Who were the specialized typists often responsible for manually typing out content played back from dictation machines during the human transcription era?
Answer
Stenographers or transcribers.
Before computers could reliably process spoken language automatically, the entire transcription process relied on skilled human effort. Professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and executives would record their dictation onto physical media like tapes or cylinders using dictation machines. The subsequent labor-intensive task of converting this audio playback into written text was assigned to specialized typists. These professionals were formally referred to as either stenographers or transcribers, who listened carefully, paused, and manually typed out every word dictated by the original speaker.

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