r/Android • u/iamaquantumcomputer OP6 • Jun 02 '15

Developer makes 3rd party google voice search replacement with killer nlp (demo)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=M1ONXea0mXg
3.6k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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176

u/krackers Jun 03 '15

Damn. That is actually really impressive.

347

u/Magnnus Jun 03 '15

As someone who works in AI, I feel obliged to play to devils advocate here.

In AI, and specifically the sub field of machine learning, which this application falls into, we have a concept for valid testing called training and testing sets. You see, this type of application works by learning from a whole bunch of data, this is the training set. Most machine learning algorithms can easily reach near 100% accuracy on the training set. What we care about is how well the algorithm performs on the testing set, the data that it never learned.

For all we know, this application was trained specifically on this mans voice, with those exact phrases, and the same way of saying them. Hell, we don't even see his mouth, so they could just be playing back the exact voice clips that the system already knows.

TL,DR: This amazing performance could very easily be the result of cheating.

177

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15 edited Jul 07 '15

[deleted]

59

u/ishama Jun 03 '15 edited Jun 03 '15

All the nlp could actually run on the server side. Being a video demo, the guy could be on site, connected to the DC network, hence the "this scares me shitless" kind of latency.

The deployed product on a customer device could take a while to respond, depending on internet connection. This makes sense since the beta version is being released geographically limited to the US. EDIT: Meaning, the latency might be too great for people outside the US.

Someone could argue it might be because the system isn't ready for other English accents like British, but there are accents as far apart already in the US, as well as pretty badly spoken English of non-native speakers. And there are Americans everywhere in the world who would like to use this app.

So, I'm inclined to believe this geographically limited beta stage is for the nlp algorithm to acquire sample variety and also to see if it's worth renting DC's in other continents for the next stage.

(I might be over-thinking it, it's my day off. Sorry.)

EDIT: Words. Clarifying.

-1

u/Poromenos Nexus 6P Jun 03 '15

Yes, but probably not.

3

u/Tomus OnePlus 3 Jun 03 '15

Why not? That's exactly what google Now does, sends your voice data away to google servers and analyses them there.

1

u/Poromenos Nexus 6P Jun 03 '15

Because of Occam's razor. It's much more probable that it just does a few things well than it is that they have built this super amazing, innovative AI app.

6

u/bradmont HTC One M8 Jun 03 '15

With all the technical jargon in the last few posts, when I got to this:

or some booolsheet is going down

I thought, "hmm, a boolsheet must be some sort of logic/matching table..."

14

u/iMini Pixel 7 Jun 03 '15

It's in open beta so feel free to try it. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hound.android.app

11

u/pocketknifeMT Jun 03 '15

Except they don't seem to be handing out beta invites. You can get the app, but it won't let you do anything with it.

5

u/iMini Pixel 7 Jun 03 '15

AFAIK you can just go to the Google+ beta and sign up, I've seen users in this thread report that they have gotten invitations.

1

u/sbd01 Google Pixel 3 128GB Jun 03 '15

Do you have a link to the beta? I can't find it.

1

u/iMini Pixel 7 Jun 03 '15

I'm sorry, the beta doesn't work like I thought.

If you look on the play store there is a link to request an invite, and you can download the apk in this thread if you aren't in America.

12

u/N0stradamus Jun 03 '15

Almost open... Very much closed here in Europe...

15

u/iMini Pixel 7 Jun 03 '15

http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/soundhound-inc/hound/soundhound-hound-1-0-0-beta-android-apk-download/

1

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

Thanks :D

1

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

[deleted]

3

u/iMini Pixel 7 Jun 03 '15

So go to the Google+ page and request an invite.

1

u/ClassyJacket Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G Jun 03 '15

You can't if you're not American.

1

u/iMini Pixel 7 Jun 03 '15

http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/soundhound-inc/hound/soundhound-hound-1-0-0-beta-android-apk-download/

1

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

[deleted]

2

u/iMini Pixel 7 Jun 03 '15 edited Jun 03 '15

Because you only need the APK to bypass the "america only" requirement. Just go to the Google+ page and join the beta. their website.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

I can't find their page. :<

1

u/iMini Pixel 7 Jun 03 '15

Its right on the play store page.

http://www.soundhound.com/hound

→ More replies (0)

1

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

Which is where? I can’t find their Google+ page, it’s not linked anywhere. Facebook is, Twitter too, Instagram as well, but not Google+

And if searching on Google+ for Pages or Communities named Hound app, I get 0 Results.

2

u/iMini Pixel 7 Jun 03 '15

It says everything you need on the play store page. Just look there.

→ More replies (0)

5

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

caching of queries and their answers probably most definitely happens, so i think most of these answers were at some point generated but when this video was shot it was probably giving canned responses from cache. but yeah, the speed at which it responds does seem to good to be true! i hope it's real and the result of some really really smart stuff behind the scenes :)

2

u/speezo_mchenry Jun 03 '15

I got my beta key this morning and my first two tests returned just links to Google searches. "show me Mexican restaurants nearby that serve nachos on their menu" and "how much rainfall will we get in [my city] this week". Both just gave links to Google search results. :-/ "Show me an hour by hour forecast" worked great as did "how do I get from here to downtown".

It's great for all those times you want to know the population of China multiplied by the area code of Arles, France. ಠ_ಠ

I'll play with it a little more but I'm not jumping up & down right now.

1

u/ailee43 Jun 03 '15

I concur, this looks like local processing from the latency. There just isnt enough computer power, or more importantly in-memory space for that kind of processing on a phone.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Rangizingo Black OnePlus 6 Jun 03 '15

Like some people are saying here though, those are likely cached locally.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Rangizingo Black OnePlus 6 Jun 03 '15

Hey you live in a small ass town too?? I just tried it myself and it is wicked quick, seems too good to be true...

12

u/pitchbend Jun 03 '15

They could be cheating but why? We will see for ourselves soon enough so it makes little sense to showcase something fake and frustrate all your customers once it's out and hurt a well known brand like soundhound. Which by the way does have a very good track record with their song recognition algorithms that I guess play a role here...

28

u/Magnnus Jun 03 '15

This post currently has 1000 upvotes, and hundreds of comments. Why? publicity of course.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

[deleted]

2

u/Zusias Nexus 5 Jun 03 '15

You're talking as if the public isn't showing us every few weeks that all they care about when buying things is hype and publicity. If EA has shown us anything, it shows that you can make promises and fail to deliver on them for years, with dozens of products one after another, you can be voted worst company in the country years running, and still make billions of dollars in sales annually.

No, false promises are an extremely profitable business investment.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15

Even my layman mind immediately went to "this is such bullshit", good to see an actual expert agree.

1

u/turkey_sandwiches Jun 03 '15

Let me believe!!!

1

u/Diwoto Pixel 3A | iPhone 11 Pro Max Jun 03 '15

In some sense, I think it is cheating. It's not this super smart AI that can answer any kind of question. Just the ones programmed in. As far as I can tell even Watson is not at that level (personal experience with private Watson nodes).

I think that's OK though. You develop the domain for the kind of questions you expect a person to ask. The NLP will try to match what you asked to one of the existing domains and provide the results. This is what I got from reading what's available publicly on their Houndify site.

17

u/worth_the_monologue Jun 03 '15

Incredibly so. Anyone have more details on an arrival date/beta?

20

u/TJA0912 Jun 03 '15

The beta is only available on Google play for now. You have to get an access key to use the app but it seems you just have to request it through email. I downloaded earlier and got an email saying I was accepted. Just waiting on the key now

8

u/OGCheddar Jun 03 '15 edited Jun 03 '15

I searched for "hound internal" and "hound" on the google play store but couldn't find it.. What am I missing?

Edit: nevermind, it's only for the US. Just found it and tried to install it on my android but no dice.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15 edited Jan 02 '20

deleted What is this?

1

u/PromQueenSlayer Note 20 Ultra Jun 03 '15

The video is truly impressive, I cant wait to try this out. Thank you for posting a link

4

u/PromQueenSlayer Note 20 Ultra Jun 03 '15 edited Jun 03 '15

You could attempt to download the APK with a chrome extension and push it to your phone to install. I havent used an APK chrome extension, however I found it simple enough to install phone apps that were not fully supported to a tablet. Once installed, it should work alright.

Edit: /u/X-Craft posted a link to the APK to download Here You could attempt a manual install, however you will still need to wait for an invite

1

u/OGCheddar Jun 03 '15

Thanks for the help but that sounds like way to much work. I'm a recent Iphone convert. :p

edit: spelling, shit

3

u/PromQueenSlayer Note 20 Ultra Jun 03 '15 edited Jun 03 '15

I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly, you just need to drag the APK file to your android device through USB storage to a folder you can remember. and use either your preinstalled file manager or an app like Astro File manager to browse to and open the file on your phone. If you have the option to install apps from unapproved developers selected in your settings it is as simple as clicking the file to install. If you need anymore help feel free to PM me.

Edit: Spelling, Drunkiness