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Taylor Swift and Transcriptionists Stump IBM Watson in Song Lyric Challenge

by Featured Guest April 17, 2016 1:02 pm

When the machines (inevitably) take over the world, our songs will be safe.

In a recent test, a human-based transcription service pitted two of professionals against IBM supercomputer Watson to see who could more accurately transcribe popular song lyrics, including those of Taylor Swift.

The result: The humans won handedly. In fact, the transcriptionists didn’t make a single error during the four-song test. Watson combined for a whopping 33 errors, including 29 missing words. While he may be a reigning Jeopardy! champion, Watson’s still no match for T-Swizzle. (But… then again, who is?!)

To make the challenge fair, a cappella versions of each song were used so Watson wouldn’t be “confused” by the music when using speech-to-text software. Next, they “unplugged” Watson so he couldn’t access the Internet. The transcriptionists were held to similar standards, “pinky promising” they didn’t already know the songs used and wouldn’t look them up.

Yet, this wasn’t a preemptive attack on machines everywhere. It was “just for fun.” The original concept was to see if Watson would produce any mondegreens—funny misunderstandings of song lyrics. In this aspect, the experiment failed. Watson came off as random and befuddled while the transcriptionists were perfect. Mondegreens are hilarious, yet the closest Watson got was during “Runnin’ With The Devil.” He confused, “Least I don’t need to beg or borrow” with his own interpretation: “The startled me truck bed through barlow.” (He must have thought it was a country song…)

Fun aside, there is no doubt a lesson behind this. Watson may be the “smartest machine on Earth,” but he can’t process speech as clearly as people. All the knowledge in the world will never replace human understanding.

The computers haven’t won… yet. Until then, machines beware! T-Swizzle will continue to be trouble (trouble, trouble)…

Taylor Swift vs IBM Watson-Song Lyrics Challenge

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