I came across a discussion on Hacker News about interview transcription, and I was curious to see how well Google’s latest LLM, Gemini-1.5-Pro-Experiment-0801, could do. Below is five minutes of the recording of an interview that appeared on the New York Times website, followed by the prompt I gave to Gemini and Gemini’s response.
Audio recording of beginning of interview
Prompt given to Gemini-1.5-Pro-Experiment-0801
Attached is the beginning of an interview recorded a day or two ago. I want you to transcribe it accurately, carefully, and verbatim. Indicate the name of each speaker. Indicate music or sound effects in brackets. Use standard spelling and capitalization. Before you begin transcribing, first listen to the entire excerpt to make sure that you understand the context and who is speaking.
Gemini’s response
[00:00:00 to 00:00:23] [Music]
Ezra Klein: From New York Times Opinion, this is The Ezra Klein Show.
[00:00:23 to 00:01:20] [Music]
Ezra Klein: The remarkable thing about the past couple of months in politics has been watching the Democratic Party act like something we have not seen for a long time. A political party. A party that makes decisions collectively. A party that does hard things because it wants to win. A party that is more than the vehicle for a single, usually man's ambitions. But parties are made of people. And in this case, the party was, in particular, made of a person. Nancy Pelosi, one of the longest serving speakers, the first female speaker of the house. And one of the, it sometimes feels like, last people left in American politics who knows how to wield power and knows why she wants to wield power. She has a new book, "The Art of Power." And she came by The Times to talk about what she has learned, why she does what she does, and how she sees this moment in American politics.
[00:01:20 to 00:01:23] [Music]
Ezra Klein: Nancy Pelosi, welcome to the show.
Nancy Pelosi: Pleasure to be here.
Ezra Klein: So, we're talking on the day that Vice President Harris named Tim Walz as her vice-presidential pick in the campaign. He served with you in the house. He is the first former member of the house to be on a ticket since Al Gore on a Democratic ticket, at least. What was he like in the house? What can you tell us about him to help us get to know him better?
Nancy Pelosi: He was remarkable in the house. He came uh winning a Republican seat. So he was a red to blue. But he came as the longest serving non-commissioned officer in the military to ever to serve in the Congress. So he was on a path of veterans' affairs and the rest. He came as a child who had worked in farming as a child. And so that the rural America was a big priority for him. And uh so when I hear people talking about where liberally is, I'm like, wait a minute. [Laughter] This is not the same person. He was right down the middle. And just as I was getting off the elevator, I got a message from his classmates. They're having a Zoom event for a fundraiser for him. Uh which they were happy to invite me to.
Ezra Klein: His, his house uh classmates.
Nancy Pelosi: His house classmates. He's very popular in the house. Very popular in the house. Members are so excited about him because he's a a wonderful person. Just normal, lovely, wonderful guy. But the veterans' affairs issue, that's something you're elected to and it's competed for. And he won their confidence in that regard. But let me just say, um he called me right after this, shall we say, opportunity arose. I know how to make this case. I know how to differentiate. I can get this done. I'm, I'm putting myself out there. And who to thunk it? You know, here he is, governor of Minnesota, and he's putting himself out there. And then he comes up with "weird," which becomes viral and the rest, and here he is. So I have to give him a lot of credit for not only being a great governor and values based and visionary and all that, but being quite an adept politician.
Ezra Klein: Experience as a governor is very prized presidentially. People talk about executive experience, people talk about experience in, in the Senate. Joe Biden was partially on the ticket with Obama due to his background in the Senate. What do you learn in the house that you don't learn from being a governor or being a senator?
Nancy Pelosi: Well, a governor is a different story. That's an administrative, management experience that is different. And we're very proud that we have so many. If you read my book, you don't see too much, shall we say, patience with a senator and a senator and a senator and a senator, a senator. Because what they do, they bring their staff, their staff, their staff. And they're such an, um Senate-centric attitude toward, "What will can pass the Senate?" Well, we're a band wagon, they're a a convoy. So I'm glad to see somebody with the house experience uh going into the uh executive branch.
Ezra Klein: You, you make the argument in the book that members of the house are more retail oriented. What do you mean by that?
Nancy Pelosi: Well, I mean that they are used, we, we have to run every two years. So we're close. And that's as our founders intended, that we would be close to the people and run each two, every two years. They have them every six years. It's a whole different story. Not that we don't value them and what they bring to it and all that. But um, ours is, um, shall we say, a little more rough and tumble, a little more impatience to get things done. And a little more closeness, whatever the word is, to the constituents, our bosses. We consider them our bosses.