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A decade ago, we in the free and open-source community could build our own versions of pretty much any proprietary software system out there, and we did. Publishing, collaboration, commerce, you name it. Some apps were worse, some were better than closed alternatives, but much of it was clearly good enough to use every day.
But is this still true? For example, voice control is clearly going to be a primary way we interact with our gadgets in the future. Speaking to an Amazon Echo-like device while sitting on my couch makes a lot more sense than using a web browser. Will we ever be able to do that without going through somebody's proprietary silo like Amazon's or Apple's? Where are the free and/or open-source versions of Siri, Alexa and so forth?
The trouble, of course, is not so much the code, but in the training. The best speech recognition code isn't going to be competitive unless it has been trained with about as many millions of hours of example speech as the closed engines from Apple, Google and so forth have been. How can we do that?
[...] Who has a plan, and where can I sign up to it?
Perhaps a distributed computing project (along the lines of Folding@Home, SETI, etc.) would be a viable approach?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Sunday September 25 2016, @07:27PM
I'd definitely be more comfortable (not privacy wise or security wise, unless open source and trusted) with thought recognition so i could think something and have it happen.
Talking into my tablet was cute for 2 seconds, and now unused. I hate phones (would have bought one of the ubuntu phones if i'd had the money and it came through on indiegogo or whatever, simply because 'mobile computer') and hate talking to phones and people. I prefer face to face, i guess so i can more easily recognize sarcasm, humour etc.
Talking to my computer would be tiresome for me, i think. Probably give me a headache, and i'd be looking for a keyboard/else.
I think viavoice, etc didn't take off partially because of recognition problems, but also because people felt too uncomfortable talking to their computer with other people hanging around.
(Although, i may prefer talking to a robot who was logical, just like i don't mind talking to intelligent logical people.... i just hate talking to morons... especially morons on the phone, except you can just hang up on them instead of having to try to walk away from them and have them follow you.)
Yeah, give me a sexy femsexbot with logic circuits and i'd probably talk more, lol.
I love my wife, but sometimes logic just ain't there. Intelligence yes, logic not as much.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday September 25 2016, @10:13PM
Talking to my computer would be tiresome for me, i think. Probably give me a headache, and i'd be looking for a keyboard/else.
Tiresome is the least of the problems. There is annoying, disruptive, not-private that should be added to the list.
But right up there at the top of the list is Too Damn Easy to Weaponize for spying.
Analyzing a lot of speech (sound) is hard and time consuming.
But recording or real-time speech-to-text (mountains of it) for later analysis or instant analysis has a lot of potential for abuse.
We just can't seem to keep ourselves from building skynet.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @07:30AM
Siri, open web browser.
Siri, go to pornhub.com
Siri, hide browser.
Hi mom, no I was just talking to myself.