IBM technology moves even closer to human speech recognition parity

IBM this week said its speech recognition system set an industry record of 5.5% word error rate, a percentage that lets a computer understand human conversation almost as well as the average person does. According to IBM human parity was considered a 5.9% word error rate but IBM who partnered with Appen, a speech and technology service provider, reassessed the industry benchmark and determined that human parity is lower than what anyone has yet achieved: 5.1%. "Reaching human parity – meaning an error rate on par with that of two humans speaking – has long been the ultimate industry goal. Others in the industry are chasing this milestone alongside us, and some have recently claimed reaching 5.9% as equivalent to human parity…but we're not popping the champagne yet. As part of our process in reaching today's milestone, we determined human parity is actually lower than what anyone has yet achieved -- at 5.1%," wrote George Saon principal research scientist with IBM in a blog post on the subject. That reassessment however might ruffle some feathers as in October Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research group said its speech recognition system had attained "human parity" and made fewer errors than a human professional transcriptionist.