All Voice Assistants Will Fail

It seems weird to think that the smartphone will be with humanity forever. It doesn’t like life should be dominated by this one device so much.

However, the tech world is racing to change this. Many companies are striving to dethrone the smartphone and end our collective addiction. Imagine a post-smartphone world - it's hard, right? Smartphones are everywhere, and their presence is only growing.

At Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg announced the new version of Smart Sunglasses, while still working on improving the Metaverse. Apple is investing more in their Smart Watch and also announced a new Virtual Reality goggles called the Vision Pro. Elon Musk is moving forward with volunteers on his project to implant a chip into your brain that would make you get rid of all devices. We’ll see what happens.

Last week, a new device aiming to replace smartphones was unveiled. Dubbed "the pin," it's touted as the first device with artificial intelligence. You can control it simply by speaking. It projects a laser display onto your palm. Chat with its virtual assistant to send texts, play music, take photos, make calls, or even translate conversations in real-time. The device uses AI to assist with queries.

The technology is a step forward from Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant because it is conversational. You have long chats with it and it will respond accordingly.

This device seamlessly tracks conversations from one question to another, without needing extra context. It even has a small projector that shows you text.

But the purpose of the device is conversational. You’re supposed to talk to it and it will give you information. It resembles a science fiction device. Way more than a smartphone does.

Is Science Fiction Wrong?

Many scientists, engineers, and tech innovators were inspired by science fiction during their formative years, leading them to their careers. Tech leaders such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have acknowledged the influence of sci-fi on their visions of the future. Indeed, sci-fi literature has accurately predicted numerous existing technologies. There is a long is a long list of existing technologies predicted in science fiction.

But they all worked under one assumption: that we will be talking to machines. It never really questioned this premise. There are countless examples such as Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey or the contemporary film Her. The only reason sci-fi movies and TV have it in the first place is because that way the audience hears what the character wants.

But they are mistaken with that assumption.

Human beings do not feel comfortable talking to things that are not alive

This is why all voice assistants have failed to date. And they will continue to fail unless they can figure out a solution to this problem.

The Secretary

You probably use a computer every day. Do you dictate to it when you use it? You don’t. You could though. The technology is there. The dictation software works perfectly now. But you’re not dictating. You’re typing silently. But we used to dictate quite commonly.

When I was young, computers started to become mainstream, and everyone had to learn typing. But I still remember the tail end of the era where typing was for women. Men didn’t need to learn how to type. In offices, women did most of the typing, while men, often in higher positions, didn't bother learning, relying on female secretaries. But with personal computers taking over in the late 20th century, this changed. The role of secretaries diminished. Men had to learn to type.

Why aren’t we dictating to our computer like bosses used to dictate to their secretaries?

Because it feels fucking weird.

In This Newsletter

1) Humans Only Talk to Things that are Alive: Who do you talk to everyday?

2) Why did Alexa fail? Alexa and other voice assistants have been a big failure. People don’t actually talk to it at all.

3) How Can You Make a Voice Assistant Live? The only path forward is actually to create a voice assistant so real it resembles something that is alive to us. But that isn’t easy. There is going to be an uncanny valley for audio that will be very difficult to transverse.

Who Do We Talk To?

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