Human parity in speech recognition
Microsoft reported 5.9 percent error on Switchboard, the same rate professional transcribers make.
Why it matters
The task the 1971 ARPA programme set was declared solved for the first time, by a commonly accepted measure.
The bar was not set abstractly: the same material was given to professional transcribers and their error was measured. The qualification matters: parity concerns one corpus of English telephone conversations under laboratory evaluation. Noise, accents and overlapping speakers remained unsolved. The following year the same group brought the figure to 5.1 percent.