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Talking 'bout a computer revolution
Speech recognition technology promises to transform how we interact with computers -- or turn us all into mindless gibbering automatons.

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By Janelle Brown

Oct. 29, 1999 | I thought about starting this article about speech-recognition technology with a lament about my long-suffering wrists, which, thanks to my excessively speedy -- and prodigious -- typing, have lately been in a state of anguish. I debated sentences like "The latest voice software offers a feasible solution for those suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome" or "I wrote this entire article with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and not once did my hand touch the keyboard."

But I didn't write this entire article with speech-recognition software -- though I did compose bits and pieces of it using my new Dragon NaturallySpeaking program (a bonus prize to readers who can figure out which sentences were voice-activated). That, in itself, is indicative of just how far speech-recognition technology still has to go before we're all using it as our everyday computer interface.

To be blunt, the four days I spent testing voice-recognition software programs added up to perhaps one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever had with a computer. I spent hours repeating myself over and over, talking in the peculiarly stilted manner that voice-recognition software forces upon its users, waiting for words to spill across the page and catch up with my own garbled speech. It's not a task for those low on patience -- I discovered quite quickly that Dragon NaturallySpeaking knows how to spell "God damn it" but has a hard time with "fucking computer" -- and it takes great will to not exasperatedly give up and type instead. If I -- someone who has a vested interest in using this technology -- can't put up with the software, how good can it be?

Yet speech-recognition technology has dramatically improved, and continues to do so. The software that is available now -- programs like Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred, IBM ViaVoice, and Lernout & Hauspie's Voice XPress Professional -- are vastly better than the software that was available just a few years ago. Further progress is inevitable; researchers like professor Theodore Berger at the University of Southern California are already coming up with new breakthroughs that promise astonishingly accurate results in the near future. And speech interfaces are, slowly but steadily, creeping into our lives.

The market for speech technology has more than doubled in the last two years -- speech-recognition software sales in 1997, according to research firm PC Data, hovered around the 200,000-unit mark; in 1999 so far, more than 522,000 units have already been sold. So even if I didn't have the patience today to use speech technology to input this entire story, I have no doubt that someday I will. Experts predict that within the next five years (if not sooner), we will merely dictate phone numbers and addresses into our personal digital assistants, instead of typing them in. We'll ask our house to turn on the light for us (no clapping necessary!) and casually tell our computer to download the front page of the New York Times and print it. We'll ask our cell phone to call the doctor; our car to tune the radio to NPR; our VCR to record the next "X-Files" episode. We won't need a keyboard, stylus, mouse or even our fingers -- just a mouth.

Next page | The joy and sorrow of not typing