6 ms·

Not exactly sure what you're asking, but all tech companies hire people to transcribe audio precisely to gather data to train ML models to do transcription.

by ipsum2 7y ago

derefr 7y ago
Is there a reason that these ML models are being hoarded as "secret sauce" when, for these companies, all the rivals they're concerned about also have all the resources required to build one that's nearly as good? It feels strange that we've got six different tech giants that have all independently spent tons of capital building up the training data required to sell people smart speakers/mobile speech control/etc. with these ML models, without any of them entering into cross-licensing agreements. It seems like it'd make a lot more sense for Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. to all pool their training data in an "industry working group" to build and license out one "best" model, the way that IWGs are formed to build and license out e.g. AV codecs.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  It's the same reason car makers don't all use the same platform. Everyone is hoping to get a slight edge over the others to preform better in the market.
- etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
  ML is an extremely competitive field right now and everyone's trying to get an advantage over everyone else. Not too ripe for cooperation right now.
- Calvin02 7y ago
  > "to all pool their training data" The press would skewer them alive and politicians will have a field day about tech companies violating privacy and sharing data.
- Smithalicious 7y ago
  It's bad enough that one BigCorp has my data. I'd rather not have them also give it out to every other BigCorp
sgt101 7y ago
Hang on, everyone's been at this for years now - are we seriously saying that Facebook et-al don't have large training sets for speech transcription? Why are they still labelling this? Why do they need 100's of contractors? I can see that a couple of folks might be engaged in carefully reviewing low confidence transcription events, but 100's?

Not exactly sure what you're asking, but all tech companies hire people to transcribe audio precisely to gather data to train ML models to do transcription.

by ipsum2 7y ago

Not exactly sure what you're asking, but all tech companies hire people to transcribe audio precisely to gather data to train ML models to do transcription.

derefr 7y ago

Is there a reason that these ML models are being hoarded as "secret sauce" when, for these companies, all the rivals they're concerned about also have all the resources required to build one that's nearly as good? It feels strange that we've got six different tech giants that have all independently spent tons of capital building up the training data required to sell people smart speakers/mobile speech control/etc. with these ML models, without any of them entering into cross-licensing agreements. It seems like it'd make a lot more sense for Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. to all pool their training data in an "industry working group" to build and license out one "best" model, the way that IWGs are formed to build and license out e.g. AV codecs.

solarkraft 7y ago
It's the same reason car makers don't all use the same platform. Everyone is hoping to get a slight edge over the others to preform better in the market.
etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
ML is an extremely competitive field right now and everyone's trying to get an advantage over everyone else. Not too ripe for cooperation right now.
Calvin02 7y ago
> "to all pool their training data" The press would skewer them alive and politicians will have a field day about tech companies violating privacy and sharing data.
Smithalicious 7y ago
It's bad enough that one BigCorp has my data. I'd rather not have them also give it out to every other BigCorp

sgt101 7y ago

Hang on, everyone's been at this for years now - are we seriously saying that Facebook et-al don't have large training sets for speech transcription? Why are they still labelling this? Why do they need 100's of contractors? I can see that a couple of folks might be engaged in carefully reviewing low confidence transcription events, but 100's?