Google is changing how people with speech impairments and neurological disabilities interact in the physical world with assistance from machine learning. Known as "Project Relate," the initiative combines three existing features to create a new AI-based experience for people with disabilities.
The three smartphone features used in the creation of "Project Relate" are speech-to-text, speech-to-speech, and Google Assistant. By combining the powers of all three, Google is hoping to extend the "basic human right" of "communication" to all, as Google's Brand Manager of Naming, Aubrie Lee put it during "Creators @ Google" event on November 11.
Lee suffers a muscular dystrophy that affects her speech. "There's an invisible barrier between us, tech can help bring down that barrier," she claimed. "I hope I can see a day when disabled people can move around the world and connect to [other] people," she added.
Headed by Julie Cattiau, a product manager and researcher at Google, "Project Relate", like all-things-AI relies heavily on training data from people with speech disabilities. In 2018, Cattiau wanted to figure out how speech recognition could be improved to become more accessible for people with impacted speech.
The problem with regular speech recognition tech, according to Cattiau, is that it doesn't recognise impaired speech well "because there's no training data to train the software." To gather data, Cattiau launched a crowdsourced collection mechanism to understand "how people with speech disabilities sound."
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"Project Relate" creates a personalised speech profile for each user by employing three features - listen (speech-to-text), repeat (speech-to-speech), and assistant (based on Google Assistant). "We put together different technologies... leveraging Google Assistant to allow users to do certain tasks."
The app is still in early stages of development and is currently only available in the English language, which Cattiau hopes to extend to other languages soon. As in for their choice of language, Cattiau claimed that they "had to start somewhere" while adding that she hopes to extend it to her native language French and eventually others.
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Understanding people with speech impairments can be difficult, and this project hopes to bridge the communication gap, giving everyone a chance to interact with each other. "Being able to use assistive tools could be particularly helpful for people with disabilities," Cattiau said.
Developing speech models is a lengthy process and is still being worked on. Sometimes the model is developed quickly, in which case they release it early. For every speech impairment, the model has to be developed differently. At the heart of this project is data collection, and Cattiau hopes that by extending tests in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, they may make more progress in the near future.
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