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"Voice first" seems like a misguided philosophy pushed by people who think that we're due for some sort of "revolution." Voice is important but mostly for narr
by jxdxbx 9y ago
"Voice first" seems like a misguided philosophy pushed by people who think that we're due for some sort of "revolution."
Voice is important but mostly for narrow use cases (in the car, music control in the house) or for shortcuts ("Siri, open accessibility settings").
Though I can imagine some kinds of routine, tedious computer tasks that could be automated with voice and AI someday--"Computer, convert all the files in this folder to jpegs and then put today's date at the start of their filenames, then move them to Dropbox and share them with my wife"--stuff like that. But it seems like for all that to happen we need something approaching general AI. Most voice assistants just move you along predetermined paths.
- cooper12 9y agoOne place where voice might prove very useful is to get a generation of illiterate people onto the internet. This article by WSJ talks about uneducated porters in India who rely on voice to search, including a job ad app that can be used by voice: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-end-of-typing-the-internets-next-billion-users-will-use-video-and-voice-1502116070 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-end-of-typing-the-internets...
- unobtaniumstool 9y agoExactly. "The technology isn't there yet" and "I wouldn't be comfortable using voice control" are said from a place of privilege. There are people out there benefiting from it right now, despite some people's very first-world hangups about it.