I remember in 2016 I could dictate whole novels with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which at that time worked on my Mac. They no longer support Mac , so I decided to try the new AI transcription services. And man, are they stupid.
For one, every time I talk and pause to take a breath, they put in a comma. You fucking idiots. If I pause for a breath, that does not mean put a comma.
Second, they try to interpret or analyze my words and clean it up to make me sound like some MBA from Harvard. I’m not an MBA.
Worst of all, today I was dictating a conclusion to my novel. I said something like, “I left some plot points unresolved, but I’ll resolve them in the next book.”
And you won’t believe what happened.
The idiotic transcription service—whose only job is to transcribe my words—started putting in AI suggestions on how to improve my book without asking me, without my permission.
Luckily, the text I was dictating was very small, so I noticed the AI trying to mess up my work. Im scared shitless what would have happened if I had hit publish without checking.
Back in 2016, I would dictate what I wanted and it would show up on the page.
I can't do that in 2026. Not without a lot of hacking, not without giving it Lord of the Rings-length instructions, most of which are like, “Mother trucker, just follow my instructions, ok, asshole? Don’t interpret, don’t add nothing, just my words as they are.”
Here's a funny thing though.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking also used machine learning, right? They used machine learning that had been created for one specific task, and it worked really well for that. Which shows Machine learning can work.
And these general purpose retarded AI transcription services that are supposed to do everything cannot do anything right. I can't fucking trust them because I know they'll stab me in the back the moment I look the other way.
Jesus Christ, man. The job of a transcription is only one thing: take my speech and convert it to text. If I speak like a hilly-billy, leave that in. That's how I want to speak.
So idiotic that I was dictating a comedy novel, a fantasy comedy novel about two, you know, junkies who are fighting zombies. And obviously the junkies were speaking like junkies. Broken English with grammatical errors.
And the motherfucking transcription service fixed their English to make it more proper. They were like, “Old chap, we shall hunt these zombies. Tally Ho!”
I was like, asshole, no, my zombie hunting junkie characters don't talk like that. Why did you change their talking style?
And the transcription service was like, “oh, I thought this would be better, I fixed it for you” and it pissed me off so much I almost smashed the computer screen.
The retarded AI is not transcribing my speech. It is trying to think or improve me because the fucking idiot thinks it's smarter than me.
But if you thought the retardation was over, oh boy were you wrong. Oh man, were you wrong.
I was dictating a detective novel, and you know, the detective—somebody asked how the detective figured out the murder, and the detective said something like, “first I noticed that XYZ, and then I noticed that ABC, finally I concluded that,” you know, something, something.
So my detective was like, you know, Poirot trying to summarize his steps.
And you won't believe what happened.
The asshole transcription service put it in a bullet point. It took my detective's notes and it turned my detective's analysis into a PowerPoint presentation by putting in bullet points and adding a conclusion paragraph.
Like:
- I noticed XYZ
- Then I noticed ABC
- Conclusion: (My words followed here)
I screamed at the AI service and asked it not to do it. But like I said, it'll follow your instructions now and then. But if you use it long enough, it will fuck up.
All these people claiming AI tools work great use them for like 5 minutes. I tried it for a 150,000 novel and trust me that shit BREAKS ALL THE TIME.
I wish there was a tool like Dragon Naturally Speaking, but for my Mac. That just transcribed my words and NOTHING ELSE.
And I know people reading this will be like, “oh, you should try this tool,” or “you should try that shit.”
Trust me, I've tried like 20 different services, including three or four I actually paid for.
The worst transcription I got was from Wispr Flow (oh wow, what cute spelling! Quick, give them $200 million in VC funding), for which I was paying them like $12 or $15 a month. They were the retards putting in bullet points and making my stoned junkie heroes sound like Oxbridge graduates.
So yeah, don't recommend any crap to me. I tried all the tools, they all suck.
It's 2026, man, and dictation is like a million times worse than it was in 2016, 10 years ago.
Thanks, technology. Thanks, progress. You're the best, man.