An intreresting conversation about the state of art in sppech recognition appeared in PC Magazine. The key point is:
So, there is nothing really wrong [with speech recognition today] except that we are just at the beginning of this technology. But the surprising thing is that [at] the end, if you compare [a computer’s ability to understand speech] to human performance, it might not be too far apart. At IBM, we have this Superhuman Speech Recognition [program] that has a goal to get there, comparable to human performance, in the next five years.