Brent R. Carr
The transcript begins without introduction.
There are multiple speakers. None are identified. The software assigns letters—A, B, C—but the assignments shift as voices overlap. This is a known limitation. The system was not designed for speech that refuses turn-taking.
Certain phrases recur.
“You are here.” “I know.” “Say it.”
Recognition is implied, but of what remains unclear. Names appear briefly, then dissolve into phonetic approximations. The system attempts to stabilize them. It fails.
I listen to the audio alongside the transcript. The voices are calm. What unsettles me is the lack of ownership. Each statement seems to belong to more than one speaker.
At several points, the software inserts [unintelligible].
I replay those sections. The words are intelligible. What the system cannot determine is who is speaking.
One voice says my name. Or something close to it. The phonemes align, then slide. The transcript offers several versions, then abandons the attempt. I do not correct it. To correct would be to choose.
This is not conversation. Statements are absorbed, returned altered, echoed without origin. Listening becomes participation. The act of hearing alters what can be said next.
Near the end, there is a pause.
Then: “Who are you?”
No answer follows. Only breath, movement, interference. The system records this as silence.
The silence occupies a full line.
The final note reads: Participants could not be reliably distinguished.
This is accurate.
Meaning emerged without assignable ownership, sustained only through proximity and repetition. I archive the file.
The voices do not follow me, but the conditions that allowed them remain intact.
Author’s Note. Transcript with Unknown Participants emerges from interaction with automated transcription software attempting to assign speakers within overlapping speech. As attribution fails, language circulates without stable ownership. The piece approaches collaboration not as deliberate co-creation but as a condition produced by technical constraint, where speech, software, and listener jointly generate meaning that cannot be reliably assigned to any single source.
Brent R. Carr is a psychiatrist and writer. His creative nonfiction and hybrid prose appear in literary journals internationally.