At the start of his career, Li Zhengjie would scour the streets, wander university campuses and even climb skyscrapers to drum up business. He quickly realized that being a freelance stenographer is hard work－even before you've landed a client.

Twelve years on, the job is still hard, but at least his income has increased.

Li's first client was a professor who paid him 160 yuan (US$25) in March 2006 to record and transcribe discussions during a two-hour seminar in Beijing. Li and his wife, also a stenographer, made about 1,800 yuan a month that year, but today they can earn up to 30,000 yuan a month.

"I could barely imagine such an income when I was starting out," said Li, 36, who now leads a team of 12 stenographers covering events across the Chinese capital.

However, some in the business fear breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and smart voice-recording software is threatening their industry.

"I'm kind of worried whether this job will still exist in the years ahead," said Pan Li, who has been in the business for 12 years. She works with her friend Ma Ruijuan from a home office in Handan, Hebei province, about 400 kilometers from Beijing. They handle interviews, academic speeches, court hearings, phone surveys and celebrity appearances, charging 80 yuan an hour.

Pan, Ma and Li were all inspired to become stenographers around 2006 after spotting advertisements in local newspapers that suggested demand for such skills would soar over the following decade.

The prediction was correct, and all three have so far enjoyed decent careers. Yet as demand begins to drop due to new technologies, so are incomes.

Li mostly now works conferences, seminars and forums, but in 2006 he was receiving a lot of business from journalists who wanted quick transcriptions of their interviews.

"They'd give me their recordings and I'd usually charge them 70 or 80 yuan an hour," he said. But since 2015, that kind of work has all but disappeared. "Few are still coming to me today because they can simply use smart software and apps to produce their own transcripts," Li added.

'Exciting experiences'

After graduating with an advertising degree from college in his native Shenyang, Liaoning province, Li worked for several months for a local ad agency. But he was not happy with the salary.

"Then I saw a newspaper ad for a stenography training school that said the industry would be one of the most promising for the next 10 years and promised high salaries," he recalled. "At that time, none of my friends and relatives had ever heard of such a job."

Li and his wife signed up for classes, paying about 10,000 yuan for tuition, and over the next six months dedicated themselves to learning how to use a stenotype, a machine that enables users to record speech in shorthand.

"The hardest part is improving your speed. To go from typing 60 words a minute to 120 words required us to practice by typing millions and millions of words," he said.

Due to the limited demand in his hometown, Li decided to move to Beijing shortly after completing his training. Stenographers typically start by transcribing audio files and then progress to conferences, which are high pressure but pay about 300 yuan an hour. Li started working conferences in 2008.

Ma from Hebei relocated to the capital in 2006 for the same reason as Li. "Most of my clients were introduced by friends in the same industry, and I was usually hired to do transcripts of media interviews," the 32-year-old said.

Before long, she was regularly working in the studios of China Central Television, the State broadcaster, and Beijing TV, and by 2010, she had helped produce transcripts of a number of high-profile shows, including CCTV's Legal Report.

"Those were the most exciting experiences of my 20s," she said, laughing. "I didn't know what a TV interview was like until I stepped into a TV studio."

Ma eventually moved back to her hometown with her husband and children, but she continues to work on interviews by receiving and sending files through the internet.

"I'm the main breadwinner in my family because this job allows me to earn more money than my husband," she said. "What's more, it keeps me connected with the outside world."

Coexisting with AI

Courts are a major source of work for stenographers, who record proceedings for the public record. However, tech tycoon Liu Qingfeng is hoping to change that.

Liu's company, iFlytek－which is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui province, and makes language input software and voice-recognition programs－unveiled an AI system last month that will not only record court hearings, but also aid judges in reviewing criminal cases.

"We're now able to use AI to help judges review four types of cases, namely homicide, theft, telecom fraud and illegal fundraising," he said at a news conference on March 5. As he spoke, his words appeared on a screen beside him almost instantly, demonstrating the speed and accuracy of the company's technology.

Stenographer Li Zhengjie said the rapid developments seen in AI in recent years have raised concerns about the future of his profession.

"I've been thinking about this problem since 2010, and I used to worry my job may one day no longer exist," he said, adding that voice-recognition software like that produced by iFlytek is the No 1 reason why demand from journalists for transcription services is drying up.

"When the conversation takes place in a very quiet environment and all the speakers are talking loudly and clearly, such apps work better and more efficiently than us humans," he conceded.

Yet he said he feels confident that such technology will not replace conference stenographers, at least not in the short term.

"I've never doubted the necessity for a human stenographer because only we can recognize who is speaking when, so we can record the correct order of speakers," Li said. "Plus, the environments at forums and conferences are usually too noisy for voice translation apps to work efficiently."

Ma agrees, and added that most interview recordings she works on are also conducted in noisy environments such as on streets or in restaurants.

Li said he ultimately believes his job can coexist with AI systems.

"It's like radio versus television," he explained. "When TV arrived and became popular in every household, many people were saying radio was a dying industry. Yet both are running well today and simply have adjusted to cater to varying customer demand.

"Such coexistence will also be seen between stenography and AI," he added.

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