To the Editor:

I read with interest the letter, “Until the lungs are removed …” [October 1999], about voice-recognition systems.

After a recent demonstration of Dragon Naturally Speaking, I trained the program by reading to it for 30 minutes and then dictated some sample notes. I didn't have too many problems once I discovered that it was necessary to enunciate clearly. There were occasional errors, but no more than our transcriptionist makes.

However, the program can be fooled. I dictated the following sentence at top speed: “This is a test to see how fast I can speak to it.” The transcription came out as: “This is the testicles of the CIA.” No joke.