Hon. Steve Rodan displaying the voice-recognition technology being used in the Parliament of the Isle of Man.
passage.The resulting “profile” is then improved over a period of time by using the corrected audio from each session to adapt its acoustic and lan- guage elements – in other words, attempting to learn the Member’s speech patterns and use of language. We anticipate that this process will take approximately six months, but at the end of that period of “training”, we expect the voice profiles to pro- duce a much more accurate tran- scription. Of course, for Parliaments which sit more frequently, the “train- ing” of Members’ voice profiles could be considerably faster… Context is an important element in
speech recognition as the computer does not work like the human ear.As part of the development process,we have created a substantial dictionary of Manx parliamentary phrases and expressions. In addition, as a matter of routine,we now input material from order and question papers prior to debates taking place.All of this helps to create the framework of words within which the speech recognition engine can successfully navigate.
The upside
Although single user speech recogni- tion has been available for many years, what is new about the Tynwald system is that it has successfully adapted the technology to include an infinite num- ber of speakers on one audio channel. Each speaker has a separate micro- phone, and as he or she stands up to
speak, the chamber editor uses a touch screen to switch in the correct voice profile, creating an “utterance” which is then automatically transcribed. Meanwhile, back in their offices, the other four full-time editors are already hard at work, correcting the text as it appears on their screens. Working consecutively, each editor takes an “utterance” and checks it against the audio, which can be played and replayed until he or she is satisfied with the result. From taking an average of five or six days to process and pub- lish,we published our first same day Hansard on 15 April 2008 and now routinely achieve electronic publication within one or two days. Clearly, this has been a friendly
revolution for the office of the offi- cial report, all of whose staff are fully committed to improving their service to Members and the public. On a broader front, however, there has been a gradual but significant decrease in the number of self- employed home-workers who have, traditionally, provided the backbone of the parliamentary transcription service. From a peak of 20 home transcribers in 2007,we expect to retain no more than five after com- pletion of the transition to speech recognition in all three chambers. The effect of these changes has
already been felt, with transcription costs for the short summer sitting of Tynwald alone falling by more than £7,000. Once speech recognition has
been introduced into the House of Keys3
and the Legislative Council,4
annual savings are expected to exceed the total cost of the specialist software and associated hardware. Although working with the new
software has made considerable demands on Mr Faulds and his edit- ing team, who now work voluntary late nights and sometimes sit at their screens almost non-stop for up to a week, the end result has been well worthwhile – particularly as the team feels it has touched the future. After all, the concept of producing Hansard throughout the Commonwealth can never be quite the same again.
References: 1. Tynwald, the Isle of Man’s Parliament, consists of 35 Members. Both are Chambers in their own right, but sit together as Tynwald for three days every month. For further details log onto:www.tynwald.org.im
2. The speech recognition software, MultiSpeak, has been developed by Voice Perfect (Australia) using a Dragon speech engine,work ing together with VoicePower (U.K.) and Tynwald’s Office of the Official Report.
3. The elected branch sits once a week during the parliamentary term to consider legislation.
4. The revising Chamber sits once a week during the parliamentary term.