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Comment by snodnipper | Hacker News Reader

as a mobile dev, I have been considering this with some UX folks. Few things going for AI/ML - conversation interfaces should be far cheaper/quicker to produce in comparison to traditional app development. Furthermore, talking and touch are natural ways to interact (e.g. pointing on a map whilst talking) vs endless long presses and menu items.

Whilst I have been involved in Android since the beginning I personally would not encourage younger folks to focus too much at the expense of new technologies (inc. blockchain tech for that matter).

That said, we hopefully have another 10 years!

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Voice and speech stuff isn't going to work in today's work environments. Can you imagine an open office full of people jabbering away to their computers? I guess voice printing will to some extent prevent other people "highjacking" your computer while trying to control theirs, but the noise would be extreme.

For certain industries - e.g. tech - people like quiet to concentrate. Not unique to tech of course... libraries are quiet too for the same reason. I cant imagine the average office where concentration is required benefiting from a call-centre-esque environment where everyone is talking out loud.

.. but I guess it might mean we can get away from open offices and back to private offices?! :-)

One could imagine responding to subsonic commands, though, with a microphone in contact with the throat... I can't imagine using it for programming, but could be cool for quick navigation.

Perhaps you can skip the vocal system entirely and go straight to EEG (assuming we manage to improve the signal-to-noise ratio).

sure - as part of the presentation, the UX guy also demo'ed something like botsociety.io. Essentially, he had a Facebook chat bot with buttons to hint what is possible (leading the conversation). That sort of interaction could be likened to messaging them versus talking to them...and perfectly suitable for an office or where you don't want to broadcast certain info.

So whilst ChatOps might be fairly basic today I am open to it becoming very much more advanced in the coming years.

Yeah, there’s always a guy in one of these conversations that can’t imagine working in an office with people talking to their computers. I guess you get to be that guy this time.

The other guy is the one who will never talk in public to a computer.

Finally, you have the guy who can’t imagine not using a keyboard to program.

For the rest of us, we have no problem talking to our computers, and we anxiously await the future to arrive.

That’s a good point. The interface between the user and the computer has been dominated recently by web apps and mobile. Historically, it was native GUIs.

But, I could totally see AI/ML driving voice interfaces in the future.

I recently bought myself an Apple Watch. I’m not sure I would have agreed before using this thing. I mean maybe for people for whom computers were too foreign, or for those who grew up with no other options...

But no, I’ve been enjoying the experience more and more. Texting my girlfriend by voice. Asking Siri to find something on a map for me. First time I’ve been impressed by the pragmatic nature of it and not just finding it a clever toy (at least in some time).

I’m still wary of some of the implications, but I’m cautiously optimistic now more than I would have been.

That said, it’s certainly not my area of expertise so I’m also wary it spells my own career doom if I don’t get smart.

But voice conveniently leaves out exposing to users the capabilities of the software. Have fun exploring all the features Google maps has by barking at the app where 99% of your commands are rejected.

pretty sure folks will be able to just ask what it can do...and the response could of course look like a man page where folks can drill down further. I don't think we necessarily need to think the interactions will exclude a screen...but of course they could depending on the hardware / situation...today that activity might be driving...but perhaps we won't be driving all that much by the time this tech has advanced sufficiently.

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