionally it fails (maybe 10% of the time?), but it almost never gets my wife's name.
- eric-hu 10y ago
  Okay I'll bite. What's your wife's name?
  - WillAbides 10y ago
    Cortana
  - michael_h 10y ago
    Something that starts with 'me'. As in: 'call miyuki' --> 'ok, I'll call you yuki'
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      Ding! Ding! Ding! You have found the fail case. In a somewhat related note, I've noticed people search on some websites fail with Vietnamese names because surnames are interpreted as prepositions, and thus dropped as a stop word.
- modeless 10y ago
  Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Google's voice recognition is better than Apple's (which is powered by Nuance, right?). Also, recognition for search queries and voice actions tends to work better than completely unconstrained text transcription. Of course "perfect" is an exaggeration, but my point is that Google's voice query transcription has passed a threshold and it is no longer the least reliable part of the system.

visarga 10y ago

> It's like reverse engineering an expert system, as a UI paradigm. The rate of adoption will skyrocket when we reach a certain threshold, people will see other people speaking to their phones and they will learn to form useful voice commands as well. It has a big social factor.