F: We we talked about that and It was G: Is that G: And according to Morgan it 's like happening
G: and F: Well i w when I spoke with him he he really just said it was a money issue .
H: But that was F: That it 's certainly not any sort of intellectual property issue where we 're perfectly willing to give people those boxes .
G: OK .
H: Oh , well .
F: The boxes are cheap .
G: Right .
F: Um , but , you know , can they afford to get a six channel Sony wireless
F: and can they afford the P Z
F: and that sort of stuff .
G: And he said something about a portable You know , that they wouldn't have a dedicated room or something like like you guys have here .
F: Well H: I think I think somebody 's got a unit which is something like the ADAT or something ,
H: which , you know , it 's a device which will record onto tape , uh , multiple channels .
F: Oh .
H: And so I think that was that was gonna be
H: and we were g Like someone actually has this knocking around .
H: Some company that we were gonna uh , was gonna lend it to us , something like this .
G: OK .
F: This is F: this is the same same company that may be doing the transcripts for us ,
H: The same it might be the same company or it might be a different company .
F: may be giving us B: Right .
H: There 's another company which also has a apparently has purchased a very a big multi - channel thing .
F: may be giving us ,
F: uh - huh .
H: Um ,
H: and so if we if they could lend us that , we could imagine doing these kinds of recordings .
H: I mean that you know , that like you said , the fundamental thing is it doesn't have to be this hardware .
H: It 's just the idea that you have multiple channels to synchronize data
G: Right .
B: Mmm .
H: and then the post - processing can be uniform and stuff like that ,
G: Right ,
G: and it doesn't have You know , different sides can do different pieces of it I think .
H: so .
H: Right .
F: Yeah .
F: And it would also it would be really nice to be able to do it in other rooms ,
G: And F: cuz otherwise we 're gonna learn a lot about this air conditioning .
G: Exactly .
B: Yeah .
G: Right .
G: And you 'll get different kinds of conversations and different interactions ,
B: That was , w
F: Yes .
G: and I think just having three different sites would be great
F: That 'd be great .
F: Yeah ,
F: I agree .
G: just for sort of diversity ,
A: Yeah .
B: Mmm .
G: and so .
E: Well ,
E: one thing that Horacio h hadn't mentioned is ,
E: um ,
E: I mean , y you were talking about uh the same the same sort of idea of just collecting a meeting and and looking at it afterwards .
E: But the the thing that I 'm interested in , and I 'm probably the one who 's gonna start doing the collection , <comment> um , is e is having this situation where people are talking to each other and talking to a computer in the machine in in the room .
H: Right .
E: Um ,
E: and
E: so that 's probably that 's probably what E: u
B: That 's gonna be @ @ .
E: that 's certainly what 's gonna come out of , uh , of our group first .
F: So so are you gonna m uh , i is there gonna be some sort of mark for that ?
E: Uh um .
E: And it F: I mean , are they gonna say , " Computer , bring up a web page on "
F: or ?
E: Well ,
E: so , you know , what we 're we 're basically doing is is waiting to look at the pilot and see what people wanna do
F: Uh - huh .
E: but it 's going all be Wizard of Oz at first .
E: So we 're gonna let them do what they wanna do first and then see if we should um , you know , subsequent things .
F: Oh , I see .
G: Mm - hmm .
E: Try to try to constrain them
E: or not constrain them .
E: Or try try to figure that out .
F: I 'm just thinking , from a discourse point of view it 'd be very interesting to somehow mark " I 'm talking to the computer " .
H: Right .
H: No , it has to be has to be error complete .
G: Yeah ,
G: but you know what ?
H: So the computer has to G: They don't say when they stop .
E: That 's one of them F: Right .
E: Pardon ?
G: They don't say , you know , " I 'm done , Computer " .
G: They only mark the beginnings .
H: Yeah .
B: Hmm .
E: Yeah .
H: Yeah , yeah .
B: Well , there might be a different style of , um a different , actually , style of interaction .
E: e
G: So ,
E: and it 's all of these things i i is a g
G: it uh there are very F: " Computer , show me a web page on X , " return .
B: Yeah .
E: It is exactly these things that I mentioned .
B: Yeah .
E: This is these are the main things that I 'm interested in .
G: Very interesting .
E: Exactly these .
G: And actually Mari 's E: When when do you know when you 're starting and when you know you 're ending .
H: No , but No but , y
H: But it 's like , you know , if it really was an intelligent assistant sitting there you could say , " Oh , perhaps the computer could show us this . "
H: And you 'd be talking to someone else
H: but the computer 's meant to be listening , and so saying , " Oh ,
H: it means me . "
H: You know , " I shou I should I should do something now . "
B: Yes , certainly .
F: Are you talking to me ?
F: Are you talking to me ?
G: But there might be , uh , neat ways you can do this that are not natural but they become very easy ,
B: Mmm .
D: So like saying , like " Hal ? "
G: and that G: So .
E: Yeah .
B: Mmm !
E: So .
E: Right .
E: So we wanna we wanna look at exactly those sorts of things .
G: I I think ,
G: yeah .
E: of of us , at least in the beginning , is gonna have a number of different characteristics .
A: Erase that part .
E: It 's not going to be natural .
E: It 's not gonna be a regular meeting .
E: It 's gonna be an artificial situation cuz we 're gonna have to , you know , mock up some back - end .
E: Um .
E: So the kinds of , you know the kinds of speech is the speech is gonna be slightly different .
E: People are gonna be in an unnatural task .
E: We 're we 're t gonna be trying to figure out how they 're gonna G: But you can still collect the multiple microphones in a similar way and transcribe ,
E: But
E: But we will have the , you know We 'll we 'll have all this all the m microphones set up all the same .
B: Mmm .
H: So the G: and th
G: That 'd be cool actually .
H: Yeah .
H: I mean , that 's the question .
H: If if we are collecting these at different sites , different kinds of tasks , different people , what is there that 's gonna be uniform about this collection ?
E: Mm - hmm .
E: Right .
H: And part of it will be , well , this combination of close talking and uh , and uh , environmental mikes .
B: Mmm .
H: And and then part of it will just be the data presentation ,
H: you know , maybe if if we have common transcription standards and , you know , that it 's all transcribed
H: or
H: there 's there 's some integration of the standards thing .
E: Right .
H: But I mean I u u as long as that makes sense , then it 's nice to have a variety of tasks , right ?
H: To have sort of , you know , different G: Yeah , I mean , I think the formats would be similar .
E: And Yeah .
E: And if your task is to just sort of , you know , generally do , um , summary and , uh and large vocabulary speech recognition over the thing , then it doesn't matter that much which , uh , that there 's much a difference .
H: Right .
H: Yeah .
G: But I think having the the idea of the computer sort of in there forces you to create a a log file format that can handle these other devices .
D: Hmm .
H: Right .
H: Right .
G: I mean , you were talking about the Penn
G: and G: So
G: I I think it 's G: the formatting is really one of the biggest issues .
F: XML ,
F: that solves everything .
G: You know ,
G: not not the f transcript formatting but the audio formatting and the sort of figuring out how to synchronize all of these , um , pieces .
F: Uh - huh .
F: That 's right .
F: We 're gonna make G: And what kind of software you can use for post - processing all of them .
H: Yeah .
F: Right .
F: Someone will make some assumption that 's different than someone else .
B: Yeah .
G: Yeah , which i
F: And then we suddenly won't be able to interoperate .
B: Well , just just the fact that people are making different assumptions is quite an interesting problem .
F: Yep .
E: Mm - hmm .
B: You know , it 's quite an interesting issue .
F: So that 's something we should try to B: That brings up B: Mmm .
G: Yeah .
F: I I 'm not sure what wh I mean what 's a good solution than that other than trying to keep in touch with each other .
H: But H: yeah .
H: Well , i w if we 're gonna have if we 're gonna H: there 's an opportunity to share tools ,
H: right ?
H: The - if we F: Right .
A: We could have like , you know , some periodic meetings ,
B: Mmm .
A: and like , uh ,
F: Yeah .
G: Yeah ,
G: or phone meetings ,
G: or even A: phone meetings or something .
G: Or meetings like this with about the meetings .
F: Uh - huh .
F: Yeah ,
F: I mean , meetings like this are good because we can actually record them .
G: You know , with a with a telephone .
A: Yeah .
A: At the same time we contribute to the database collection ,
F: Yep ,
B: Yeah ,
B: contribute the data .
F: absolutely .
G: No , I 'm serious .
A: and , uh .
G: Even if we don't make any decisions we 'll have a lot of data .
H: That 's right .
A: But it will be all documented .
G: Sorry .
B: Yes .
E: Yeah , actually we could do that at our site too
E: even though that 's not what I 'm normally gonna be collecting ,
G: Right .
E: but there 's no reason we can't collect that ,
E: and , uh , then you 'd have a more m your normal kind of meeting .
F: Right .
F: So F: When you 're talking about your artificial meetings , i they are gonna be goal directed , though .
G: Right .
F: So they 're gonna s say , you 're you 're having a meeting to do this .
E: They 're going to be goal directed .
E: You 're supposed to E: Yeah , you know . You 're supposed to you 're a budget meeting or something
E: and you have a spreadsheet up there ,
E: and everybody has to sort of work out the you know , some particular goal of where to p allocate money .
E: And they can t ask the computer to switch things around in different columns or something like that .
F: Mm - hmm .
E: But everybody s
E: and acs actually a o another characteristic is that we 're only dealing with three people .
F: Oh .
E: Um .
F: So that will be different .
E: Yeah .
B: Hmm .
E: So .
A: How is that ?
A: Three peop total ?
E: We 're gonna start with just three people ,
E: yeah .
B: Is that the channel limitation cutting in ?
E: Um , I think it 's mainly It 's partly channel limitation
E: because we wanna we wanna double mike everybody .
B: Mmm .
E: Um , it 's also to a large extent ,
H: Oh , right .
F: Oh .
E: um E: And we have eight channels .
E: Um .
E: It 's also I think , uh , e e sort of what came up I think when even Liz was , uh , involved a little while ago with and Christine I think just in terms of the thinking of the subjects and trying to have enough people .
E: We sort of wanted to , you know , encourage like everybody to talk ,
E: try to figure out some way that everybody would be able to participate
E: and F: So if G: Yeah .
F: You 're double miking everyone ,
F: so that 's a close talking and a lapel , and then two environmental mikes ,
E: A g
B: Two of @ @ .
F: is that right ?
E: Yes ,
E: that was that was the idea .
B: Yeah .
E: Uh , but
D: Mm - hmm .
B: M
E: I don't know ,
G: Hmm .
E: that was , you know , w we 're not uh planning to do anything with with all that like right away .
E: So if there were is there you know , we h we 're happy to take input on that .
F: Right .
H: Wha
D: Is it the three , I see ,
F: Well , if you ha m u eh E: And also , I very much wanna find out about the , you know , the specs on the board that you have in the ma in the i in the PCI card
D: mm - hmm .
E: cuz I think we might wanna go with that .
F: Mm - hmm .
B: Mmm .
D: I wanna ask one question though .
D: So is is it the same three people each time or a different three people ?
E: Yeah .
E: No , no ,
E: we 're ho we 're hoping to just bring in different groups of three people apiece .
D: OK , OK .
D: That 's good .
B: And do you have the same agenda , although there 's a goal ?
B: Is there one goal or several goals ?
B: Because that 'll would be more interesting data if there is like E: Uh .
E: In a given in a given meeting ?
B: I mean , a budget meeting is a classic example , of where every comes in pursuit of a different goal .
H: Yeah , yeah .
E: What we 're try what we 're trying to do is not make it too eh <comment> you know , not make it too , um , ar artificial .
E: You know ,
E: not like say , " OK ,
E: mmm , let 's role play .
E: Your , y " you know , " you do this , you wanna "
B: Right .
E: but rather give them an actual task .
C: Well , there can be like a problem solution kind of thing where they would actually , you know they have to come to one solution .
E: So actually have E: Yeah ,
E: and they all just have their own they just happen to have their own opinions .
B: Right .
E: And another possible thing that we 're thinking of is something like , uh , you know , we have these regular Wednesday lunches
B: Right .
A: S
E: and you gotta plan a menu , right ?
E: So everybody has things that they like
A: Well , some peo people speak with their mouth full , you know that 's a @ @ .
E: an and , uh F: Yeah that E: But a lot of the H: Right .
E: No .
F: That is , uh .
H: We we we 've thought about doing A: Delete that part .
E: None of that .
E: N no eating during meetings .
H: Right , right , right .
F: Yes ,
F: or drinking .
E: Maybe salivating if you 're thinking about the food ,
E: but it F: Y getting getting coffee on these is definitely a bad thing .
C: Not with these around .
E: Um .
H: That 's G: Oh , right .
A: So so , I One question .
H: Yeah .
G: Yeah .
A: I I mean , I haven't been in these , uh , <comment> you know , preliminary de decision meetings ,
A: but I don't know what 's the <comment> idea for the computer interaction .
A: I mean , it 's going to be a real computer , as in Wizard of Oz ?
F: Wizard of Oz .
E: OK ,
E: so the idea is we wanna start off with a somewhat simple back - end
A: Uh , what 's E: and we 're thinking of , um , agentifying an EXCEL spreadsheet and having s like some kind of spreadsheet E: So basically , what wh people will see a spreadsheet and they can ask it to move numbers around .
E: So
E: we thought that would be a be a useful kind of task for budget meetings or that kind of thing .
A: And so it will be a real computer recognition .
E: So starting off we would start off definitely with a Wizard of Oz task
A: Oh , OK .
E: but it would be something F: So a real computer but a w uh , someone driving it .
E: Uh yes ,
A: OK , OK , OK .
B: Mmm .
E: but it would be something uh but everything would be an agent .
A: Uh - huh .
E: And so it just be you know , we wouldn't have the recognition grammar to begin with .
A: OK .
E: We wouldn't have the NL grammar to begin with .
A: Yeah .
E: But these are all components that are obvious to us how to build .
A: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah .
E: Nothing nothing that 's sort of far in the future .
B: Mmm .
A: Yeah .
E: It 's just a matter of of work .
A: So somebody will be playing the recognizer
A: and then other agents will be doing their task independently .
E: Yeah .
A: OK .
E: So ,
E: sort of E: Right .
E: Something that can be built up , you know , relatively quickly
E: and makes sense how to do .
E: So a fairly simple back - end .
A: Yeah .
E: Um .
A: Good .
F: Yeah ,
F: I I think that 's close enough to what we 're interested in that it would t it 'd be useful for training uh , the acoustic models , without any question .
H: Oh , yeah .
H: Yeah , sure .
E: Uh - huh .
G: Yeah , definitely .
A: You p you plan to to train actually models based on this data .
B: Mmm .
E: That 's good .
F: Oh , absolutely .
E: Yeah .
E: Great .
F: Yeah , cuz if you don't the the accuracy 's gonna be horrendously bad .
B: In th
B: Mmm .
B: Right .
A: Yeah , yeah .
B: And this is just train um , training them using the um , the head - mounted data initially .
F: So .
B: Or , I mean is the intention to do some som
H: I think F: Well , we 'll definitely need to do both .
H: No ,
H: I think the idea is to train on the , uh on these mikes but use these to get the alignments that we 're gonna train to ,
B: Right .
B: OK .
F: Right .
B: Understood .
A: Mm - hmm .
B: Right .
H: right ?
B: You 're not intending to do any B: You said you weren't gonna planning to do any beam - forming as such ,
B: but you 're not intending to do any signal - processing or , uh or , uh , uh , the sort of acoustic modeling of the environment or microphones , or anything else ?
H: I don't know .
F: It it really i
B: Cuz that 's actually my interest at the moment , so .
F: It will really depend on if we have someone who really wants to do that .
B: Hmm .
B: Right , right .
H: Yeah .
F: So .
A: Yeah .
H: Well , also , I mean , I I I suspect that it may we may not be able to get anywhere without doing something ,
F: I
B: Yeah , yeah .
H: right ?
H: So .
A: Yeah .
H: We may end up having to do that .
F: Well it 's F: just as an example , I I 've done some very simple digits recognitions
F: where , uh , I said if I had known we were having this meeting I would have done this before ,
F: uh .
F: Having people read digit strings
G: That was Morgan .