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1. cootsn+(OP)[view] [source] 2026-02-04 17:46:47
The error rate for human transcription can be as high as 5%.
replies(2): >>XCSme+Q1 >>qingch+Ab1
2. XCSme+Q1[view] [source] 2026-02-04 17:53:03
>>cootsn+(OP)
Oh wow, I thought humans are like 0.1% error rate, if they are native speakers and aware of the subject being discussed.
replies(3): >>zipy12+yi >>rhdunn+6G >>Nimitz+QL
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3. zipy12+yi[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-02-04 19:01:47
>>XCSme+Q1
I was skepitcal upon hearing the figure but various sources do indeed back it up and [0] is a pretty interesting paper (old but still relevant human transcibers haven't changed in accuracy).

[0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...

replies(1): >>XCSme+Rn
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4. XCSme+Rn[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-02-04 19:28:00
>>zipy12+yi
I think it's actually hard to verify how correct a transcription is, at scale. Curious where those error rate numbers come from, because they should test it on people actually doing their job.
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5. rhdunn+6G[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-02-04 20:51:55
>>XCSme+Q1
It can depend a lot on different factors like:

- familiarity with the accent and/or speaker;

- speed and style/cadence of the speech;

- any other audio that is happening that can muffle or distort the audio;

- etc.

It can also take multiple passes to get a decent transcription.

replies(1): >>qingch+Lb1
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6. Nimitz+QL[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-02-04 21:17:42
>>XCSme+Q1
Most of these errors will not be meaningful. Real speech is full of ambiguities. 3% is low
7. qingch+Ab1[view] [source] 2026-02-04 23:38:29
>>cootsn+(OP)
I did transcription for a while in 2021. It is absurdly hard. Especially as these days humans only get the difficult jobs that AI has already taken a stab at.

The hardest one I did was for a sports network where it was a motorcross motorbike event where most of what you could hear was the roar of the bikes. There were two commentators I had to transcribe over the top of that mess and they were using the slang insider nicknames for all the riders, not their published names, so I had to sit and Google forums to find the names of the riders while I was listening. I'm not even sure how these local models would even be able to handle that insanity at all because they almost certainly lack enough domain knowledge.

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8. qingch+Lb1[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-02-04 23:39:57
>>rhdunn+6G
You missed a giant factor: domain knowledge. Transcribing something outside of your knowledge realm is very hard. I posted above about transcribing the commentary of a motorbike race where the commentators only used the slang names of the riders.
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