Speech recognition now influences important aspects of people’s lives, including immigration decisions, job hiring, and transportation, among many other things. The fact is that speech recognition understands white male voices well…but what about the rest of us?Īccuracy rates are more important than playing music. It’s doubtful these biases are intentional, but they are still problematic. To be clear, I do not believe that the creators of these systems set out to build racist or sexist products. As with facial recognition, web searches, and even soap dispensers, speech recognition is another form of AI that performs worse for women and non-white people. Speech recognition has significant race and gender biases. ![]() While that’s an impressive number, it begs the question: 95% accurate for whom? In 2017, Google announced that their speech recognition had a 95% accuracy rate. Google reports that 20% of their searches are made by voice query today - a number that’s predicted to climb to 50% by 2020. Forecasts suggest that voice commerce will be an $80 billion business by 2023. Voice AI is becoming increasingly ubiquitous and powerful. ![]() Because these biases have serious consequences in people’s live, and because everyone deserves to have their voice heard. And it’s something we all need to keep talking about. Remember that women and minorities have huge purchasing power - why wouldn’t companies want to solve this problem? It’s a missed business opportunity. But if that alone doesn’t convince companies to fix the problem, they should consider that the accuracy of speech recognition also affects customer purchasing decisions. This is absolutely a matter of social injustice. That means that speech recognition accuracy - or lack thereof - could prevent you from immigrating to a new country, getting a job, or traveling safely. And speech recognition now influences important aspects of people’s lives, including immigration decisions, job hiring, and transportation, among many other things. The undulating waves of vocal motion are virtually non-existent.As with facial recognition, web searches, and even soap dispensers, speech recognition is another form of AI that performs worse for women and non-white people. Those with spasmodic dysphonia have irregular vocal muscle function, leading to broken, chopped, irregular speech. The process of producing a clear voice engages multiple muscles and neurologic pathways enabling the individual to breathe and speak with ease and range. ![]() When healthy vocal cords come together, there is a barely visible wave of movement, enabling humans to create varied pitch and volume, both altered by the frequency of these smooth, undulating waves. ![]() Normally when speaking, the vocal cords open during breathing, and gently close together in unison to create vocal sounds. Spasmodic dysphonia (SD) is a neurologic disorder of the vocal cords. While rare, it is well known to those in the field of otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat surgeons), voice therapists, and vocal trainers. The sound created is mimicking an entity known as spasmodic dysphonia, a rare voice disorder affecting between one and four in 100,000 people, usually appearing at age 30-50 years.
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