AI Captions (Subtitles) – Fast, But Are They Enough?
- Tim Scannell
- 6 days ago
- 1 min read
AI captions are everywhere – Zoom, YouTube, live broadcasts. But are they really serving the Deaf community?
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) is impressive: it can turn spoken words into text instantly. It’s fast, cheap, and widely available. But speed isn’t enough. Accuracy often suffers, especially with accents, technical (background, specific) terms, overlapping speech, or multiple speakers. Context, nuance, and tone critical for understanding can easily be lost.
Other methods exist:
Respeaking: A trained human repeats the speech into software for more accurate captions.
Palantypists/stenographers: Highly trained professionals typing in real-time, offering the gold standard for live captions.
Relying solely on AI captions risks leaving Deaf viewers behind. Subtitles and captions are not just text on a screen; they are access, equity, and inclusion.
The solution? AI can assist, but human expertise is essential. We need investment in both technology and professional interpreters to ensure accessibility is reliable, accurate, and culturally aware.
Hearing or Deaf, spoken English or BSL, everyone deserves the same message, the same content, the same rights, just in the right language.
What’s your experience with AI captions? Have you noticed errors or limitations? Let’s start a conversation.