{"id":326010,"date":"2025-08-07T19:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T19:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326010\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T19:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T19:47:10","slug":"i-spoke-to-the-ai-avatar-of-a-leeds-mp-how-did-it-cope-with-my-yorkshire-accent-artificial-intelligence-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326010\/","title":{"rendered":"I spoke to the AI avatar of a Leeds MP. How did it cope with my Yorkshire accent? | Artificial intelligence (AI)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019 constituency in Leeds<\/a> are likely to find the same problem with his AI variant.<\/p>\n

A chatbot billed as the first AI version of an MP responds in Sewards\u2019 voice with advice, support or by offering to pass on a message to his team \u2013 but only if it understands you.<\/p>\n

The website, a virtual representation of the MP for Leeds South West and Morley \u2013 complete with a Pixar-style cartoon \u2013 was launched by a local startup to field questions from his constituents, some of whom have broad Leeds accents.<\/p>\n

I was interested to see how \u201cSewardsbot\u201d would handle a conversation with someone from only a couple of miles away from his constituency border.<\/p>\n

Summoning my \u201chome\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi. I\u2019m AI Mark Sewards, Labour<\/a> MP for Leeds South West and Morley, can I help you today?\u201d the character says, in Sewards\u2019 voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow then,\u201d I begin. My words appear on the screen, and while the bot doesn\u2019t seem to understand it as a greeting \u2013 \u201cnow then\u201d means \u201chello\u201d in most of Yorkshire \u2013 it fills the gap in the conversation, asking for my name and contact details.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 something it has been criticised for.<\/p>\n

Speaking of key topics, I go straight in with what is on many people\u2019s minds: the horrendous images and video coming out of Palestine. \u201cAre you gonna do summat about Gaza? Y\u2019ant got it right Mark, love,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

Sewardsbot handles this well, understanding that I\u2019m broadly talking about Gaza, though doing nothing to explain the government\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

A message on the website had warned me: \u201cAI Mark is a prototype digital assistant \u2013 this is a work in progress and not everything it says should be taken as fact. All responses are AI-generated.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019m at work \u201cnine while half five so I can\u2019t be ont\u2019 phone\u201d until after, and telling it I was \u201cchuffed\u201d to have had a chip butty in a nice breadcake in his constituency.<\/p>\n

Its interpretation of my accent is terrible and much of it is transcribed as unreadable gobbledegook. Unlike a human, it doesn\u2019t understand that the glottal stop used in front of words means \u201cthe\u201d, although it manages to get the gist.<\/p>\n

So I decide to ask the kind of problem a constituency MP might be requested to solve \u2013 even if it\u2019s not their responsibility. \u201cMe neighbour\u2019s lad\u2019s blocked\u2019t ginnel at\u2019t back wi an old settee and he won\u2019t do owt about it. If someone dun\u2019t come for it, it\u2019s going in\u2019t road,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

MPs\u2019 aides will no doubt be sighing in relief \u2013 they\u2019ve got nowt to worry about just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As anyone with even a trace of a regional dialect who has had to pay a parking fine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-326010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114989212851445704","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}