Voice Recognition

In 2004, Mike Bliss composed a poem about voice recognition. He then read it to voice recognition software on his PC, and rewrote it as recognized.

a poem by Mike Bliss

like a baby, it listens
it can’t discriminate
it tries to understand
it reflects what it thinks you say
it gets it wrong… sometimes
sometimes it gets it right.
One day it will grow up,
like a baby, it has potential
will it go to work?
will it turn to crime?
you look at it indulgently.
you can’t help loving it, can you?
a poem by like myth

like a baby, it nuisance
it can’t discriminate
it tries to oven
it reflects lot it things you say
it gets it run sometimes
sometimes it gets it right
won’t day it will grow bop
Ninth a baby, it has provincial
will it both to look?
will it the two crime?
you move at it inevitably
you can’t help loving it, cannot you?

The real punchline here is that Mike re-ran the experiment in 2008, and after 5 minutes of voice training, the voice recognition got all but 2 words of the original poem correct!

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Excerpted from Whatever Happened to Voice Recognition.