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Are voice commands actually going to become our go-to method of machine interaction any time soon? The article sort of skips over the justification with: > Bec

by leoedin 13y ago

Are voice commands actually going to become our go-to method of machine interaction any time soon? The article sort of skips over the justification with: > Because conversational agents are almost certain to become the user interface of the future. I know it's slightly tangential to the article's main point, but I think it's an interesting question. Are we really going to replace the language-independent and highly accessible lift button with a voice operated alternative? Will people really tolerate offices full of people commanding their computers through voice?

atrus 13y ago
If it's truly conversational, how would it be different than an office full of people on the phone?
- 6d0debc071 13y ago
  Have you ever worked in an office full of people on the phone? When I did research for gov the policy and performance team was in an open office, right next to the benefits people. Total nightmare, got to about two o'clock and I was spent.
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
No - I cannot imagine ever being able to talk with the clarity and precision I can write commands.
philwelch 13y ago
> Are we really going to replace the language-independent and highly accessible lift button with a voice operated alternative? Not in Scotland: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cz5eC-U0Cc http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cz5eC-U0Cc
netcan 13y ago
We don't usually replace things wholesale. We still use mouse and keyboard, even though we have swipe & tap. There hasn't been that much "replacement". Few people tap and swipe excel. Mostly it's been new things that we didn't do before at all or didn't do on the bus that we now do with the new interface. How much replacement did point and click do to command line. People still use command line. A lot of things moved to GUI but not everything and a lot more things started getting done that we never done before. No reason to replace lift buttons. Maybe we could replace remote controls though.
- chinpokomon 13y ago
  At the same time, there's hardly a joystick market anymore. HCI controls evolve over time as software and the users of software strike a balance between those instruments. There are real practical reasons that voice recognition will continue to grow as secondary and likely primary ways to interact with our devices and environment. Voice recognition increases our information bandwidth and as our devices scale down in size, despite current trends with cellphone sizes, voice recognition becomes a quicker way to convey information than tapping individual keys on small or in some cases completely absent keyboards. I worked on Swype, and that was one of our goals. We wanted to allow people to be able to think in terms of sentences and not in terms of words by largely eliminating the need to hunt and peck for individual keys that make up words. Voice recognition was always seen as a further increase of information bandwidth and was one of the reasons we integrated with Vlingo and Google, and now that the keyboard is owned by Nuance, Dragon.
bdunbar 13y ago
The author mentioned 'toilets'. I have a hard time seeing why a simple, reliable, thing like a handle needs to be replaced with 'toilet flush' or 'toilet, clean' or the sure to be popular 'toilet, air freshener'. I have no doubt it will happen. The nicer commercial toilets have automatic flushers, the sinks an soap dispensers operate without touching a button. I'm _startled_ when I'm in a nice office building and I have to turn on the water myself. It will be pitched as 'sanitary' and 'labor saving' I'm sure. I'd even buy in if the home model would clean itself, inside and out.
Rusky 13y ago
I don't think it will be a full replacement, but it will have a bigger part in UI- some interactions are easier with voice than with navigating a bunch of menus, like doing things while driving, some description, etc.

by leoedin 13y ago

atrus 13y ago

If it's truly conversational, how would it be different than an office full of people on the phone?

6d0debc071 13y ago
Have you ever worked in an office full of people on the phone? When I did research for gov the policy and performance team was in an open office, right next to the benefits people. Total nightmare, got to about two o'clock and I was spent.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

No - I cannot imagine ever being able to talk with the clarity and precision I can write commands.

philwelch 13y ago

> Are we really going to replace the language-independent and highly accessible lift button with a voice operated alternative? Not in Scotland: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cz5eC-U0Cc http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cz5eC-U0Cc

netcan 13y ago

We don't usually replace things wholesale. We still use mouse and keyboard, even though we have swipe & tap. There hasn't been that much "replacement". Few people tap and swipe excel. Mostly it's been new things that we didn't do before at all or didn't do on the bus that we now do with the new interface. How much replacement did point and click do to command line. People still use command line. A lot of things moved to GUI but not everything and a lot more things started getting done that we never done before. No reason to replace lift buttons. Maybe we could replace remote controls though.

chinpokomon 13y ago
At the same time, there's hardly a joystick market anymore. HCI controls evolve over time as software and the users of software strike a balance between those instruments. There are real practical reasons that voice recognition will continue to grow as secondary and likely primary ways to interact with our devices and environment. Voice recognition increases our information bandwidth and as our devices scale down in size, despite current trends with cellphone sizes, voice recognition becomes a quicker way to convey information than tapping individual keys on small or in some cases completely absent keyboards. I worked on Swype, and that was one of our goals. We wanted to allow people to be able to think in terms of sentences and not in terms of words by largely eliminating the need to hunt and peck for individual keys that make up words. Voice recognition was always seen as a further increase of information bandwidth and was one of the reasons we integrated with Vlingo and Google, and now that the keyboard is owned by Nuance, Dragon.

bdunbar 13y ago

The author mentioned 'toilets'. I have a hard time seeing why a simple, reliable, thing like a handle needs to be replaced with 'toilet flush' or 'toilet, clean' or the sure to be popular 'toilet, air freshener'. I have no doubt it will happen. The nicer commercial toilets have automatic flushers, the sinks an soap dispensers operate without touching a button. I'm _startled_ when I'm in a nice office building and I have to turn on the water myself. It will be pitched as 'sanitary' and 'labor saving' I'm sure. I'd even buy in if the home model would clean itself, inside and out.

Rusky 13y ago

I don't think it will be a full replacement, but it will have a bigger part in UI- some interactions are easier with voice than with navigating a bunch of menus, like doing things while driving, some description, etc.