I dont know, but maybe existing commercial OCR is still on top, and also using ML.
Recently tried a free trial for OCR/reading Sütterlin and it was a weird feeling being so outclassed in reading.
Yeah for sure, i think if i use homonyms close to each other i might even try to emphasize the difference. For /ˈparɪʃ/ and /ˈpɛrɪʃ/ its definitely an accent thing.
They certainly arent reducing energy usage rn which could theoretically be a puzzle piece of reducing CO2.