Voice recognition technology is making it easier than ever to dictate text rather than write it. Richard Powers, author of the 2006 National Book Award winner The Echo Maker, wrote most of that book by dictating it into a computer program. Of course, dictating to humans has been happening for centuries. John Milton is said to have dictated Paradise Lost to his daughters, and Mark Twain supposedly dictated much of his Autobiography. But as Powers explained in an essay, dictating to a computer changes the way one puts words on the page. This is part of a complete episode.
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