Ever wonder what happens when we compare human expertise to that of a machine? Since time immemorial, human transcriptions have aided the conversion of spoken words into written text. However, more and more new technologies, such as ASR, are becoming available for automated transcription. Some people think manual transcribers are slowly becoming obsolete due to this development, while others say AI transcription’s accuracy is far from that of professional human transcription.
So, let’s explore the differences and see which one reigns supreme.
In this article, you’ll learn that:
- Human and machine transcription have strengths and weaknesses, making them suitable for different scenarios and requirements.
- Human transcriptionists excel in accuracy, understanding context, and handling complex audio, while machine transcription offers speed, cost-effectiveness, and 24/7 availability.
- When choosing between human and machine transcription, consider factors such as the required accuracy level, turnaround time, budget, and the type of audio.
What Is Human Transcription?
Human transcription is performed by a skilled human transcriptionist (either freelance or working with a transcription service provider), turning your spoken audio or video into written text.
These professionals possess in-depth knowledge of their craft, are experts in grammar and punctuation, and can effectively handle diverse accents and speaking styles.
A human transcriber’s job doesn’t end with listening and typing. Each is tasked with capturing all the details in a conversation: identifying speakers, indicating emphasis, and correcting grammar issues for edited transcripts, among other tasks.
Scenarios Where Human Transcriptions Are Crucial
Below are the most common cases or situations where human transcriptions are crucial.
| Scenario | Why Human Transcription is Best |
| Legal Proceedings | Legal accuracy is paramount. Human transcribers can ensure precise capture of legalese and terminology. Not all transcripts are certified and legally admissible. Ditto employs (U.S. Based) real humans who perform legal transcription services, which ensures that transcripts can be used in legal proceedings. |
| Medical Dictation | Medical terminology and nuances are crucial, requiring trained human transcribers for accurate healthcare documentation. |
| Interviews | Capturing speaker intent and nonverbal cues is important for interviews and is best done by humans. For example, verbatim transcription is crucial as it provides a word-for-word account of different speakers, including their stutters and non-verbal cues. |
| Focus Groups | Understanding group dynamics and overlapping speech requires human expertise in focus groups. |
| Creative Content | Preserving the style and intent of creative content, like poems or song lyrics, is best left to human transcribers. |
| Highly Confidential Information | Human transcription with robust security protocols is preferred for sensitive data with security concerns. |
Pros & Cons Of Human Transcription
Human transcription has been the gold standard for decades as it offers a level of accuracy that machines strive to achieve.
Pros
- Better Accuracy: Professional human transcribers can recognize accents, background noise, and even technical jargon. They can provide 99% accuracy (depending on skill). This is especially helpful for legal proceedings, medical interviews, or research purposes since they require every word to be correct or as close to perfect as possible. In the medico-legal field, it’s a matter of life and death. Winning and losing a case is directly influenced by the accuracy of a transcript.
- Understanding the Context: Unlike robots, human transcriptionists can grasp the meaning of a conversation and accurately capture its nuances. Sometimes, the speaker is humorous or sarcastic or sprinkles in cultural references in the discussion. Depending on their experience, human transcribers can identify and convey the intended meaning of the conversation, not only the literal words spoken.
- Flexibility: Another advantage is that human transcriptionists can handle different audio formats. Professional transcriptionists can handle low-quality recordings, overlapping speakers, and unfamiliar terminology, as they can adjust their approach to meet specific needs.
- Security: Hackers target AI platforms, resulting in data breaches. Furthermore, automated solutions aren’t as foolproof as some would like to think. Even some human transcription services struggle to provide the security that many regulatory bodies require. CJIS, HIPAA, and FINRA compliance can be challenging to meet, requiring significant time, commitment, and resources. However, it is a mark of trust that no empty claim can match. Therefore, it is best to look for service providers that offer the highest security levels.
- Better Quality Control: Compared to automated systems, reputable transcription service providers—powered by humans, of course—employ a strict quality control process to ensure accuracy and consistency. This quality control process involves multiple rounds of review and proofreading to identify and correct any errors in the transcript.
Cons
- Cost: As we all know, human transcription is a labor-intensive process, and therefore, it’s expected to be more expensive than automated options. The cost for human transcription services ranges from $1.50 to $5.00 per minute of audio.
- Turnaround Time: This is one area where machine transcription, on the surface, can outperform humans. However, Automated transcription is far from perfect and requires editing, which almost always negates the “initial savings.”
- Listener Fatigue: Unlike robots, humans are prone to fatigue. We can experience fatigue when listening to extremely long audio files. Depending on the individual’s stomach and the transcriptionist’s experience, fatigue can lead to errors. Automated platforms don’t have this physical limitation.
What Is Machine Transcription?
Machine transcription is becoming a popular solution for many. It’s the process of using software to convert audio recordings into text. If you’re not familiar with it, it relies on speech recognition technology that analyzes audio recordings and then translates them into written text.
Although machine transcription tools are efficient, they still can’t match the accuracy of human transcriptionists, which is the most important factor for transcribed documents.
AI, or machine transcription, still struggles with accents, background noise, and jargon.
Pros & Cons Of Machine (AI) Transcription
AI transcription has its fair share of advantages and disadvantages despite the shiny, new-tech exterior.:
Pros
- Speed: Arguably, the most significant edge of automated transcription is speed. Some providers offer real-time transcription, while others can give transcripts in minutes, far quicker than what humans can offer. It is very helpful in situations where speed outweighs accuracy.
- Cheaper: Since less human labor is required, and almost all the work will be conducted by a machine, its pricing is significantly lower compared to human transcription.
- Always Available: The advantage of AI is that it is always available. Its services are consistent, and it does not need to sleep. Additionally, it is unaffected by different events, including holidays. AI is 24/7 business hours.
- Integration Capabilities: Video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet seamlessly integrate AI transcription, providing a transcript of the meeting just after it is dismissed.
Cons
- Accuracy: The maximum accuracy of AI is 61.92%. Some may claim 99% accuracy, but these are unverifiable claims that previous clients cannot substantiate.
- Limited Functionality: Transcripts, particularly legal transcripts, need correct formatting. AI transcription, however, often lacks speaker ID, timestamps, and other essential metadata in its transcripts.
- Security Concerns: Some cloud-based automated transcription services raise concerns about privacy. In late 2024, AI researcher Alex Bilzerian reported that an automatic transcript from Otter.ai included sensitive discussions after he had left the online meeting with venture capital investors. The transcript recorded post-meeting conversations that were not intended for him, leading to the cancellation of a potential investment deal. It highlights the risk associated with AI tools distributing confidential information without proper safeguards.
While it is true that Artificial Intelligence can ease the process of legal preparation, its capabilities are still limited, particularly in terms of accuracy. Aside from transcription difficulties, AI is prone in other errors crucial in a legal proceeding.
In Mata v Avianca (2023), Roberto Mata filed a legal brief that featured a fictitious case citation generated by ChatGPT. Upon review, it was found that the case cited did not exist, resulting in a $5,000 fine on the attorneys for submitting false information and acting in bad faith. This highlights the risk of using AI without a clear extent.
Challenges In Accuracy: Machine Vs. Human Transcribing Audio Or Video Files
The most effective way to objectively compare human and automated transcription is to place them in situations that frequently arise during transcription. So, let’s take a look at how they do:
In hindsight, here’s how human transcriptions compare against the robots (automated transcription.)
| Feature | Human transcripts | Machine /Automated transcripts |
| Accuracy | Up to 99% accuracy when properly trained | ~61.92% accuracy |
| Legal Admissibility | Can comply with CJIS, FINRA, and HIPAA regulatory standards | Not admissible. Rarely have regulatory compliance. |
| Formatting | Clear speaker labelling, with timestamps, and formatted for legal purposes. | Misidentification of speakers, incorrect timestamps, and lack of specific formatting. Often requires editing by a human. |
| Noise and Context | Listens to and transcribes the whole audio. Understand human emotions and contexts. Understand slang and jargon. | Omits transcription from audio with noisy backgrounds. Does not account for any contexts Cannot account for slang and jargon. |
| Speaker, timestamps | Labels and identifies multiple speakers | Only provides a raw transcript that is often confusing, particularly when there are multiple speakers. |
| Pricing | Ditto’s standard pricing starts at $1.50 per audio minute. Provides exceptional customer service after project turnover. | Often cheaper but requires major revisions performed by a human. |
Some examples you may encounter in transcription that humans can get right while AI can’t:
| Hard-to-Transcribe Word or Phrase | Intended Meaning | AI Output (Rough/Incorrect) |
| “Annie’s Law” (legal reference) | Annie’s Law | and he’s flaw |
| “Phenergan” (medication name) | Phenergan | fen again |
| “Ma’lik Johnson” (spoken with accent) | Ma’lik Johnson | mallet junction |
| “COPD exacerbation” (medical term) | COPD exacerbation | C-O-P-T eggs as herbation |
| “Levy breach” (environmental context) | Levee breach | levy breech |
Why Pick Ditto For Your Human Transcription Needs?
Below are some of the service features you can expect from Ditto Transcripts.
| Feature | Benefit |
| Accuracy | Ditch the errors. Get transcripts with a mind-blowing 99% accuracy guarantee. |
| Speed | Forget deadlines. Our turnaround times are lightning-fast, with options as quick as 24 hours. |
| Experience | Relax, experts on deck. Our team of transcription wizards can handle any audio or video. |
| Versatility | We speak your language. Transcribe legal, medical, academic, financial content, and more! |
| Affordability | Don’t break the bank. Get top-notch service at competitive prices. Our transcription pricing is transparent, allowing clients to estimate and reduce the cost for their transcription needs |
| Convenience | Upload your way. Drag and drop, dial-in recording—your workflow, your way. |
| Security | Sleep soundly. Your data is safe with industry-standard security practices that meet CJIS, FINRA, and HIPAA guidelines. |
| Ease of Use | No tech headaches. Our straightforward instructions make getting started a breeze. |
| Free Trial | Try before you buy. Sign up for a free trial and experience the Ditto difference. |
Below you can find the comparison of different transcription companies, both AI and human-powered.
Although several companies claim to be exclusively human-powered, not all of them comply with regulatory standards and can certify transcripts. Only Ditto provides a comprehensive service at a competitive price. And our clients’ testimonials seem to agree:
Our Transcriptions May Help You With Your Business
If you’re looking for better transcription accuracy or overall service quality, it’s time to choose Ditto Transcripts. We’re serious when we say we can deliver 99% accuracy. Our team of specialized transcriptionists enables us to provide the highest accuracy in the human transcription market.
Ditto Transcripts offers an alternative to automated transcription services, with affordable pricing and fast turnaround times that may not be real-time, yet are still significantly more rapid than the competition. Of course, we prioritize data security and provide a user-friendly platform for your convenience.
Ditto Transcripts is a Denver, Colorado-based transcription company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable services for individuals and companies of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote.