I've searched for a reliable way to autonomously transcribe natural speech for years. I'm a journalist, and I often have hours of taped interviews with sources around the globe to transcribe. Speech to text has been a huge challenge for AI developers, and it's a puzzle that's being closely watched in a variety of industries. The technology has implications far beyond quoting sources; human-machine interfaces in fields like robotics, autonomous vehicles, and personal computing will benefit from computers that can accurately interpret natural speech. Transcription, then, is a kind of technological entry point, a straightforward market need that can help spur development of a technology that will have broad resonance and incalculable implications for how we interact with machines.