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Biggest issue is that people hate talking to computers in public. Alexa was the closest to achieve significant usage since you can use it within the privacy of

Biggest issue is that people hate talking to computers in public. Alexa was the closest to achieve significant usage since you can use it within the privacy of your home. For voice UIs the non clear boundaries on what you think it can or cannot do is also a huge hurdle. After you get a couple “sorry I cannot do that” you stop using it

fennecfoxy 3y ago
I just find voice control too outward to use in public. I don't want people to know what I'm doing, even if it's something totally innocent, plus it would also be super annoying to be on a train full of people going "blah blah blah" to their devices. If we could subvocalise with throat or other microphones/bone speaker then maaaybe, but I feel like it's better left to a brain interface and we should really just stick to touchscreen/typing interaction for now.
unshavedyak 3y ago
I agree, BUT, i think it's going to get a lot better soon. Ie i loathe Siri because it felt like there was always some incantation i had to remember. Like a very terrible CLI. LLMs though, even if we never get intelligence right, i think can help this area significantly. Combine that with areas like GPT Vision, (GPT?) Whisper, etc .. it'll start feeling a lot more natural here very soon i suspect. TBH i'm surprised Apple isn't pushing this much harder. They tout Siri so hard but it's just worthless to me. It feels like apple could make a AI Pin like this, but visibly from the public side i have zero idea that the're even working in this space. It feels like they purposefully watched the boat sail away. edit: Sidenote, Pin + Airpods would be a nice way to interface more quietly too.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
  The Google assistant has been years ahead of Siri and Alexa for a good while now. I've been able to give it really loose sloppy commands, even stuttering or backtracking on my sentences, and does a competent job of figuring out what I want. In my experience Siri is much more dependent on keywords and certain phrasing, and doesn't quite integrate as deeply into one's life because Apple isn't doesn't play Google's game of slurping up all your personal data and all the public data on the internet. These next gen AI voice assistants are still a solid improvement over Google's current offerings, but they'll feel like a massive jump into the future for folks that have been stuck in Apple's ecosystem, and that's probably where the biggest opportunity lies.
brotchie 3y ago
Yeah, unless the utility of this devices is large enough to override existing cultural norms, there's actually very few venues where it feels "comfortable" to voice interact with a device. I went through this exercise with GPT voice. It's an awesome capability, but other than perhaps walking outside, or sitting in my office, there's no other space where it feels "ok" to just spontaneously talk to something. A grey area is when you perhaps have headphones in / on and it looks like you're in a phone conversation with somebody, then it kinda feels ok, but generally you're not going to take a phone conversation in a public area without distancing yourself from others. There's a reason most casual communication these days is text rather than voice or video calls.
- sergiotapia 3y ago
  The weirdness is caused by the incantation all these things have. Once you can just talk to the AI without doing anything, just talk to it, it'll catch on very easily.
  - crooked-v 3y ago
    "Siri, lights to half." "Siri, lights to HALF." "Siri, lights to HAAAAALF." "Siri, LIGHTS TO FIFTY PERCENT!"
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      This fortunately is a solved problem. Or will be, once Amazon, Apple and Google get out of their asses and plug a better voice recognition model to an LLM. Silly how OpenAI could blow all voice assistants out of the water today, if they just added Android intents as function calls to the ChatGPT app. Yes, the "voice chat mode" is that good.
      - raisedbyninjas 3y ago
        Google's version could have flawless voice recognition backed with AGI. Within a couple years, it will decay and fail randomly with setting timers.
maliker 3y ago
I've noticed the latest iOS speech recognition model works with whispered speech pretty well. Not a perfect fix, but it's something.
- pzo 3y ago
  same with swiftkey - can handle whispered speech to some extend. Still I would guess Meta Glasses or AirPods should be better to handle such whispered mode since microphones are so much closer. Would be interesting if Airpods had some contact mic that could pickup whispered sound inside your mouth. Maybe the holly grail is to have something inside your mouth so you don't have to even make voice - device will figure out what you want to speak from how mouth and tongue movement - smart tooth braces anyone? :)
Ninjinka 3y ago
Agreed. I have the new Meta Ray-Ban glasses, and have been pleasantly surprised with how soft I can speak since the mics are so close to my mouth, but still don't enjoy doing it in public.
ryanklee 3y ago
The only reason people don't like talking to computers in public is that it's distinguishable in an awkward way from talking to humans in public. That's not going to be an issue for much longer. ChatGPT voice mode is about 99% of the way there. The only remaining issue is the cadence of the conversation -- you can't interrupt ChatGPT naturally, you have to press a button.
- azinman2 3y ago
  The issue is that your private communications are now audible by the people around you. It’s one thing when it’s to another person and you can whisper and share social context, it’s another when it’s at a good volume and contextless.
  - ryanklee 3y ago
    These don't seem like real issues to me. They are the exact same issues you have when you are talking to humans. And the way we solve that issue with humans is that we only have conversations around other humans that we are comfortable having. We save sensitive conversations for when we are not in public.
    - azinman2 3y ago
      Except there’s no way to have a sensitive conversation on this device that isn’t spoken. With my phone I can. That’s part of my point.
      - ryanklee 3y ago
        You can talk through your earbud.
        FridgeSeal 3y ago
        That solves nothing. The issues isn’t “communicating with the device” it’s “communicating around other people”. I have almost negative interest in having to recite the technical specifics of my web search to my phone on the train to work. I have even less interest in having to listen to the person next to me trying to do the same.
maliker 3y ago
The can and cannot do problem reminds me of writing Applescript. I just want to call a function not figure out where to sprinkle in random a/the/of modifiers!
ugh123 3y ago
How well does whispering do with these things? I've found that I can reliably write sentences and set alerts when holding the mic fairly close on my Pixel 6.
petercooper 3y ago
If people can speak more naturally, maybe they'll be okay with it. I am constantly encountering people who are laughing or talking to themselves out in public nowadays. Of course, they're probably on phone calls with Airpods in, but it doesn't seem to be awkward in a way it used to in the 'Bluetooth headset' days.
908087 3y ago
[dead]
SllX 3y ago
Well, I hated talking to Siri in public because about 70% of the time it did what I want and 30% of the time it made me feel like a fool for even trying. That 30% was what killed it for me after giving it a serious go around the time Apple was rolling out shortcuts. After watching the presentation, I am now curious about Humane’s thing though, but I’m still going to hold off for a bit because I want to see the failure modes first and I also don’t want to rush out and be one of the first to buy the brand new 3Com Audrey.
- bilsbie 3y ago
  Any way we could capture subvocalizations?
hauget 3y ago
This is easy to fix IMHO. Pair a small screen in the future for typing or have a cuff link mic for whispering. You will see accessories like these pop up in the near future.
- youngNed 3y ago
  I still get called 'dick tracey' at my local shop for the time I paid with my phone. Talking to my cuff isn't going to make this better
dist-epoch 3y ago
I see people talking on speaker phone all the time in public.
- Can2022 3y ago
  believe it or not, here in Ottawa Canada I was just reading a post on Reddit where people complain about those who were talking or doing video calls on the streets, I think this will be a matter of culture and the barrier will be smaller as soon as the devices are "smarter" and not making you repeat yourself many times or, not understanding what you are asking.
nicup12345689 3y ago
Don't worry, in the future, they won't need to leave the house nor travel
tambourine_man 3y ago
I hate talking to them at home either. The only time I use them is when cooking with my hands wet or dirty. And it’s still bad, even when it works.

fennecfoxy 3y ago

I just find voice control too outward to use in public. I don't want people to know what I'm doing, even if it's something totally innocent, plus it would also be super annoying to be on a train full of people going "blah blah blah" to their devices. If we could subvocalise with throat or other microphones/bone speaker then maaaybe, but I feel like it's better left to a brain interface and we should really just stick to touchscreen/typing interaction for now.

unshavedyak 3y ago

I agree, BUT, i think it's going to get a lot better soon. Ie i loathe Siri because it felt like there was always some incantation i had to remember. Like a very terrible CLI. LLMs though, even if we never get intelligence right, i think can help this area significantly. Combine that with areas like GPT Vision, (GPT?) Whisper, etc .. it'll start feeling a lot more natural here very soon i suspect. TBH i'm surprised Apple isn't pushing this much harder. They tout Siri so hard but it's just worthless to me. It feels like apple could make a AI Pin like this, but visibly from the public side i have zero idea that the're even working in this space. It feels like they purposefully watched the boat sail away. edit: Sidenote, Pin + Airpods would be a nice way to interface more quietly too.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
The Google assistant has been years ahead of Siri and Alexa for a good while now. I've been able to give it really loose sloppy commands, even stuttering or backtracking on my sentences, and does a competent job of figuring out what I want. In my experience Siri is much more dependent on keywords and certain phrasing, and doesn't quite integrate as deeply into one's life because Apple isn't doesn't play Google's game of slurping up all your personal data and all the public data on the internet. These next gen AI voice assistants are still a solid improvement over Google's current offerings, but they'll feel like a massive jump into the future for folks that have been stuck in Apple's ecosystem, and that's probably where the biggest opportunity lies.

brotchie 3y ago

Yeah, unless the utility of this devices is large enough to override existing cultural norms, there's actually very few venues where it feels "comfortable" to voice interact with a device. I went through this exercise with GPT voice. It's an awesome capability, but other than perhaps walking outside, or sitting in my office, there's no other space where it feels "ok" to just spontaneously talk to something. A grey area is when you perhaps have headphones in / on and it looks like you're in a phone conversation with somebody, then it kinda feels ok, but generally you're not going to take a phone conversation in a public area without distancing yourself from others. There's a reason most casual communication these days is text rather than voice or video calls.

sergiotapia 3y ago
The weirdness is caused by the incantation all these things have. Once you can just talk to the AI without doing anything, just talk to it, it'll catch on very easily.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  "Siri, lights to half." "Siri, lights to HALF." "Siri, lights to HAAAAALF." "Siri, LIGHTS TO FIFTY PERCENT!"
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    This fortunately is a solved problem. Or will be, once Amazon, Apple and Google get out of their asses and plug a better voice recognition model to an LLM. Silly how OpenAI could blow all voice assistants out of the water today, if they just added Android intents as function calls to the ChatGPT app. Yes, the "voice chat mode" is that good.
    - raisedbyninjas 3y ago
      Google's version could have flawless voice recognition backed with AGI. Within a couple years, it will decay and fail randomly with setting timers.

maliker 3y ago

I've noticed the latest iOS speech recognition model works with whispered speech pretty well. Not a perfect fix, but it's something.

pzo 3y ago
same with swiftkey - can handle whispered speech to some extend. Still I would guess Meta Glasses or AirPods should be better to handle such whispered mode since microphones are so much closer. Would be interesting if Airpods had some contact mic that could pickup whispered sound inside your mouth. Maybe the holly grail is to have something inside your mouth so you don't have to even make voice - device will figure out what you want to speak from how mouth and tongue movement - smart tooth braces anyone? :)

Ninjinka 3y ago

Agreed. I have the new Meta Ray-Ban glasses, and have been pleasantly surprised with how soft I can speak since the mics are so close to my mouth, but still don't enjoy doing it in public.

ryanklee 3y ago

The only reason people don't like talking to computers in public is that it's distinguishable in an awkward way from talking to humans in public. That's not going to be an issue for much longer. ChatGPT voice mode is about 99% of the way there. The only remaining issue is the cadence of the conversation -- you can't interrupt ChatGPT naturally, you have to press a button.

azinman2 3y ago
The issue is that your private communications are now audible by the people around you. It’s one thing when it’s to another person and you can whisper and share social context, it’s another when it’s at a good volume and contextless.
- ryanklee 3y ago
  These don't seem like real issues to me. They are the exact same issues you have when you are talking to humans. And the way we solve that issue with humans is that we only have conversations around other humans that we are comfortable having. We save sensitive conversations for when we are not in public.
  - azinman2 3y ago
    Except there’s no way to have a sensitive conversation on this device that isn’t spoken. With my phone I can. That’s part of my point.
    - ryanklee 3y ago
      You can talk through your earbud.
      - FridgeSeal 3y ago
        That solves nothing. The issues isn’t “communicating with the device” it’s “communicating around other people”. I have almost negative interest in having to recite the technical specifics of my web search to my phone on the train to work. I have even less interest in having to listen to the person next to me trying to do the same.

maliker 3y ago

The can and cannot do problem reminds me of writing Applescript. I just want to call a function not figure out where to sprinkle in random a/the/of modifiers!

ugh123 3y ago

How well does whispering do with these things? I've found that I can reliably write sentences and set alerts when holding the mic fairly close on my Pixel 6.

petercooper 3y ago

If people can speak more naturally, maybe they'll be okay with it. I am constantly encountering people who are laughing or talking to themselves out in public nowadays. Of course, they're probably on phone calls with Airpods in, but it doesn't seem to be awkward in a way it used to in the 'Bluetooth headset' days.

908087 3y ago

[dead]

SllX 3y ago

Well, I hated talking to Siri in public because about 70% of the time it did what I want and 30% of the time it made me feel like a fool for even trying. That 30% was what killed it for me after giving it a serious go around the time Apple was rolling out shortcuts. After watching the presentation, I am now curious about Humane’s thing though, but I’m still going to hold off for a bit because I want to see the failure modes first and I also don’t want to rush out and be one of the first to buy the brand new 3Com Audrey.

bilsbie 3y ago
Any way we could capture subvocalizations?

hauget 3y ago

This is easy to fix IMHO. Pair a small screen in the future for typing or have a cuff link mic for whispering. You will see accessories like these pop up in the near future.

youngNed 3y ago
I still get called 'dick tracey' at my local shop for the time I paid with my phone. Talking to my cuff isn't going to make this better

dist-epoch 3y ago

I see people talking on speaker phone all the time in public.

Can2022 3y ago
believe it or not, here in Ottawa Canada I was just reading a post on Reddit where people complain about those who were talking or doing video calls on the streets, I think this will be a matter of culture and the barrier will be smaller as soon as the devices are "smarter" and not making you repeat yourself many times or, not understanding what you are asking.

nicup12345689 3y ago

Don't worry, in the future, they won't need to leave the house nor travel

tambourine_man 3y ago

I hate talking to them at home either. The only time I use them is when cooking with my hands wet or dirty. And it’s still bad, even when it works.