My wife is a medical transcriptionist. All the “experts” predicted she’d be out of work by now thanks to “automation”.
I guess if any company knows about automation, it IS Google. So I tested their Google Voice’s ability to do some transcription.
I love Google Voice and highly recommend it for your business. I recommend having a Google Voice “Call Me” button on your website to instantly connect you with web visitors.
But just DON’T as yet take everything transcribed as “Gospel”.
As a test, Google voice transcribed these words (first line of the Star Spangled Banner):
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
As this!
Hello say and use the 5. Delyn truly as bud with so promptly. We pay you, and I was at the primaries. Lastly, I mean through the wrong it’s really a good of the bomb includes the new there’s camp you through the night. The but wants to banner. Ohh say. Denise. It’s times and go up. Manning at when we or the double Freddy. I don’t know. I’m on my phone rang.
In other words, give your caller the benefit of the doubt!
Gotta go, need to tell my wife to keep typing for a while longer yet! 
Offer Tsuriel on October 31st, 2009 at 2:06 pm
This is wht I foung on Gadgetwise regarding GoogleVoice:
“The New York Times’ Gadgetwise blog asked its readers to call a Google Voice number and leave voicemails to test and stretch the service’s transcription prowess. They responded with glee, reading parts of the Declaration of Independence (translation: “We hope you straight to be self evident …”), Monty Python skits (“this carriages no more in tennessee seems to be hey it’s expired”), and more. We gave Google Voice transcriptions a “not bad,” and it holds. It’s fast and search-able, but don’t rely on it—just yet, at least—for legal briefings or turn-by-turn instructions.”
It’s almost the same result like in your experiment. Thy did’t improve it a bit!
I think soon we will forget about this service.