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Google's YouTube Speech Transcription... Not Quite Ready for Prime Time
It's fun and sometimes funny to watch Google struggle to transcribe, through automated means, the spoken audio on a YouTube video.
I watched this video of Jeff Daniels reciting the Gettysburg Address and found that Google did okay, perhaps 90% right. But 90% right is still enough to get you in big trouble.
Here is the exact transcript, compared to the actual speech. I've added periods to the end of sentences and capitalized the first letter of the first word of the following sentence but otherwise, it's as is:
| Google Transcription | Actual Text |
| Forestall or in seven years ago | Four score and seven years ago |
| our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation | our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation |
| conceived in liberty | conceived in liberty |
| and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created. | and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. |
| Now we are engaged in a great civil war | Now we are engaged in a great civil war |
| testing whether that nation | testing whether that nation |
| or any nation so conceived and so dedicated | or any nation so conceived and so dedicated |
| can lock on the door. | can long endure. |
| We are met on a great battlefield of that war. | We are met on a great battlefield of that war. |
| We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place | We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place |
| for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. | for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. |
| It is altogether fitting and proper | It is altogether fitting and proper |
| the we should do this. | that we should do this. |
| But in a larger sense | But in a larger sense |
| we cannot dedicate | we cannot dedicate |
| we cannot concentrate | we cannot consecrate |
| we cannot hal all this ground. | we cannot hallow this ground. |
| The brave man | The brave men |
| living and dad who struggled here | living and dead who struggled here |
| have consecrated it | have consecrated it |
| far above our poor power to add or detract. | far above our poor power to add or detract. |
| Both will little note nor long remember what we say here | The world will little note nor long remember what we say here |
| but it can never forget what they did here. | but it can never forget what they did here. |
| it is for us the living | It is for us the living |
| rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work | rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work |
| which they who fought here have thus | which they who fought here have thus |
| far so nobly advanced | far so nobly advanced. |
| It is rather for us to be here | It is rather for us to be here |
| dedicated to the great task remaining before us | dedicated to the great task remaining before us |
| that from these honored dead | that from these honored dead |
| we take increased devotion to that cause for | we take increased devotion to that cause for |
| which they gave the last full measure of devotion. | which they gave the last full measure of devotion. |
| That we hear highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain | That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain |
| that this nation under God | that this nation under God |
| still have a new birth of freedom | shall have a new birth of freedom |
| and that government of the people | and that government of the people |
| by the people | by the people |
| four help people | for the people |
| John nor perish | shall not perish |
| from the air. | from this Earth. |
Not bad, but not quite there yet.
