From National Verbatim Reporters Association President Patrick Stephens:

Hello, reporting community!

For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Patrick Stephens. I have the pleasure of serving as the current president of the National Verbatim Reporters Association – no, the V is not for voice! The association strives to cater to the needs and wants of voice writers and machine writers alike. 

In the past few months, I’ve become aware of some concerns machine writers have regarding a committee they’ve poured a lot of their time, energy and hearts into, the STRONG Committee. I wanted to write a piece to let you know that your concerns did not fall on deaf ears at the NVRA.  First, presidents in most societies have the right to disassemble and rearrange committees that are NOT standing committees of a society. Removing a standing committee, though, requires the voice of the members, as it would constitute a Bylaws amendment, and, in a lot of instances, an amendment to an association’s Articles of Incorporation. Because of this, it is my belief that the NVRA’s Legislative Issues Committee would be the perfect place to work toward addressing these complicated and critical issues, as the committee reports to the entire NVRA Board of Directors and is not subject to removal on the wishes of one person.

“AI lacks the capacity for contextualization that humans possess.”

• NCRA White Paper, 2023.

Who would understand this more so than the voice writer?  While voice writers use    Dragon Professional software, it is a tool, just like steno theory is a tool to produce the words. With these tools, there is always a human in control discerning and making sure that speech is transcribed correctly.   Speakers, homonyms, dialects, parentheticals and punctuation must be transcribed correctly, and nothing replaces the human mind as the only proven method that can do so. With a human, the transcript certification has been a single point of quality assurance, as the reporter swears that the transcript is a truly verbatim record.  Even if AI could certify a transcript, can we as humans truly trust it?  AI systems are owned by corporations; individual reporters are not. Most certifications tell the reader that court reporters are not financially tied to the parties involved in the case.  Furthermore, court reporters have an ethical obligation to tell parties if the deponent or parties in the case are related to them or if there is a conflict of interest. AI will have none of these responsibilities. 

Voice writers use voice codes, which are comparable to brief strokes and pen-writing. It is the same thing as a human being having control of steno strokes, which is a theory and a program just as a voice writer’s theory uses Dragon Professional, sometimes referred to as “oral stenography”.  Additionally, computer-aided transcription (CAT) software we all use aid the theory/method that we use. For machine steno, CAT software utilizes the theory to make words; for voice, the CAT software utilizes Dragon’s speech recognition engine to make words. 

In steno, a stroke is written, the stroke goes to the theory and looks for that specific stroke and selects the correct word; voice writers say a word, it goes to the speech recognition engine (Dragon) and makes an educated guess of what was said. *

If a machine writer makes the correct stroke, the right word will appear.  Because voice writers dictate to Dragon’s speech recognition engine, which is an imperfect AI, if a mistake is made, the voice writer can correct it in real-time and the correct word will appear.

“The leading speech recognition tools misunderstand Black speakers twice as often as white speakers,” wrote the research team. “To close the gap, we must create more linguistically diverse and inclusive datasets.”

• NCRA White Paper, 2023.

I would argue that you should just use a court reporter. Accents and dialects are converted by the court reporter continuously and daily. The voice writer’s input in this context is critical for the AI to run effectively, given these differences in accents and dialects.  Any speech recognition engine is simply a program that will take sounds, run it through its vocabulary base and make an educated guess at the words you said.  

“Court reporters, whether practicing machine or voice stenography, have the opportunity to work together to protect the profession we love so much. Our ability to be the person to certify the record – not a transcriber from a far-off land or a computer algorithm – is one of our strongest selling points, not to mention real-time and read-backs! We have a duty to the record; we have certifications and ethical obligations we must meet to protect the record. Working together toward a common goal can build bridges and increase momentum toward greater understanding of what we do and why we love our profession.”

• Tori Pittman, (Machine/Voice Writer – NVRA Education Committee & Director)

Of note is that only the machine writer and the voice writer pass certification exams at the same speeds, scores and test durations, with both national exams being validated by credentialing entities, and many states use these certifications as an entry requirement for licensure, what we’ve all come to know as reciprocity.  It’s time to combine our efforts in hopes for a better future for the students and working professionals we’ve come to know and support! 

In conclusion, voice and machine writers all know the ubiquity of artificial intelligence in this modern age. Voice and machine writers work around the flaws in automated speech recognition every day and are uniquely positioned to speak out on its pros and cons.

NVRA’s Legislative Issues Committee, a standing committee that cannot be disbanded by incoming presidents, is being given a new mission:  Court reporters of both modalities will come together to investigate and recommend legislative action that will ensure that technology is working for the communities we serve under the supervision and direction of certified court reporters only. We will work to build a coalition with other professionals concerned with the application of AI in their own fields, and together, make our voices heard.

Let this be a call to those ready to make a difference in the future of our profession.  The National Verbatim Reporters Association is prepared to give its committee and general members the institutional support needed to make changes to ensure that reporters reap the benefits of technology and that its harm is eliminated.

For more details and information regarding this committee of NVRA, feel free to E-mail us at legislation@nvra.org.  If you’re interested in membership, please visit us at NVRA.org.  Please note that if you’re an RPR seeking to join the NVRA, the deadline to submit your application for RPR reciprocity with the NVRA’s CVR needs to be received by December 31st, 2024.   Please E-mail nvramembership@nvra.org to begin this process.

From Christopher Day, Stenonymous.com:

I think this is a clear sign that everyone in the industry knows what was done to NCRA STRONG was wrong. I think the NVRA is willing to get behind its reporters, give an actual budget, and not mothball important initiatives. To my allies over at the National Court Reporters Association, consider picking up an NVRA membership today and getting involved. I see a real chance for change and an organization that’s willing to do what must be done to grow and create a healthy, enduring profession. This is also an opportunity to join a committee that cannot be easily disbanded, like Mr. Stephens made clear.

I offer this message for download below so that it may be shared more easily.

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