4 ms·
I've done some OCR side projects during hackathon weeks over the years (with google tesseract). This is a neat idea, I can only imagine the difficulty with whic
by abadger9 5y ago
I've done some OCR side projects during hackathon weeks over the years (with google tesseract). This is a neat idea, I can only imagine the difficulty with which transcribing the variety of terrible handwriting will cause frustration and an eventual flood of refunds.
- deegles 5y agoHe really glosses over how he uses GPT-3 to correct the text...
- etskinner 5y agoThey might consider it a trade secret of sorts. If I were them, I wouldn't want someone to just take the idea and undercut me.
- folli 5y agoI think from his explanation in the article it's quite straightforward to implement it yourself: get a GPT-3 subscription at OpenAI or MS Azure, use the API as described in the article, voilà. But the idea is genius indeed.
- jsmith99 5y agoFrom the screenshot I suspect the real secret is that it gives the user a chance to correct errors after scanning.
- poxrud 5y agoIt looks like he’s first using tesseract to recognize his handwriting and convert it into text. Tesseract doesn’t do a perfect job so the recognized text is full of mistakes. He treats the mistakes as spelling mistakes and “asks” GPT-3 to correct them. This is a very clever idea and will greatly improve current OCR efforts.
- amenod 5y agoThat's a really interesting part, and probably why the OCR works good enough for such case. Not sure about legal implications of using it though: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/23/1008729/openai-is-giving-microsoft-exclusive-access-to-its-gpt-3-language-model/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/23/1008729/openai-i... EDIT: it seems I have misunderstood the article - OP probably uses MS API to access GPT-3 anyway, so the point is moot.
- gambiting 5y agoYeaaaah, his handwriting is actual certified art compared to mine . I can't get anything to recognize my handwriting reliably, including the text recognition built into iOS with Pencil - it's just useless.
- criddell 5y agoYou can change that. After I started using a Palm Pilot, my handwriting improved significantly and the changes seem to have been permanent. I get basically 100% accuracy with the Apple Pencil in iOS.
- globalise83 5y agoThere is a delicious irony in the fact that you are training yourself using a reinforcement learning approach to meet the needs of an imperfect machine learning application.
- criddell 5y agoAn inexpensive bit of consumer tech. was able to accomplish something that years of human teachers could not.
- sethammons 5y agoThe insta-feedback. I learned to spell because a little red squiggly line told me to try again. I avoided the right-click to autocorrect. Now everything just autocorrects and I assume people are more and more reliant on it.
- deepdmistry 5y agoI don’t see an issue in that, we can meet machines part way to make it easier for both of us
- QuarterReptile 5y agoTo second what the other commenter said to you: I have seen someone with terrible handwriting fix it. He decided he cared, found pens and notebooks he really liked, and started using them attentively. People treat pens like they're all the same, but the drying time, line thickness, weight, drag across the paper, etc. all vary enormously, and if you care, you can probably find the right tool and get your handwriting to a point where you're happy with it.
- Fiahil 5y agoI have the same issue with my remarkable 2 : My handwriting is not OCR-able
- edoceo 5y agoPractice! I found a guide for writing letter like architect, helped me a bunch, after like 30 days of learning new letter shapes
- fesoliveira 5y agoCould you post a link to this guide? My handwriting while not horrible could use some improvement, and is not helped by the fact that I am left handed.