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On a separate note, I have yet to get Siri to transcribe "Isle of Dogs" correctly. It's always "I love dogs" which is quite ok by me :).

gok 8y ago
For phonetically ambiguous utterances like this, it usually helps continuous speech recognition systems if you pause between words like “Isle. Of. Dogs.”
- smortaz 8y ago
  Yep, tried that too... but admittedly the sound very similar. I keep getting "I'll of dogs" and "I love dogs".
duskwuff 8y ago
The title of that movie was chosen specifically to be a homophone for "I love dogs", so Siri's confusion is understandable. :)
- smortaz 8y ago
  Ah! Makes total sense now.
- unfunco 8y ago
  It's also a place in the east end of London and has been for almost 500 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Dogs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Dogs
- sowbug 8y ago
  In 1992 Apple gave me a T-shirt for supplying speech samples used to train their System 7 voice recognition. Below a picture of bunch of apple cores strewn on a beach was the caption "I helped Apple wreck a nice beach!"
  - dkonofalski 8y ago
    That's amazing. "I helped Apple recognize speech" for those struggling.
- evincarofautumn 8y ago
  This is an interesting case because they’re phonemically the same (long-I, L, schwa, V) but may be realised differently phonetically depending on your accent†. I bring this up because I’ve always wanted to be able to tell speech recognition systems specific features of my accent, say through a series of questions (“Do you pronounce ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ the same or differently?”, &c.) in addition to ML training, because as it is, they persistently mix up certain words—“I’ll” and “all”, for instance. † With “isle of”, I have two syllables and a velarised (“dark”) L in “isle”, a mid-central vowel (/ə/) in “of”; with “I love”, I have one syllable in “I”, a non-velarised (“light”) L and an open-mid back unrounded vowel (/ʌ/) in “love”.
Angostura 8y ago
I just tried 'Hey Siri where is 'Isle of Dogs' playing - and it got it first time.
- gok 8y ago
  That’s easier because the language model knows that “where is I love dogs playing” doesn’t make sense grammatically, whereas “where is <movie name> playing” does. On the other hand, just saying “I love dogs” might be a reasonable thing you may want to text message or something.
  - ascagnel_ 8y ago
    You could also give the recognition system an additional hint by dropping in "the movie", "the play", etc. -- "where is the movie 'Isle of Dogs' playing?", "where is the play 'Death of a Salesman' playing?"
lozaning 8y ago
I was testing some Alexa stuff for work the other day and named a light "Lighty McLight Face". All Alexa would ever hear was "lightly lick my face".
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
You should be able to say "Hey Siri, listen carefully" brief pause "isle ... of ... dogs", or some such to have the device enter a special mode where it attempts to identify individual words more accurately.
- anonfunction 8y ago
  I've never heard about this special mode.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    I meant to imply it should have this mode, not that it does.
- eridius 8y ago
  What's wrong with just saying "isle … of … dogs"? Why would you need to enter a special mode before enunciating?
  - pwinnski 8y ago
    Pausing long enough to be sure the AI knows you're done pronouncing the previous words is often enough to trigger the end of the phrase. We want our AI assistant to be performant, after all! Without a special mode, you'd likely say "Hey, Siri, play Isle..." "Okay, I found--" "Dammit, Siri, I wasn't done!"
    - eridius 8y ago
      You don't have to wait 5 seconds between words. You just have to enunciate clearly enough that the divisions between words become truly unambiguous.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        It’s worth noting that, elsewhere in this thread, user smortaz wrote: Yep, tried that too... but admittedly the sound very similar. I keep getting "I'll of dogs" and "I love dogs".
__david__ 8y ago
I've never gotten Siri to successfully play "Cuz It's Hot" by "My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult". Also the only place I have the song is "WaxTrax! Black Box: The First 13 Years (Disc 3)", which is also pretty much impossible to get Siri to play. Sigh.
dkonofalski 8y ago
You can tap anything that Siri hears you say and fix it. Unfortunately, that means you might end up with the opposite problem in the future.

gok 8y ago

For phonetically ambiguous utterances like this, it usually helps continuous speech recognition systems if you pause between words like “Isle. Of. Dogs.”

smortaz 8y ago
Yep, tried that too... but admittedly the sound very similar. I keep getting "I'll of dogs" and "I love dogs".

duskwuff 8y ago

The title of that movie was chosen specifically to be a homophone for "I love dogs", so Siri's confusion is understandable. :)

smortaz 8y ago
Ah! Makes total sense now.
unfunco 8y ago
It's also a place in the east end of London and has been for almost 500 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Dogs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Dogs
sowbug 8y ago
In 1992 Apple gave me a T-shirt for supplying speech samples used to train their System 7 voice recognition. Below a picture of bunch of apple cores strewn on a beach was the caption "I helped Apple wreck a nice beach!"
- dkonofalski 8y ago
  That's amazing. "I helped Apple recognize speech" for those struggling.
evincarofautumn 8y ago
This is an interesting case because they’re phonemically the same (long-I, L, schwa, V) but may be realised differently phonetically depending on your accent†. I bring this up because I’ve always wanted to be able to tell speech recognition systems specific features of my accent, say through a series of questions (“Do you pronounce ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ the same or differently?”, &c.) in addition to ML training, because as it is, they persistently mix up certain words—“I’ll” and “all”, for instance. † With “isle of”, I have two syllables and a velarised (“dark”) L in “isle”, a mid-central vowel (/ə/) in “of”; with “I love”, I have one syllable in “I”, a non-velarised (“light”) L and an open-mid back unrounded vowel (/ʌ/) in “love”.

Angostura 8y ago

I just tried 'Hey Siri where is 'Isle of Dogs' playing - and it got it first time.

gok 8y ago
That’s easier because the language model knows that “where is I love dogs playing” doesn’t make sense grammatically, whereas “where is <movie name> playing” does. On the other hand, just saying “I love dogs” might be a reasonable thing you may want to text message or something.
- ascagnel_ 8y ago
  You could also give the recognition system an additional hint by dropping in "the movie", "the play", etc. -- "where is the movie 'Isle of Dogs' playing?", "where is the play 'Death of a Salesman' playing?"

lozaning 8y ago

I was testing some Alexa stuff for work the other day and named a light "Lighty McLight Face". All Alexa would ever hear was "lightly lick my face".

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

You should be able to say "Hey Siri, listen carefully" brief pause "isle ... of ... dogs", or some such to have the device enter a special mode where it attempts to identify individual words more accurately.

anonfunction 8y ago
I've never heard about this special mode.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  I meant to imply it should have this mode, not that it does.
eridius 8y ago
What's wrong with just saying "isle … of … dogs"? Why would you need to enter a special mode before enunciating?
- pwinnski 8y ago
  Pausing long enough to be sure the AI knows you're done pronouncing the previous words is often enough to trigger the end of the phrase. We want our AI assistant to be performant, after all! Without a special mode, you'd likely say "Hey, Siri, play Isle..." "Okay, I found--" "Dammit, Siri, I wasn't done!"
  - eridius 8y ago
    You don't have to wait 5 seconds between words. You just have to enunciate clearly enough that the divisions between words become truly unambiguous.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      It’s worth noting that, elsewhere in this thread, user smortaz wrote: Yep, tried that too... but admittedly the sound very similar. I keep getting "I'll of dogs" and "I love dogs".

__david__ 8y ago

I've never gotten Siri to successfully play "Cuz It's Hot" by "My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult". Also the only place I have the song is "WaxTrax! Black Box: The First 13 Years (Disc 3)", which is also pretty much impossible to get Siri to play. Sigh.

dkonofalski 8y ago

You can tap anything that Siri hears you say and fix it. Unfortunately, that means you might end up with the opposite problem in the future.