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Ironically you seem to be focusing too much on the exact words and phrases I used rather than the deeper meaning. So let's just get completely away from words

by slg 2y ago

Ironically you seem to be focusing too much on the exact words and phrases I used rather than the deeper meaning. So let's just get completely away from words like "knows" and "understanding" which seem to be tripping multiple people up. > It's just a substring match. Let's just say this is true. That is a super simply process, but what would it look like? Step 1: Transcribe the audio into text Step 2: Run substring match on text The transcribing/close captioning feature only does step 1. This shows that a step 2 is possible. I think you would have to be naive to think the capability to do this type of analysis on the transcribed text was designed for only this feature and would never be used for anything else. This feature is announcing that Youtube isn't merely creating transcripts of the audio in videos, it is running some unknown amount of analysis on that data. As I said in my original comment, "it isn't that I didn't know Google had this ability", but this is literally a glowing sign pointing to this fact. I think the danger of Google reminding people of this has potential to outweigh the benefit of the "that's cute" reaction that this is designed to elicit.

jrvieira 2y ago
so you're not so worried that they do this analysis (this is very tame comparing to what they really do), but rather that they are transparent about it?
johnfn 2y ago
> I think you would have to be naive to think the capability to do this type of analysis on the transcribed text was designed for only this feature and would never be used for anything else. Why would you have to be naive to believe this? The subtitles, with timings, are available on the client-side already. You seem to allude that doing this work would require some sort of deep analysis work. I think it's really more like 5 lines of JS, and 4 of them are producing the fun animated gradient :P
- slg 2y ago
  It isn’t about this requiring “deep analysis work”. It is the difference between some analysis and no analysis. That increase from 0 to 1 is always the biggest hurdle to clear when it comes to any corporate behavior like this. This feature is like walking into your kitchen one day to find a dead cockroach. I’m saying that is an indication of a cockroach problem while you’re effectively responding with “it’s fine, the one cockroach is dead and there is no reason to believe there are any others.”
  - johnfn 2y ago
    In a previous post, you said this: > This feature suggests Google understands what was said. Running .includes() on the client does not imply that Google has any "understanding" of what was said. It only implies that they ran .includes() on the client. includes() does not "understand" anything. The thing I really don't understand is this: the fact that Google has closed captions at all implies they do an enormous more "analysis" than this minor feature could possibly require. If you understand how Google does CCs and what that means, this shouldn't have bothered you at all. In your analogy, it's like you see a mound of a hundred thousand cockroaches, but you're are worried about a dust speck in another room.
    - slg 2y ago
      >Running .includes() on the client does not imply that Google has any "understanding" of what was said. It only implies that they ran .includes() on the client. includes() does not "understand" anything. Do you want to have a good faith conversation about this? Because going back to debating the meaning of "understanding" after I already said this was misleading is not a good way to have a conversation. >The thing I really don't understand is this: the fact that Google has closed captions at all implies they do an enormous more "analysis" than this minor feature could possibly require. If you understand how Google does CCs and what that means, this shouldn't have bothered you at all. Can we set up a baseline that there is a difference between content agnostic analysis and content aware analysis? Transcripts are content agnostic in that they can be produced without any comprehension of the words said. This feature is content aware in that it is looking for specific meaning in the words said. Do you not see any difference between these two?
      - FrequentLurker 2y ago
        Google also censors all swear words in the auto transcriptions so is it content agnostic anymore?
        slg 2y ago
        That depends on how the transcription software is written. Are swear words filtered out or are they just never in the system's vocabulary in the first place? I assumed the latter, but fair enough point. It is possible my categorization needs more thought. Regardless, there is in my opinion a clear distinction in sophistication between a filter and something that triggers a timed action. And that was really what my original comment was about, this feature's elevated sophistication is a conscious reminder of Google's capabilities. Normally that is out of sight and out of mind which is probably better for Google.
zamadatix 2y ago
You've overlooked that automatic transcription also includes the filtering of certain words based on match lists as well.

by slg 2y ago

jrvieira 2y ago

so you're not so worried that they do this analysis (this is very tame comparing to what they really do), but rather that they are transparent about it?

johnfn 2y ago

> I think you would have to be naive to think the capability to do this type of analysis on the transcribed text was designed for only this feature and would never be used for anything else. Why would you have to be naive to believe this? The subtitles, with timings, are available on the client-side already. You seem to allude that doing this work would require some sort of deep analysis work. I think it's really more like 5 lines of JS, and 4 of them are producing the fun animated gradient :P

slg 2y ago
It isn’t about this requiring “deep analysis work”. It is the difference between some analysis and no analysis. That increase from 0 to 1 is always the biggest hurdle to clear when it comes to any corporate behavior like this. This feature is like walking into your kitchen one day to find a dead cockroach. I’m saying that is an indication of a cockroach problem while you’re effectively responding with “it’s fine, the one cockroach is dead and there is no reason to believe there are any others.”
- johnfn 2y ago
  In a previous post, you said this: > This feature suggests Google understands what was said. Running .includes() on the client does not imply that Google has any "understanding" of what was said. It only implies that they ran .includes() on the client. includes() does not "understand" anything. The thing I really don't understand is this: the fact that Google has closed captions at all implies they do an enormous more "analysis" than this minor feature could possibly require. If you understand how Google does CCs and what that means, this shouldn't have bothered you at all. In your analogy, it's like you see a mound of a hundred thousand cockroaches, but you're are worried about a dust speck in another room.
  - slg 2y ago
    >Running .includes() on the client does not imply that Google has any "understanding" of what was said. It only implies that they ran .includes() on the client. includes() does not "understand" anything. Do you want to have a good faith conversation about this? Because going back to debating the meaning of "understanding" after I already said this was misleading is not a good way to have a conversation. >The thing I really don't understand is this: the fact that Google has closed captions at all implies they do an enormous more "analysis" than this minor feature could possibly require. If you understand how Google does CCs and what that means, this shouldn't have bothered you at all. Can we set up a baseline that there is a difference between content agnostic analysis and content aware analysis? Transcripts are content agnostic in that they can be produced without any comprehension of the words said. This feature is content aware in that it is looking for specific meaning in the words said. Do you not see any difference between these two?
    - FrequentLurker 2y ago
      Google also censors all swear words in the auto transcriptions so is it content agnostic anymore?
      - slg 2y ago
        That depends on how the transcription software is written. Are swear words filtered out or are they just never in the system's vocabulary in the first place? I assumed the latter, but fair enough point. It is possible my categorization needs more thought. Regardless, there is in my opinion a clear distinction in sophistication between a filter and something that triggers a timed action. And that was really what my original comment was about, this feature's elevated sophistication is a conscious reminder of Google's capabilities. Normally that is out of sight and out of mind which is probably better for Google.

zamadatix 2y ago

You've overlooked that automatic transcription also includes the filtering of certain words based on match lists as well.