Image: VOLKER WEIHBOLD
- Read more: New public transport voice – “Sounds terrible, but the main thing is digital”
Digital makes sense
Not every change is bad, even if there is criticism at first. When the female public transport voice was replaced by a male one around 20 years ago, there was also a huge outcry. Now some of the same customers are probably mourning this very voice. The computer voice still sounds a bit bumpy, but the machine will learn that. In any case, it makes sense to be able to react flexibly to changes without having to run to the recording studio every time. However, there would have been an alternative: The actress Chris Lohner has been speaking to passengers on the ÖBB since 1979, and this has been going on without her involvement since 2015 because it has been digitalized. People are happy and ÖBB does not have to give up its established corporate voice.
Especially artificial
The new voice that announces the “next stop” on public transport in Linz is the product of a machine. It proves that AI – especially when it comes to speech output – is much more artificial than intelligent. Artificial intelligence can do a lot of things and is enormously helpful in many areas of business and science. But unfortunately the AI cannot emphasize the Linz street names correctly. For example, if you get off at “Fer-Die-nand-Markl-Straße”. Changing to “Lienje Hundertzwanzich” also sounds strange and a bit “piefkinesian”. A Meidlinger “L” would even be more familiar.
The fact that previous places of interest such as the Lentos Art Museum are now suddenly no longer mentioned takes some getting used to.
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