Computer Input Sucks - A Brain Dump

post by Johannes C. Mayer (johannes-c-mayer) · 2023-03-08T11:06:37.780Z · LW · GW · 11 comments

Contents

  Alternative Input Machines
  Automatic Speech Recognition
  Walking While Writing
  [Update 2023-04-10]
  [Update 2023-04-25]
None
14 comments

Epistemic Status: Just dumping my current thinking, and information I have on the topic, together with some possible solutions. I have not optimized super hard to be very accurate. I expect most of the value of this post comes from becoming aware of the issue.

It seems like we are in inadequate equilibria with regard to computer input.

I find it pretty weird that QWERTY is the default input method we use. It is very slow (much slower than you can think) and gives you RSI. It is possible to do much better than this, even without a BCI [? · GW]. I use the Dvorak keyboard layout. As far as I know, it does not make you type faster, but it does make your fingers move a lot less. This is good for preventing RSI. In Dvorak, the keys that are used the most frequently are in the home row of the keyboard.

However, the input speed problem remains. I write ~80 WPM on Dvorak. I think this slows me down. I can think much faster in language than this. This is especially noticeable in stream-of-thought writing, where you are optimizing a lot less for quality.

Alternative Input Machines

There are two alternative input schemes that I know about, that seem promising. These are Stenography and the CharaChordor One.

The goal of both of these systems is to write much faster. 225wpm is definitely possible with a lot of training in stenography. I am unsure about the top speed of the CharaChorder, but I would guess that it is at least 150, with the default setup. As far as I know, both of these systems do not induce RSI. Stenography was invented for court reporting. People still use it for that, and nowadays also for live captioning. Using it you can write for hours every day, without RSI becoming a problem.

Both of these systems speed you up, by enabling you to press multiple characters at the same time, which then creates a word or a syllable of a word.

I have heard that it takes 1 to 4 weeks to get up to 40WPM with the CharaChorder. Stenography takes much longer I think. I expect 100-400 hours of training time. CharaChorder has the advantage that you have all of the normal keyboard keys, whereas with Stenography it might be hard to use keyboard shortcuts to control your desktop environment, but it is definitely possible using plover.

The CharaChorder software is closed source, while plover is open source. The CharaChorder costs 300$, while you can get a steno keyboard for as little as 75-$140.

All the configuration of the CharaChorder is stored on the keyboard itself (at least if you use the default setup) so it is plug-and-play. Plover requires a bit of setup (~3-10min if you know what you are doing).

The last thing I have heard is that CharaChorder does not play very nice with vim, but they said that they would address this issue. I am unsure if this is fixed. I have not used the CharaChorder yet, but have ordered one that should arrive in a couple of weeks. I have learned Stenography for tens of hours and can confirm that it is very hard to learn. Much harder than learning how to touch type.

Automatic Speech Recognition

I have an S22 ultra, and I noticed that in Gboard I have a toggle in the options "Faster voice typing". If I enable this, the ASR actually does not suck anymore and if I pronounce the words clearly, it has very high accuracy, even when I speak very fast. "AI alignment" is recognized correctly, though there are nonstandard words that are not recognized correctly.

When using the Gboard ASR, I estimate that I am slightly faster than using Dvorak, even when I take into account, that I need to reread the entire thing and correct any errors that showed up. I have not performed any rigorous tests though.

Walking While Writing

I have heard that walking stimulates your thinking ability. I think I can confirm this anecdotally. But if this is correct, then it seems crazy that we don't have a standard solution for writing while walking (or at least not a solution that everybody knows about). I have a setup for this, that might solve this problem. I have not tested it yet.

The idea is to get AR classes (I have these), and a laptop harness. Then you get a very light laptop, put it in the harness, connect the AR glasses, such that they mirror the laptop screen and voila.

Alternatively, you could get a phone that can run the AR glasses together with a Bluetooth keyboard that can connect to the phone. Having a phone with DeX is probably good. Then just put the keyboard on the laptop harness, and type away.

[Update 2023-04-10]

I'm now using Whisper, speech-to-text, for most of the things that I'm writing. And this is much, much better than the Gboard speech-to-text. And it is so fast that I actually now expect that learning stenography and all the Charachorder is actually not worth it anymore.

I have written this program such that I can use Whisper anywhere on my system to enter text.

It also has other advantages over the alternatives. I can now transcribe conversations that I'm having, or while I have a conversation transcribe what I'm saying, such that I can look back over what I was saying when I lose the thread.

[Update 2023-04-25]

I have done a single test reading out loud this article [LW · GW] for 1 minute and transcribing it with Whisper. I reached 197 WPM on the first try. I only got a single punctuation error.

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