Alexa, do you understand Geordie?
Online voice assistants mishear or are stumped by local slang, so users have to change the way they speak
Voice recognition software such as Amazon’s Alexa is forcing people to change their accents, as they fail to understand local inflections. According to a study, nearly four fifths of speakers with regional accents say they change the way they speak when using voice recognition devices.
THE growing popularity of voice-recognition internet assistants could drastically affect regional accents, as they often fail to recognise local twangs.
People have been masking their accents and adopting received pronunciation when talking to online voice assistants such as Alexa, Siri or Google.
According to a report from the Life Science Centre in Newcastle, nearly four fifths of speakers with regional accents say they change the way they speak to prevent hiccups when using voice recognition devices.
According to the Life Science Centre, 79 per cent of respondents who had an accent said they changed their voice to talk to the speaker. Around half said they were worried technology could lead to regional accents dying out. “At the moment we have to adapt our voices,” Linda Conlon, chief executive of the centre told The Daily Telegraph. “Wouldn’t it be great if the machine had the right data sets to second-guess the way I am going to speak”.
Dr Laurence White, senior lecturer in speech and language sciences at Newcastle University, said that if people only ever spoke to their devices it would alter their accents in the longer term, although most people tend to return to their accents of habit.
Dr White added: “Off-the-shelf speech recognition systems tend to be less good at local accents because the data that engineers use to train their devices generally come from speakers without strong regional accents.”
A recent Ofcom report estimated that 13 per cent of households now have a smart speaker. Artificial intelligence voice assistants can listen out for questions or requests. Saying the word “Alexa” will launch Amazon’s speaker, which can then be asked to read the news, make a purchase online, play music or answer a question. However, while the technology can pick up almost any word on its own, it often mishears accents or is stumped by local slang.
People have vented their frustrations on social media.
One viral clip features a woman with a strong Scottish accent asking Alexa to play a song. She is ignored until the she speaks in a feigned Cockney accent. Alexa responds immediately. The Washington Post reported earlier this year that Google Home and Alexa were around seven per cent less accurate at responding to Spanish-american accents than West Coast American voices. Alexa already “speaks” English, German, Japanese and added French earlier this year.
“We’ve worked hard to ensure Alexa can understand multiple accents, and Alexa is designed to get smarter every day,” an Amazon spokesman said. “As more people speak to Alexa, with various different accents, the more she adapts to speech patterns, vocabulary, and personal preferences.”