[HN Gopher] Sticker on caption phone says that using the caption...
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Sticker on caption phone says that using the captions can be
illegal. Why?
Author : popcalc
Score : 83 points
Date : 2024-08-25 12:07 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (law.stackexchange.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (law.stackexchange.com)
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| The answer is in the comments at the posted link, and is exactly
| what I thought -- the funding that makes the service possible is
| designed to help people with hearing disabilities, they don't
| want to pay additional for others to use the service who don't
| need it.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The service sounds awkward enough in practice that I'm not sure
| why anyone who didn't need it would want to use it.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Pranksters obscuring their identity?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41347176:
|
| > _It 's common for the relay agent to use their human
| intelligence to navigate a phone menu or get the right party
| on the line, to rephrase and clarify, since typing is so
| slow._
|
| I'd be tempted to use such a service simply for having
| someone else deal with phone menus and similar bullshit at
| the other end of the call.
| nojs wrote:
| > The service costs money. It is not automagic speech to text,
| but rather there is often (usually?) an actual human typing it
| in.
|
| I would wager whisper is more accurate than said human, and
| definitely cheaper.
| retrac wrote:
| Deaf here. In some contexts yes. In many, nope. Whisper can't
| talk to the other person. AI transcription systems on the phone
| are very awkward for both parties. Slow. Long pauses. Asking
| for clarification is a pain since the turn taking is so slow.
| The error rate is also way too high in some contexts (some
| heavily accented speakers for example).
| saagarjha wrote:
| Should've asked them for them to send you some of that
| supposed savings from using AI for taking their bet.
| nojs wrote:
| Interesting, thanks for sharing. I didn't realise it was such
| an active task. Sounds like it's much more complex than just
| transcription.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Transcription services are still horrible if you have (a)
| some kind of accent, (b) non-standard terms, or (c) noise.
| They can be better than nothing if you want some meeting
| notes and no one is taking them, but they're definitely not
| something you want to rely on for an important
| conversation.
|
| A human in a conversation of this type has the major
| advantage that, when they're not sure they've understood a
| word, they can ask the other party to repeat it.
| vonunov wrote:
| There are (still) actually good transcriptionists who
| will deliver a meticulous transcript with all your
| weirdly abbreviated jargon thoroughly researched (which
| can be a feat of truly impressive "detective" work at
| times), multiple speakers discerned, expert punctuation
| choices that fit the tone and meaning, etc. But it costs
| way more than most people can/will pay. I worked at a
| "real" (non-sweatshop) transcription outfit ca. 2012.
| Judging by my pay rate of $75 per audio hour at the time,
| I would guess that the really good operations these days
| must be charging close to $200 per audio hour. A quick
| google found one anecdatum corroborating this
| guesstimate: http://www.transprof.com/prices-faq
| distantsounds wrote:
| "you mean to tell me AI can't just replace a human?"
| retrac wrote:
| Deaf relay is done by transcriptionists. The end user relies on
| deaf relay in a way where automatic systems are not really an
| option - possibly in a life and death way if someone is calling
| their pharmacy or doctor or whatever. It's common for the relay
| agent to use their human intelligence to navigate a phone menu or
| get the right party on the line, to rephrase and clarify, since
| typing is so slow. That's actually a great benchmark for when AI
| will be ready. Can it replace humans for that task? At present
| absolutely not. (Trust me I've tried the various speech
| recognizers. Add a little noise or a mumbly person and it can
| degrade into uselessness. And the AI isn't going to interrupt
| someone immediately and then to repeat the last phrase.
|
| Anyway. You need to register for relay service with the provider.
| Using without would be unauthorized.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Have you tried Whisper large? I'm always amazed what it can
| pick up.
| retrac wrote:
| Yes. I use it every day and it's what I was benchmarking
| against mentally.
| shade wrote:
| Speaking as someone who's deaf and uses these services a lot:
| for speech to text, the AI stuff is getting rather good.
|
| I'm not saying it's perfect for every situation, but I have a
| very high success rate using InnoCaption[0] for captioned phone
| calls, including to places like restaurants with a lot of noise
| going on in the background. InnoCaption does both live person
| and AI-based captioning; since they started offering the AI-
| based option I've left that on, and I've never had to switch to
| human operators to continue a conversation.
|
| That said - I'm not deaf from birth (lost my hearing in
| elementary school), so I voice for myself and that does
| simplify the process. I have used the old school text-only
| relay services and that was always such a miserable experience
| for me that I would crawl over broken glass to avoid making
| phone calls, especially going through phone trees. That's one
| area that relay operators still have a major advantage on.
| IIRC, Google's Pixel phones are supposed to be able to navigate
| phone trees for you, but since I use iOS I have no personal
| experience there.
|
| [0] https://www.innocaption.com/
| rohansingh wrote:
| The phone tree stuff on Pixel is decent but nowhere near 100%
| reliable or robust.
|
| If it hears and understands an automated system speaking out
| a phone tree, it will start to list the options and you can
| tap on them. Usually works but often doesn't recognize that a
| phone tree is happening. Other times it recognizes the phone
| tree, but mistranscribes the options.
|
| As a non-deaf person, it's a handy UX improvement. But I
| wouldn't recommend that anyone rely on it.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| These services are indeed great for those that need them. I
| received one or two years ago when I worked at a computer
| shop. Unfortunately they were always scammers, abusing the
| system.
| mikhailt wrote:
| Yea, FCC needs to do something about the scammers.
| They're causing a lot of shops to not accept relay calls
| because of this.
| retrac wrote:
| I can't really understand speech these days without the
| captions to go with it. But I encounter discrepancies with AI
| generated captions very often. As in, I heard something and
| from context I know I'm right and the AI is wrong. With
| Whisper and other deep learning based speech systems in
| particular - they can generate very plausible
| misinterpretations - sounds similar and is grammatically
| plausible - but not what was said. Of a kind that a person
| with semantic understanding of what's going on would not
| make. So I am a little leery of them for that reason. I rely
| on it every day for generating captioning to video and so on.
| I don't find any iteration I've tried reliable or comfortable
| for interactive use.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| I've received one call in my life from such a relay service. I
| worked the phones at a retail shop selling specialty sports
| equipment. It was a normal call aside from some delays due to
| the typing and a brief introduction to explain that the person
| on the call was a middle man. It's great that these services
| exist.
| mikhailt wrote:
| Thanks for accepting that.
|
| A lot of stores don't accept them anymore because of scumbag
| scammers abusing the system, leaving us dependent on a friend
| or family member to make our calls.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That infuriates me on your behalf. It's so hard to make
| something nice to help people.
| mikhailt wrote:
| I don't know if you're outside of US that's done differently
| but in US, it's not called "deaf relay", it's just relay
| services.
|
| The relay service is not for deaf people, it's also for people
| with speech issues, deafblind, blind, and so on.
|
| > transcriptionists.
|
| Also, not as such in US. It's interpreter (usually for
| ASL/video call) or operator. Relay service relays messages in
| two ways; voice the message from the end user and then type
| from voice to the end user.
|
| AI has to be absolutely perfect to replace humans for these
| relay calls because as you said, when it comes to medical
| situations, or legal issues; who would be at fault for
| miscommunication that led to some issues?
|
| In US, you must also verify your identity to the relay service
| as federal regulations has step up the identity requirements
| recently. I had to do a video call with VRS to show my state ID
| that I'm in the state and registered with the state's relay
| services.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| (I'm not from US)
|
| I do appreciate GP using the term "deaf relay", as this
| confirmed my understanding of the StackExchange post. The
| term "relay" is so broad that, without context, I'd assume
| "relay service" in telecom is whatever relays your call
| across vendor/state/national service borders, or something.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Just look at the automatic closed captions on any news or
| sports broadcast, or enable them on a YouTube video. They are
| pretty good, but there are still some obvious errors that
| you'll see within just a few minutes.
| xg15 wrote:
| My first thought after reading the post was also more or less
| "hang on - practically usable, local, realtime speech
| recognition functionality in a 20-30 year old phone? Where is
| the error?"
|
| Your post explains it very well...
| zie wrote:
| The FCC foots the bill, via your phone bill(cell and land line).
| They don't want to foot the bill for every person on the planet,
| or even every person in the USA, just for those of us that are
| deaf/hard of hearing and need the service.
|
| If you need the service, it's free. If you don't need the service
| then you can pay for it yourself if you want it. Or do what most
| do these days and use AI and hope for the best.
|
| Yes the AI captioning stuff is improving, but they regularly
| break all the time. In my last call with AI captioning, the AI
| kept talking about lawyers. That was not a topic of discussion at
| all during the call. I was of course confused as all get out, and
| the hearing people had to type in what they actually meant.
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(page generated 2024-08-25 23:02 UTC)