I spoke to the AI avatar of a Leeds MP. How did it cope with my Yorkshire accent?
As anyone with even a trace of a regional dialect who has had to pay a parking fine can attest, voice recognition services struggle with accents,Now, people in Mark Sewards’ constituency in Leeds are likely to find the same problem with his AI variant,A chatbot billed as the first AI version of an MP responds in Sewards’ voice with advice, support or by offering to pass on a message to his team – but only if it understands you,The website, a virtual representation of the MP for Leeds South West and Morley – complete with a Pixar-style cartoon – was launched by a local startup to field questions from his constituents, some of whom have broad Leeds accents,I was interested to see how “Sewardsbot” would handle a conversation with someone from only a couple of miles away from his constituency border.
Summoning my “home” voice (the one I had before it was adulterated by university, several years living in London, and many conversations with Guardian colleagues from East Sussex), I begin a conversation.“Hi.I’m AI Mark Sewards, Labour MP for Leeds South West and Morley, can I help you today?” the character says, in Sewards’ voice.“Now then,” I begin.My words appear on the screen, and while the bot doesn’t seem to understand it as a greeting – “now then” means “hello” in most of Yorkshire – it fills the gap in the conversation, asking for my name and contact details.
The AI version of Seward records all the conversations, with the aim that his team will be able to pick out the key topics that his constituents are talking about – something it has been criticised for.Speaking of key topics, I go straight in with what is on many people’s minds: the horrendous images and video coming out of Palestine.“Are you gonna do summat about Gaza? Y’ant got it right Mark, love,” I say.Sewardsbot handles this well, understanding that I’m broadly talking about Gaza, though doing nothing to explain the government’s position.A message on the website had warned me: “AI Mark is a prototype digital assistant – this is a work in progress and not everything it says should be taken as fact.
All responses are AI-generated,”I try a few other phrases to see if I can throw it off with colloquialisms, asking if someone can call me, but that I’m at work “nine while half five so I can’t be ont’ phone” until after, and telling it I was “chuffed” to have had a chip butty in a nice breadcake in his constituency,Its interpretation of my accent is terrible and much of it is transcribed as unreadable gobbledegook,Unlike a human, it doesn’t understand that the glottal stop used in front of words means “the”, although it manages to get the gist,So I decide to ask the kind of problem a constituency MP might be requested to solve – even if it’s not their responsibility.
“Me neighbour’s lad’s blocked’t ginnel at’t back wi an old settee and he won’t do owt about it.If someone dun’t come for it, it’s going in’t road,” I say.I suspect Sewards himself would tell me to contact Leeds city council about flytipping, instead the AI tells me I need to speak to the police to report an abandoned vehicle.MPs’ aides will no doubt be sighing in relief – they’ve got nowt to worry about just yet.
Shared prayers and tears: how Lammy wooed JD Vance and the White House
It was famously something that Tony Blair did not do with George W Bush, or at least not something to which the then British prime minister wished to admit. But these are very different times.When the US vice-president, JD Vance, and his family join David Lammy at the foreign secretary’s grace and favour home in Kent at the start of their summer holiday in the UK, they are expected to deepen their relationship by praying together, it is understood.Within the grounds of Chevening lies the pretty 12th-century St Botolph’s church. It is Anglican but, security risks and denominational differences aside, it may present one option for a place to take communion, sources suggested
Planes, trains and more missteps from Labour | Letters
Polly Toynbee rightly advocates greener rail travel over the greater environmental damage caused by airliners (Pushing airport expansion while rail travel languishes – so much for Labour’s green agenda, 5 August). Alas, the same government that has authorised a massive expansion of Heathrow airport has also just pulled the plug on completing the electrification of the Midland Main Line from London to Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield.By my reckoning, this is the third time the scheme has been abandoned partway through. It will ensure that four diesel trains an hour will be plying the route for the foreseeable future, adding to air quality issues and consuming more fossil fuels.The overhead wiring for the electric trains currently ends in the middle of nowhere a few miles south of Leicester
Does Jeremy Corbyn know his potatoes? | Brief letters
“Is this government going to put the nail in the coffin of the joy of digging ground for potatoes on a cold, wet February Sunday afternoon?” Jeremy Corbyn wrote in the Daily Telegraph (Jeremy Corbyn warns rules on council asset sales threaten allotments, 5 August). Never trust a man who can’t tell his parsnips from his potatoes: leaving spuds in the ground till February means they’ll have been spoiled by frost or rot. And I say this as a lifelong Labour voter.Dariel FrancisTunbridge Wells, Kent A key point not covered in your article (YouTube most popular first TV destination for children, Ofcom finds, 30 July) is the extent to which schools, particularly primaries, use YouTube, from movement breaks to educational programmes and quiet-time cartoons before home time.Cat Mehta Weybridge, Surrey While I enjoyed his review of Millet at the National Gallery (5 August), I do wonder about Jonathan Jones’s inner life
Starmer declines to rule out election pledge-breaking tax rises in budget after claim Treasury must fill £40bn deficit – as it happened
Keir Starmer has defended the government’s handling of the economy, but declined to rule out tax rises in the autumn budget.Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to Milton Keynes today, he also claimed that he did not “recognise” some of the figures in a thinktank report claiming that in the budget in the autumn Rachel Reeves will need to address a deficit of more than £40bn.The National Institute of Economic and Social Research argues that tax rises will be needed to plug the hole in government finances. (See 9.39am
Labour accused of using Jimmy Savile’s name to ‘bait’ Nigel Farage
Labour’s use of Jimmy Savile’s “toxic” name appeared to be an attempt to “deliberately bait” Nigel Farage and would distress survivors of child sexual abuse, lawyers for victims of the late TV presenter has said.Alan Collins, the head of the abuse team at Hugh James solicitors, said it was “concerning” to see Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, and others use Savile’s name to try to “score points over political opponents”.Labour has accused Farage and Reform UK of being “on the side of predators like Savile” by opposing the Online Safety Act.Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, was the first minister to make the comparison when he told Sky News last week: “I see that Nigel Farage is already saying that he’s going to overturn these laws. So you know, we have people out there who are extreme pornographers, peddling hate, peddling violence
Keir Starmer plays down warnings that taxes will have to be raised in autumn
Keir Starmer has sought to play down warnings that the government will be forced to raise taxes this autumn and said some of the figures being circulated “are not ones I recognise”.The prime minister was responding to forecasts from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), which projected a shortfall of up to £51bn in the public finances, given a number of factors had knocked the chancellor’s plans to stay within Whitehall spending limits, including higher debt interest payments and U-turns on welfare spending cuts.NIESR said “moderate but sustained” tax rises would be needed in the autumn budget for Rachel Reeves to overcome the deficit of £41.2bn and then restore a near £10bn buffer in the current budget or be forced to use harsh cost-cutting measures in the autumn statement.Speaking during a visit to Milton Keynes, Starmer disagreed with the economists’ warnings
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