Kathy Reid<p>"Good luck, Viv, I know that guy's a total douche."</p><p>"Thanks Tay. Have you got the multi-wake word model training?"</p><p>"Yeah. Are you're sure he'll pick that <a href="https://aus.social/tags/WakeWord" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WakeWord</span></a> though?"</p><p>"I'm pretty sure. He won't outright use the phrase "dole bludger" but it's pretty close."</p><p>---</p><p>A sardonic smile crept over the Prime Minister's face, the hot summer sun reflecting off his near-bald temples. </p><p>"So, by choosing a Wake Word that has difficult to pronounce sounds in it, it means that it won't work well for people who speak with an accent?"</p><p>"Yes, Prime Minister, precisely".</p><p>"Like the 'th' sound in them, there that?"</p><p>"Yes, or words that start or end with hard consonants are also difficult for some accents". </p><p>"Do we know which Wake Word would be the hardest for immigrants? Indigenous people?". </p><p>Pained, the <a href="https://aus.social/tags/linguist" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>linguist</span></a> had feared this question. She knew exactly what he was trying to do. </p><p>The long call centre queues hadn't done the trick - people had added screeners to their phones so that after being on hold for 7 hours, the phone would alert them to a picked up call. </p><p>The Assistant was supposed to be the replacement for the call centre. Just load the app on your phone, and ask it a question! So simple! No queuing! The government actually wanted to help people!</p><p>You just needed to use the Wake Word to "wake up" the assistant first. </p><p>"Well ---", she hesitated. </p><p>"I don't have all day Doctor!" </p><p>"Our research shows that a Wake Word like `This Starts With Me` has lots of hard to pronounce phonemes - sounds". </p><p>"Excellent. And I like the overtone of personal responsibility."</p><p>Of course the fucker did. </p><p>"Very well Prime Minister, we will implement that Wake Word". </p><p>He trotted off, probably to kill some babies or kittens, she thought.</p><p>---</p><p>Tay was configuring the <a href="https://aus.social/tags/DataAugmentation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>DataAugmentation</span></a> for the <a href="https://aus.social/tags/ML" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ML</span></a> training run for the <a href="https://aus.social/tags/WakeWord" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WakeWord</span></a> model. </p><p>They had just finished downloading every instance of the words "this", "starts" "with" "me" in every accent of English, from Common Voice. </p><p>By augmenting the Wake Word model with accent data, they could make it recognise more accents, more accurately. </p><p>Resistance came in many forms. </p><p>---<br><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.01454" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">arxiv.org/abs/2104.01454</span><span class="invisible"></span></a><br><a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3617694.3623258" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3617694</span><span class="invisible">.3623258</span></a><br>---</p><p><a href="https://aus.social/tags/Tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Tootfic</span></a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Microfiction</span></a></p>