Voice to Text

Voice to text programs do just that, they take what you say and put it into writing. This technology garnered mixed opinions among those who use it. My mom swears by it. She constantly uses voice to text to send text messages, even if they don’t always make sense. In the article I read, “Failures in voice-to-text technology”, Alexandra Petri tells us how this technology, despite being constantly forced into our lives in some way or another, ultimately does not work. Petri attempts to tell Siri: “Why don’t voice operated software technologies understand me when I talk to them?” To which Siri replies “I’m not sure I understand.” This in itself is one of the arguments that she uses to point out that we simply have not perfected this technology yet.

Voice to text technology was invented for those who are incapable, or do not enjoy, typing on a computer, but need it in order to write papers, emails, texts, etc. The author describes this technology with a cultural determinist view. She says that this technology was invented to make our lives easier, even though this isn’t always the case. I agree with this. this technology arises from the need to be able to type on a computer if your not able, which is exactly what cultural determinism is about, creating technology to fulfill a societal want or need. In theory, this is a great idea, and one that could potentially change many peoples lives. However, so far, we have not been able to create a program that works one hundred percent of the time, or for some people even seventy percent of the time. The author even goes on to say that “The single least realistic facet of Star Trek, Star Wars, and even “2001: A Space Odyssey” is the fact that everyone on board those futuristic crafts has access to voice-operated technology and it works without a hitch, every time, unless it has deliberately decided not to.