4 ms·

At the same time, we are as close as we've ever been to human (or supra-human) spoken language parsing. Even if we have a ways to go on machine understanding /

by ethbro 8y ago

At the same time, we are as close as we've ever been to human (or supra-human) spoken language parsing. Even if we have a ways to go on machine understanding / interpretation. I can see (3D manual manipulation + verbal commands + weak-AI inference of intent) being a pretty compelling interface package. For our primary coding purposes, I doubt we'll ever surpass keyboard. But the counterargument would be that coding is a fairly esoteric set of criteria that we've specifically built around the keyboard (i.e. every character matters, no synonyms, etc). Were there an alternative... say, boilerplate code intelligently glued together by verbalized architecture directions? I wouldn't want to put a bet down. Rails convinced me that sometimes being smooth is more important than being best.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
I'm not saying it's totally impossible to get rid of keyboards, but I feel this would require first significantly thinning down the amount of text that needs to be written, and the amount of abstract interactions with program that need to be done. The keyboard is very efficient in several criteria at the same time. Versus a 3D manipulation + verbal commands + weak AI, it's much more energy-efficient/ergonomic. Instead of waving your arms around in complex motions and talking a lot, you just have to move your fingers and wrists a little bit here and there. I know I can easily keep pounding at the keyboard for 8+ hours without much slowdown; I imagine that an interface of voice and direct manipulation would get one tired much quicker, if not mediated by another input device, or if the workload isn't reduced. Now I was going to say that the trick is workload reduction, and that 'AI-glued boilerplate directed by voice' could just work by doing most of the task automatically, but then I realized: workload reduction doesn't work. As proved time and again in the last few centuries, as soon as you find yourself with extra free time due to some efficiency improvement, more work will be assigned to you to fill that time. You may not want it, your employer may not even want it, but someone over at a competing company thinks they can get ahead this way, and now everyone has to follow suit.
- kamaal 8y ago
  I think blade runner style emanators or Iron Man Jarvis is what you are looking at. Sure they won't help you do work, but they will do other things for you. You can call people, order things, watch movies, do other myriad other social networking stuff(Watch videos, see pictures). For programmers of course its hard to work with those interfaces. But imagine a carpenter being able to order coffee, without having to deal with a screen. That's the kind of utility we are talking about.

by ethbro 8y ago

TeMPOraL 8y ago

I'm not saying it's totally impossible to get rid of keyboards, but I feel this would require first significantly thinning down the amount of text that needs to be written, and the amount of abstract interactions with program that need to be done. The keyboard is very efficient in several criteria at the same time. Versus a 3D manipulation + verbal commands + weak AI, it's much more energy-efficient/ergonomic. Instead of waving your arms around in complex motions and talking a lot, you just have to move your fingers and wrists a little bit here and there. I know I can easily keep pounding at the keyboard for 8+ hours without much slowdown; I imagine that an interface of voice and direct manipulation would get one tired much quicker, if not mediated by another input device, or if the workload isn't reduced. Now I was going to say that the trick is workload reduction, and that 'AI-glued boilerplate directed by voice' could just work by doing most of the task automatically, but then I realized: workload reduction doesn't work. As proved time and again in the last few centuries, as soon as you find yourself with extra free time due to some efficiency improvement, more work will be assigned to you to fill that time. You may not want it, your employer may not even want it, but someone over at a competing company thinks they can get ahead this way, and now everyone has to follow suit.

kamaal 8y ago
I think blade runner style emanators or Iron Man Jarvis is what you are looking at. Sure they won't help you do work, but they will do other things for you. You can call people, order things, watch movies, do other myriad other social networking stuff(Watch videos, see pictures). For programmers of course its hard to work with those interfaces. But imagine a carpenter being able to order coffee, without having to deal with a screen. That's the kind of utility we are talking about.