- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
You must log in or # to comment.
God fuck them. They are hunting for hype and not making linux better for the masses
Offline-only speech-to-text, integrated with the desktop for push-to-talk voice typing? That’s the kind of AI that I’d like to see. Actually add features that can help people without harming their rights. I’m still moving new machines to Debian but this is nice.
Also how is speech to text AI? It has existed for decades, obviously a lot better now but I don’t think I’d consider it “AI”
I have been using a speech-to-text AI system the last day, and I’m using a whisper large 3 turbo and a rewording model that fixes the sentence but doesn’t rewrite it, and it’s almost perfect. I’m using European-hosted AI through cortecs.ai, and it’s really cheap.
There’s been ML and non-ML ways of doing STT over the years. as far as I recall. The current best implementations are ML-based. In coloquial terms ML algorithms are AI. We used to call them AI in the 2010s, before AI was (un)cool.
And ‘AI’ has existed since the 1950s.
yeah but this kinda adds climate changes cuz more PCs warm up
Erm, no.
Come on.
Offline-only is privacy-respecting. Accessibility is a noble goal.
All in all, if there’s an AI usecase that’s as morally acceptable as it gets, it’s this one.
I get that it’s Ubuntu of all people, but even Big Tech produces some ideas every now and then that FOSS lovers can get behind and democratize!
My grandma used to hate tech until she learned to use the voice assistance on her mobile phone. It unlocked the phone for her because she doesnt have the dexterity to type. I hope one day this tool could get to that same point.
Bit of a click baity title lol. Of theres one good use of AI, its probably accessibility.
Yeah, “Ubuntu wants you to use their new feature” is… unsurprising. Explaining the benefits and purpose of that feature? Now you’re talking.
More AI stuff as usual, waiting to see demonstration how this will work
Well fuck you too Canonical.
Thanks Canonical…I’ll just throw it in the pile with all the other “wonderful” things you’ve made. It can go on the shelf next to Mir.
I’ll just leave this here… https://debian.org/
I think Ubuntu is the Windows 11 of Linux distros.
Implicit optional features to use local LLMs for STT is something that I think most reasonable people could get behind. Too many accessibility tools for the disabled sit behind paywalls and subscription models.
Based on what I read/saw and got out of it, I am real disappointed it looks like it’s gonna be using genAI instead of another form of AI we’ve been using for transcription. Otherwise, sounds like trying to be a modern genAI version of that speech to text software I’d see ads for on TV. Possibly good for accessibility, but I’ll wait and see after it comes out.
At least they claim the whole thing to be done offline after model installation and it’s allegedly sandboxed with the audio data being stored in a memory buffer that allegedly will be erased after the session. So I’ll have to wait and see how this all plays out before making more judgments on it.
Well they can listen to my voice when I say this:
no thanks
“Our new AI listens to you and will do whatever you tell it to do.”
“Tell it to fuck off.”
The framework split things into two groups, implicit AI that quietly improves what you already use and explicit AI that are features you’d actually summon on purpose.
The very first paragraph already upsets me. Have in mind, I would criticize this on every other operating system too. I believe no one should use Ai tools that act autonomously in the background, to improve or change what you already use. It should always be a “summon on purpose”.
Being real, this is why I fucking hate the bullshit, corporate greed hype of LLMs and generative software. All the “bubble” shit? It tars all versions of the technology with the same brush.
This? This is exactly what it should be used for. And, ffs, earlier speech to text was really the same fucking thing in essence. Software that took input in the form of voice, compared it to a set of data, and made a best guess at what you meant. Yeah, the details are different, but it’s the same concept.
This? This is fucking awesome. Locally run, and doing a job that’s vital in accessibility, with the side benefit of being useful to others. Assuming canonical is being honest anyway.
But this kind of thing should be the way things are done.
That’s why we should not call everything AI
But it is AI, so it should be called that. People should adjust their simplistic notions about the term instead
Nah, it isn’t. Intelligence implies independence. What it is is a fancy algorithm with a big data set.
It doesn’t have to be general ai to be called ai, but so far none of the models I’m aware of have reached a standard to be called intelligence in the colloquial sense for sure
The term used in academic literature and the field itself for that kind of technology is and has been AI for at least ten years. Intelligence doesn’t imply independence anyways? And besides, even if it did, thats why an entire 50% of the term consists of the modifier “artificial”. So like, you’re right that it isn’t intelligence in the colloquial sense. It’s artificial intelligence in the technical and standardized sense, though. The use of term is pretty much totally undebatable. Just because people don’t like the term now doesn’t change that.
This would have been better received if they just didn’t use AI in the name. Sure, it’s just using an LLM under the hood, but it’s running purely locally. It also betters Linux since it helps address an accessibility issue.
Even if we called them LLMs, which we should, people will keep having these negative connotations to the technology because of overmarketing. This feature is still using LLMs, and that’s not supposed to be a bad thing.
Stop blaming the technology, and blame the corpos pushing it to the moon. This is “BitTorrent is only used for piracy” bullshit all over again.
