S Twatter: When text-to-speech goes down the drain

"A Reg reader received an automated call warning of potential water discoloration during planned works from January 19-25. The message advised running taps for twenty minutes if the water appeared discolored - standard stuff, if a bit robotic. In the recording forwarded to us, a female voice told our reader what to expect. All good, if a little robotic. However, things went off the rails a bit when the robot attempted to read out the URL for Severn Trent: http://www.stwater.co.uk/discolouration."

"The robot took a run at it, but the result was unlikely to be what the water company wanted. We imagine Severn Trent was hoping for "S T Water," but instead got "S Twatter." Text-to-speech blunders are nothing new. This writer has fond memories of home computers with primitive speech synthesizers producing similar gaffes to the horror of listening parents, and later validating Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS) to spare customers confusion and embarrassment."

Severn Trent sent an automated robocall warning customers about potential water discoloration during planned works from January 19-25 and advised running taps for twenty minutes if discoloration occurred. A prerecorded female voice delivered the notice and attempted to read the URL http://www.stwater.co.uk/discolouration. The text-to-speech system mispronounced the URL, producing an unintended and embarrassing rendering that sounded like "S Twatter." Similar text-to-speech and IVR misreads have occurred since early speech synthesizers. Human verification and quality checks on robocall content can prevent such mispronunciations and public embarrassment.

Read at Theregister