Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Google Scribe

Seated Scribe at Louvre Museum, Paris, France.Image via Wikipedia
I am doing this post mainly to see how good this stuff called Google Scribe is. I have the bookmarklet installed on my browser, and I see a blue pencil hovering on top of the right hand corner of this text box. It is a bit slow though, I have to wait for a while for the suggestions to come on the screen. But it works, that is a comfort.

If you keep typing, it is not of much use- but if you stop a bit to think what should come next, may be, Google will tip you with the right word.

It is a faint hope- but when you have run aground, and can't think what you should write of next, this service is like a lifeline- possibly, it opens up new frontiers, these words, may be the post will write by itself.

Shall we start doing that then? Okay, I will type in some innocuous words, and pursue the stream of words that Google Scribe suggests. The scribe suggestions are in italics.

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This article posted Special Investigation and the private sphere of the individual author or authors of the present investigation was undertaken with a view toward the development of novel strategies for the use of the word and deed. Nonsense. Wait a while, scribe, while I bring this sentence into order.

This article, a Special Investigation, intended to be a post that explores the private sphere of the individual author or authors, was undertaken with a view towards the development of novel strategies for thinking and expression. Wow! Google Scribe suggested all this!

Okay, let me see if we can pull out a story from our Scribe's Hat.

Death in the Family. Life is too short not to enjoy, but also the best place to plan and share your thoughts. The time now is the time for which each individual must decide which method works. It is not intended or designed or intended for occupancy. A new approach based on fuzzy clustering approach based on this information but....


Sounds promising, but nble. Scribe can't write all by itself- may be a post on our Prime Minister's direction to the Supreme Court, a haughty puff at the suggestion that rotting grains may be given away to poor and indigent persons for free?

Possibly. If you put in the words and phrases of a day's issue of The Hindu, may be I can write an editorial.

I promise that if Google customises this functionality to suit my style of writing, I can throw in a few nouns and verbs and generate an entire blog post: possible, a great idea.

All I need is to specify some news items, and then some blog posts: and I prompt the scribe to use specific nouns and verbs in specific context, it might generate a post.

I think it possibly does, going by what I read in some blogs:  they have gotten hold of the scribe and it writes for them already.

Read more about Google Scribe.
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5 comments:

  1. If this is taken as seriously then it's an example of how innovation can be used to degrade something, writing in this case.

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  2. Sorry I wasn't clear there. Google Scribe can even do a perfect job but then the writing skills of individuals will suffer. If a person shuts his ability to think through words and instead uses Google Scribe then am sure he is leaving his writing skills to flounder. Is that good? Just imagine every kid taking the help of Google scribe to finish their school / college related writings.

    When my thinking is good and express my thoughts in writing, it comes out good on most of the occassions. When it is not so the quality of writing suffers. With google scribe I may not think much.

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  3. yes, right balajhi- but see it this way.

    Google Scribe is a great detector of cliche and default thinking.

    If you use it, you'll understand: its prompts are mostly cliche and well-worn expressions. You can use it to steer clear of unthinking writing- by deciding not to take its prompts, you are forced to think original.

    Try it once, it is not easy. We are all Scribes about seventy-percent o the time :(

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  4. May be I should try before jumping with my view

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  5. Do try it balajhi- you'll be surprised by how well the scribe anticipates the default thinking mode- especially when you are writing about some particular, specialised field- such as management, technology etc.

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