Wednesday, March 31

Google! Flunk!

Google should be called Giggle. One of my nieces in Australia has a Web site that teaches people to create things from paper. It’s called Paper Craft Central, and is about paper crafting, including things like scrapbooking, which is very popular here in the US. She made a video to introduce people to her Web site. I clicked on the YouTube video and watched, but couldn’t get the audio, just silence. Undaunted, I enabled the feature called Transcribe Audio. Words appeared below the picture just like the closed captioning you can receive on most new TV sets.

I asked her if what I read on Transcribe Audio was anything like what she had actually said. She was amused with Google’s translation, and sent me a script of her words; it goes like this:

“Hmm. Should I cut it out, or leave it as it is? Decisions, decisions.

“Oh, hi! I’m Susan of PaperCraftCentral. Welcome. Among the pages here you’ll find lots of ideas for making scrapbook layouts, handmade greeting cards, artist trading cards, three-dimensional paper projects and more. You’ll also find places you can share your own work with me, which I hope you will do.

“I have a free newsletter that I would love for you to subscribe to. It’s called Paper Twists. You can subscribe to it by scrolling down on this page and finding the ‘subscribe’ button.

“I hope you enjoy your stay here. Happy paper crafting!”

Here is the Google Transcribe Audio version. It is simply incredible:

“Mm. Should colin powell leavitt presidents since this is it.

“Ohio. I’m a citizen of had across central. Welcome. Another fuel find lots of ideas the makings that behalf. Kennedy not I was trying to harness the intentional qaida in Iraq animal.

“You’ll also find places that you can’t sit here and I think the that the military I happen to you.

“There are a lot of resistance life today it’s called victories. You can subscribe to it by selling down from the sky is and binding is this going to happen. I’m going to resist idea how do you take a crafty.”

Admittedly, Australian and American English don’t exactly rhyme, but Google! Back to the drawing board! At least run it through an Aussie filter.

5 comments:

Pat said...

Is this a Tom Joke? My audio worked just fine, and it was a pleasure to hear Susan's voice. Maybe you need a new computer.

Pete S. said...

The Google transcriber apparently has a heavy bias towards government-style vocabulary. Look at the words it thought it heard in the audio:

colin powell
Ohio
presidents
fuel
Kennedy
qaida in Iraq
military
resistance
victories
resist

These words are not common in real conversations. Google needs to turn down the war-news knob on their transcriber.

Susan Hurley-Luke said...

Ha ha! Mom and I are still laughing about the 'translation'. I was highly amused to see that so many political words could be 'translated' from my paper craft spiel. I had no idea I was so up to date with current events. It just goes to show, you never know how others will see you....

Aunt Pat, I'm glad you could hear my video :) XX

Pete S. said...

I forgot to mention that I also got the audio just fine. Nice work, Susan!

Tom Hurley said...

The first time I tried to hear the video, it had no sound. The second time I logged in, the sound worked fine. It was a temporary glitch. Had it worked the first time, this blog wouldn't have occurred at all. So it was serendipitous that we all got a Gaggle of Google Giggles.