Sounds of Hesitation Are More Than Filler | Hacker News Reader

Sounds of Hesitation Are More Than Filler

wsj.com

15 pointslxm13 comments

> Google recently unveiled a voice AI that could fill pauses with the best of them, resulting in more natural-sounding conversation.

Ugh. The last thing I want is an appliance saying "uh" or "um", which may indicate uncertainty. As much as I want to stab Siri, "one moment" seems far better, because it explicitly pauses the conversation for deliberate thought and implies it may take more time than an "um". Having no answer is also seems more acceptable with "one moment". (Which is good because Siri does that a lot.)

Agreed, it's preferable for AI voice assistants to sound more like the ship computer in Star Trek TNG — that is, to the point with just enough politeness to not be curt, using expressions of uncertainty only when uncertainty is present — than fluffing things up with meaningless mimicry of humans.

Im all for sighing doors. https://youtu.be/jn3Vv6VYdxw

> Having no answer is also seems more acceptable with "one moment".

"Ummm..."

two seconds pass

"I don't know."

Indeed, that sounds infuriating.

It's even more infuriating because it usually does know but it won't tell you.

We're going to end up with Marvin the Paranoid Android aren't we?

You'll find people on HN and reddit sometimes using these fillers, like "umm", and I find it is often tinged with a bit of snark.

When one is not willing to invest just enough brain power to form a sentence, there is not much to expect from the conversation. Would rather talk to ChatGPT

https://archive.is/ZBmqP

This is just a stray thought, but I wonder if men and women use these filled pauses differently in conversation, and, if there is a difference, could this in part contribute to the alleged phenomenon of men interrupting women in conversation more often than women interrupting men.

This is a fascinating read. I never thought about umm and uh as a "necessary" part of human communication. It strikes me as sort of a, ummm... "buffering" signal to other humans.

> Google recently unveiled a voice AI that could fill pauses with the best of them, resulting in more natural-sounding conversation

AI, uh ,.. finds a way

If ChatGPT perfected Butt-Head's nervous laugh tic, perhaps we'd all be less likely to believe it.

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