10 Comments

Wow, Skye! What an incredible article. I was spellbound. I would just like to share my own quick experience with Otter.ai transcription which I was in love with to transcribe my podcasts and videos until they doubled their fees during the pandemic which forced me to find another service and Whisper came along and was completely free which was one way for them to access more data for scraping. You have brilliantly pieced all the players together. I'm looking forward to more on this.

Expand full comment
author

Ahhh that's fascinating — yep, that's the trade we don't even realize we're making! Thank you for sharing this story!

Expand full comment
Jun 19Liked by Skye Pillsbury

It's GPT, not GBT, but regardless - as a new Descript paid user this is highly concerning. I understand the need for more training data, but there has to be a better model for obtaining it moving forward. People don't want their work to be stolen, and with good reason, and none of this constitutes fair use under any definition of the term. Thanks for reporting on this!

Expand full comment
author

Your welcome — and thank you for flagging my typo; it's been updated!

Expand full comment
author

At least with this typo, it's clear that I'm not a writer who ever uses ChatGPT to do my work for me LOL

Expand full comment
Jun 20Liked by Skye Pillsbury

I use Descript and work in information security. I didn't even consider how Descript was doing transcription. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Expand full comment
author

Of course, John!

Expand full comment

Speaking of the Open AI Start-up fund, check out what happened to its Converge-2 program which was announced with great fanfare in Dec 2023, took applications from start-ups, and then.....radio silence. Nobody who submitted heard anything. Then, we found out about Sam's involvement. https://openai.fund/news/converge-2

I'm struck by the dichotomy between Milky Way Galaxy-class technical talent operating in an organization that's as transparent and drama-free as a middle school lunchroom.

Expand full comment
author

Interesting; I wondered about that announcement on the website but made the assumption it had gone as planned. If you want to talk further, send me an email at skyepillsatwork@gmail.com.

Expand full comment

Did you know that Hindenburg’s transcription is fully contained and runs 100% on your computer? Your content is never sent to a server and the transcription engine is fully self-contained so there is no possibility of using it for training.

Expand full comment