Hacker News Reader

Comment by whimsicalism | Hacker News Reader

oh i think we will see voice becoming a much more popular interface in the very near future, now that it’s actually getting very good

View on HN

Highly doubt it. As a species we have gotten accustomed to talking through text as opposed to voice/audio over time.

People prefer it. Pure and simple.

Then how come in face-to-face interactions people generally communicate using speech rather than text?

Clearly there's a disadvantage to using text in that situation, and I think it's that it almost always takes longer to express thoughts/intents using text. ISTM a sufficiently advanced computer voice interface would have the same advantage.

People communicate with their friends more over text than in person.

Am I really having to explain basic stuff like this? Lmao.

Because it allows people to communicate when they're not in close physical proximity. Would you rather go out to dinner with friends and just speak to each other or sit there and type your conversation out in a WhatsApp group chat?

It's a convenience/necessity thing, pure and simple.

Theres benefits to be had when interacting with REAL people in person.

Zero benefit interacting with voice with an AI. Pure and simple.

Nobody cares about an agent when they are the principal - this is not remotely the same as interfacing with a human that is valued much higher.

I said was talking about face-to-face (or 'in person' as you put it) communication. You're absolutely right that over long-distance people prefer to communicate by text, but in person people prefer to communicate by speech so that's exactly my point: there are at least some contexts in which people prefer speech.

I guess I could also follow suit and return your weird toxic/patronising insult here too since you clearly didn't understand my original comment, but perhaps it would be nicer if we didn't do that?

I think it's helpful, perhaps even necessary, to differentiate between different kinds of text.

Let's start with text intended to convey information. Good documentation-type text that acts as a one-way communication channel is an example of this. A small number of writers and contributors to something that can be read by thousands or more can be incredibly powerful and can be incredibly information dense and valuable if written well.

Text intended to entertain? Well, that's just art and people will choose to engage in that way when they prefer the medium itself, so that's really just personal preference and enjoyment.

Text as the de-facto replacement for voice/face-to-face feels like something that's been forced into a lot of situations now. It's beneficial (or really required) when it's the only option such as for long-distance communication, and favours slow-changing content. But I think in a lot of cases we've been forced into having to use text over voice for raw human communication (thinking of course about remote working now).

I think text has a lot going for it. It can be incredibly information dense, it's easier for writers to take time to prepare something well, it's persistent, it's searchable, it's easy to make available historically. But I'm not convinced that it's a blanket replacement in every way. As the equivalent of voice it's also just slower.

As for video telephony, well David Foster Wallace had a bit to say about that [1]

[1] https://ochuk.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/my-favorite-pieces-of...

As a species?? You’re just talking about young people. And that’s just because texting was cheap.

Lots of my friends send voice notes these days. I prefer them. Especially if they’re auto transcribed so the person on the other end can choose how to consume them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com