The Evolution of Transcription Technology: From Manual Typing to AI Solutions

Transcription technology has evolved over the years to become something very powerful. Think able to take any audio recording and convert it into text to something which has afforded a lot of people some unique opportunities to grow and develop. However, transcription technology was not always the powerhouse that you see now. It actually came from rather humble beginnings and has grown and evolved over time by incorporating new technology. Let’s take a look at how this technology has evolved, and what transcription was when it began.

From Manual Typing…

Once upon a time, transcription was simply done by typing up the documents by hand. It was a rudimentary method, and the only option available, but it was reliable, and it worked.

Transcription would work by having an entire party, sit down and record a conversation or two people would record an experiment they were doing. By having a recording of what was going on, this audio file could then be delivered to a typist, who would listen to the recording one sentence at a time and make sure that it was typed up correctly.

Obviously, this method had some rather glaring flaws to it, even if it is still workable in a pinch. The main problem that a lot of people had with the idea of this technology was the fact that it was frequently slow and always prone to mistakes. If someone forgot to add in a word or phrase, or they didn’t know how to pronounce something, then it became very difficult to type it out.

However, as the technology grew and developed, we developed more innovative ways of doing things.

… To AI Solutions

There have been a lot of methods which were basically prototype AI solutions. People theorised that they could use the technology available to them in everyday life to make transcription easier. The first attempt at doing so was to introduce the audio file to a speech to text software. However, these were not very accurate at the beginning of their lifespan, so the audio transcribed wasn’t very good.

Thankfully, with modern methods came innovation. Now there are sophisticated AI programs which are more than capable of transcribing entire documents with high levels of accuracy. Not all of these programs are perfect, and some of them require human input to go back and look at the finished product to check for mistakes, but the overall amount of time it takes to create a transcription goes down significantly.

Transcription Has Evolved Massively

The great thing about AI and transcription is that they have evolved together. It’s now very common to see the two working side-by-side and creating amazing solutions. Modern transcription is an incredibly reliable process, and delivers excellent results. Most successful transcription services employ AI as a companion tool, but will often have a real person go back over the documents to guarantee the quality. If you need great transcription, then you should check out Singapore Transcription.