Notes on voice, privacy and the machines that listen.
Practical guides to dictating to AI assistants and coding tools, plain answers about where your voice goes, and analysis of how machines are learning to listen.
Robots don't come with keyboards: how a robot hears you
Robot brains read text, so a speech recogniser decides what they hear. Why robots hear worse than phones, and what a misheard command can cost near people.
- Guides
How to dictate prompts to Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor
A practical guide to dictating long prompts to AI assistants: what to say, how to get names and code right, and how to keep your voice on your own computer.
- Privacy
Does dictation software send your voice to the cloud?
What actually leaves your computer when you dictate: the three kinds of dictation tool, how to check which one you have, and what it means for work under an NDA.
- Guides
Claude Code voice mode and privacy: where your audio goes
Claude Code's /voice sends your audio to Anthropic. Who cannot use it, who may not want to, what it does well, and how to dictate prompts on your own computer.
- Guides
A 10-minute test to check a dictation app works offline
Steps anyone can follow on a Mac or Windows PC to see whether a dictation app sends anything while you speak, what each result means, and what the test cannot show.
- Guides
Offline dictation on Windows: Win+H, Voice Access or an app
Microsoft's own pages say Windows voice typing (Win+H) needs the internet and Voice Access does not. We explain what each is for and where a dictation app fits.
- Long runs
How to stop your Mac sleeping during a long Claude Code run
A long agent run stops when the computer sleeps. Why it happens, how to see what keeps a Mac or PC awake, the built-in fixes, and what closing the lid does.
- Accuracy
How to fix misheard jargon in dictation with a vocabulary list
Why dictation mistypes tool names, acronyms and jargon, how to write a vocabulary list that helps, and what to try when a name still comes out as a common word.
- Open office
How to dictate quietly in an open office or co-working space
In our own use you can dictate in an open office in a whisper, with the microphone a little closer to your mouth. Here is how, and where it struggles.
- Comparison
Claude Code voice, VS Code Speech, Cursor or a dictation app?
A dated table, from each vendor's own documentation, of where Claude Code, VS Code, Cursor and Dictate Safe, a dictation app, process your voice and what each needs.