Two things.
Number one, my backstory is that I come from undervalued NYC reporting where the companies used social pressure to pit us against each other. In 2010 I was making $2.80 a page. Later came to find people were making more than that in the 80s or 90s. If the corporate mooks have ever wondered why my publishing focuses so much on them and the disgusting things that they do, they need only look in a mirror. They created me. Maybe I should thank them?
It’s also why I don’t believe in irreversible shortage. Not one entity in this whole field has made a real effort to pull court reporters from undervalued NYC. The most we’ve had is our “court family” spreading the word that the New York State Unified Court System is the place to be. And guess what? When we made the effort, we fixed a localized Bronx shortage.
Number two, the American Arbitration Association is fleecing people through their Optima “service partner.”
Why? Simple business sense. If you have AI worth a damn, you run audio through the system, it pops out a finished product, and you send it off. You could literally pay one person to handle hundreds of transcripts a day. You would not, by any stretch of the human imagination, need $3.95 per page. So it’s pretty clear to me that they’re likely using human transcribers to fix AI garbage and calling it AI-powered. Human-powered AI, brought to you by Liars Incorporated.
Please don’t take this as me saying we are irreplaceable though. We are 100% replaceable. It might not be right, fair, business savvy, or technologically sound, but they could do it. I mean, look at VITAC, despite knowing that it would mean lesser quality for the people they serve, they fired a bunch of stenographers, or so I heard some time ago. They can do whatever they want. The only thing that might deter them from doing whatever they want is backlash, pushback, a fight. People are conflict avoidant. It’s in all the surveys and studies. In a room of 100 people, maybe 6 are fighters, so there’s a good chance whoever’s sitting in the boss seat isn’t a real fighter and will cave to pressure. It’s as simple as that when it comes to our continued existence. The people above us need to know, understand, feel, and believe that we will absolutely drag them down with us without mercy or remorse. They take advantage of our silence and compliance. They take advantage of our kindness and compassion. They take advantage of our willingness to live and let live.
No longer, I say. This is what I bring to the table. I use the money you send me to fight for you using the best communication network on Earth, the internet. I’m good at it. I have a style my allies can trust and my enemies underestimate. It’s something so deliberate that I’m curious whether my closest friends really understand why I do some of what I do. You know how people used to say don’t write anything in an email you wouldn’t want read in court? There’s another simple truth. Write anything someone else wouldn’t want read in court, and suddenly you become untouchable. And in fact the best of my work goes largely unsung and never ends up on Stenonymous because of that.
Not my fault. I didn’t design things this way. But here I am. Hello, world.
“Throw me all your shade but I’ma own it
I’ma want to Edgar Allen Poe it
Not up for discussion, I’ma close it
Yeah, you don’t want me to be your opponent.”
I was recently approached by a caption company who is using AI with ASR to put out captions rather than hire a stenographer. I did some captioning for them a few years ago, during the pandemic and for a few years after, but then stopped getting emails. And I didn’t think much of it… so this recent request was could I take these AI/ASR generated transcripts and listen to the audio and put them in Q/A format. I quoted a REALLY OUTRAGEOUSLY HIGH PRICE if the audio was clear and easy to understand, they said okay.
I sat with the AI-generated transcript, began listening to the audio, and editing the transcript. It took me an hour to get 5 pages done, in multiple places the audio was way low, garbled or just not great, but I persevered.
I wrote them and told them life is too short to put myself through this. I just couldn’t do it. People might be happy with their AI/ASR-generated transcript, but they are a nightmare to try and make pretty. I’ll stick to steno.
This is a big part of the reason I feel pushback is warranted. We are saving a lot of people from a soul-sucking job if we win here.
Thank you for sharing your experience!