When the researchers manually checked examples of inappropriate words in captions, they often appeared with speech by children or people who appeared not to be native English speakers. KhudaBukhsh says that YouTube’s system likely inserts profanities sometimes because its training data included primarily speech by adults, and less from children. Machine learning algorithms “learn” a task by processing large amounts of training data-in this case audio files and matching transcripts. One startup had to revamp its adventure game after it was found to sometimes describe sexual scenarios involving minors. Algorithms have improved their ability to process language but still lack a capacity for fuller understanding-something that has caused problems for other companies relying on machines to process text. Those blind spots can seem surprising to humans who make sense of speech in part by understanding the broader context and meaning of a person’s words. Search our artificial intelligence database and discover stories by sector, tech, company, and more.

Trint CEO Jeffrey Kofman says the service has a profanity filter that automatically redacts “a very small list of words.” The particular spelling that appeared in WIRED’s transcript was not on that list, Kofman said, but it will be added. One WIRED reporter found that a transcript of a phone call processed by startup Trint rendered Negar, a woman’s name of Persian origin, as a variant of the N-word, even though it sounds distinctly different to the human ear. Inappropriate hallucinations are not unique to YouTube or video captions.

Alafair Hall, a spokesperson for Pocket.watch, a children's entertainment studio that publishes Ryan's World content, says in a statement the company is 'in close and immediate contact with our platform partners such as YouTube who work to update any incorrect video captions.' The operator of the Rob the Robot channel could not be reached for comment.

“We are continually working to improve automatic captions and reduce errors,” she says. On the standard version of YouTube, she says the feature improves accessibility. YouTube spokesperson Jessica Gibby says children under 13 are recommended to use YouTube Kids, where automated captions cannot be seen.

“The benefits of speech-to-text are undeniable, but there are blind spots in these systems that can require checks and balances.”Īshique KhudaBukhsh, assistant professor, Rochester Institute of Technology

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