Callers to Washington state’s driver’s license agency who select automated service in Spanish have instead been hearing an AI voice speaking English with a strong Spanish accent.

For months, callers to the Washington state Department of Licensing who have requested automated service in Spanish have instead heard an AI voice speaking English in a strong Spanish accent. The agency has since apologized and says it’s trying to fix the problem.

AI is putting threatening to put The Onion out of business, not because The Onion articles can be written by AI, rather AI has just made this kind of satire nearly obsolete. The Onion is forced to retreat into existential screaming into the void humor, which they have done magnificently in the face of an unstoppable foe. The Onion will prevail and outlive AI though, mark my words!

  • AxExRx@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    8 months ago

    My friends got a funnier version of this. The local elementary school has a service that translates automated phone messages for parents into any language.

    She’s bilingual, but her mother only speaks Russian and shes been teaching the kids Russian. So she gets each message, 2x, once in english, and once in Russian. But, whenever the system hits a loan word, or word that is the same in both languages, (superintendent was the word it hit when I was driving with her thw other day)

    it gets derailed, and finishes in english with a really over the top Russian accent.

    Not the same Russian voice mind you, it switched from a woman speeking fairly fast to a man speaking english slowly and angrily, with a Russian accent, like it was trained off of cold war movie 'Soviets or something.

  • [object Object]@lemmy.caEnglish
    23·
    8 months ago

    This is hilarious, but in a I can’t believe how fucking absurd and stupid way.

    They didn’t even bother QAing the pre recorded messages by listening once.

    • SippyCup@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      8 months ago

      “para Espanol, oprima El Numero dos”

      Beep

      “Aye Chihuahua! You wanna tortilla? I got some tequila! Come on hombre! How you doin ehhh? Orale senior I think you gotta problem yeah?”

      “¿…Que carajo es esta mierda?”

  • Absurdly Stupid @lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    8 months ago

    “trying to fix the problem”

    Oh dear God that is frankly horrifying.

    U.S.S. Ford is going to get sunk, isn’t it? “we’re trying to fix it” you motherfuckers

  • wjrii@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    8 months ago

    Always grimly funny when you can basically suss out the lazy-ass prompt: “Now do the same message, but Spanish.”

  • RBWells@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    8 months ago

    My kids’ elementary school had the opposite sort of message, the principal saying, in a flat slightly southern US accent - si quieres Espanol oprima el numero dos, like such an accent I am not sure anyone who spoke only Spanish would know what she was saying.

    See

    Kee-yer-is

    Ess pan ohl

    Oh pree muh

    Ell

    Noo mur oh

    Dowhs.

    • monotremata@lemmy.caEnglish
      7·
      8 months ago

      Many years ago when t-mobile first debuted their “visual voicemail” that did automated transcription, my dad brought me his phone and wanted to know what the hell has happened with one of his messages. It said something like “Parrot vegan spaniel primo wavy.” I showed him that he could still press a button to listen to the actual message, and it was from Walgreens; the computer had been trying to transcribe the Spanish voice saying “para diga en Espanol, oprima nueve.”

  • slingstone@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    8 months ago

    It’s nice to know that AI can still give us that good old human touch in the form of blatant racism.

    Somebody go ahead and shoot me, please. I want off this mother loving ride.