>Having a voice assistant means not having to learn to change application contexts inside an operating system follwed by a few seconds typing. You are ignoring the hundreds/thousands of hours you've spent learning which software is appropriate for which contexts. Not to mention the latency of instantiating them, or possibly even installing them, migrating data between them, etc.

So, it's interesting. I resisted the iphone-style smartphone for a long time (I loved my nokia communicators) - I mean, I was super into wearable computers; I owned an Xybernaut at one time; I had the palm v with the cdpd modem... but I resisted the winning form factor for so long.

And... yeah, it was a mistake. Not really a huge one, 'cause the things are designed to be easy to learn over being easy to use (there's usually an either/or there. the easiest to learn process is rarely the most efficient process) but still, a cost; to this day, I'm not all that great at typing long messages on a phone keyboard, like young people seem to be. For that matter, I didn't buy a car GPS until far after they were common, and I am unusually bad at reading maps for a man who started driving before consumer GPS was common, so I would have saved many hours and more than one job interview if I had that technology sooner.

I kind of feel the same way about voice control. I mean, essentially it's a command line interface with a wonky input method, no? and it's a command line interface designed for regular people, not people who are familiar with the command line tradition. I don't think it's super useful now, and I kinda think it will be a fad, like the '80s talking cars.

But, I could be totally wrong. What am I missing out on by resisting the voice controlled garbage?

I mean, if someone does come up with a google maps level 'killer app' that makes you way more effective if you use the voice control, I'll be behind the curve.

About this:

"I mean, essentially it's a command line interface with a wonky input method, no?"

This is precisely the feedback we got from salespeople, when we were working on a Natural Language Programming interface for Salesforce. Initially, I got angry and denied the comparison. But after several people made the same comparison, I came to appreciate how true it was. Unless NLP is perfect, it is really just a Command Line Interface with an awkward input device. I talk about this a little towards the end of this story:

https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...

NLP will only continue to improve in the years ahead. I've got a few echo's around the house, and yes the current implementation of NLP is not perfect. It requires some modification of how the user speaks, but the first time you say "Alexa what's the weather today?" and Alexa comes back with the day's forecast is a jaw dropping moment (at least for me it was). I believe voice activated devices will ultimately be placed all over the house and we'll communicate with our computers for a lot of various tasks through voice - it's just natural for humans. Think of all the mundane tasks you do typing into a computer - setting calendar appointments in outlook for example - and then think how many mouse clicks and typing are required. It's so much easier to just tell a computer using a voice command.

The privacy issue is easily solvable IMO. Google already requires a physical mute button on their devices to disable the mics in hardware not just software. It will require either user trust (admittedly in short supply with tech companies lately) or some government regulations but there is no reason even today for devices to have to "record" your conversations in order to process. As long as you require a "wakeword" to tell the device to start listening to your next commands the device doesn't need to record all audio all the time.

Have you ever written an Alexa skill? Because as soon as you try that, you realize the limits of the slot/intent system that Amazon is pursuing. You will notice this especially when it came to names and letters. We built an Alexa skill that allowed sales executives to use an Amazon Echo to ask Salesforce questions such as "Who was my best sales person last month?" That worked great, but the executives we talked to mostly wanted specifics about particular cases. And Alexa could not figure out the company names. These tripped it up badly:

Avon

IBM

Sinopec

Volkswagon

Alexa could not get these, which made the skill nearly useless.

It is much easier to simply use a keyboard.

And please consider the failed promises we've heard over the last 3 years. Remember "Invoxia will enable Alexa to tell which person is talking":

http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/invoxia-will-allow-al...

One as limited options in terms of forcing Alexa to pause in certain parts of a word:

http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/using-a-glottal-stop-...

I wrote this when I was still optimistic:

http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/how-to-build-conversa...

>You are ignoring the hundreds/thousands of hours you've spent learning which software is appropriate for which contexts.

Please elaborate. What do you mean by "thousands of hours of learning". Aren't you overplaying it to fit your narrative?

Hundreds to thousands of hours seems completely reasonable to me.

Have you ever done IT for your family or friends, or seen a coworker completely helpless in the face of an unrecognized file extension? Say they're, I don't know, an engineer or a call center operative or something. 6 hours of computer in a working day, 250 days of work a year, maybe they got out of college in 2005... more than fifteen thousand hours in front of a computer, and, well, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa9DLxDtPtc. Computers are mindbogglingly complicated.

And then there's us, the people that hang out on HN. I can't even think of how many times I've spent fifteen minutes digging around in config files or menus or googling for a better tool. I've probably spent over a hundred hours just on my emacs setup. Easily hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours of focused effort dedicated solely to high-end computer-use skills, and that's not even counting the things I use the computer for. And I'm still learning things every day.

I agree with you. I know more than one who bought a new notebook because the operating system didn't work and they don't even realize that reinstalling is an option.

Continuous reinstall used to be the way to keep stuff working. It was awful.

Everything a voice assistant does could be done with an device that has nothing but a keyboard and a text input field. People are not complaining about the great natural language comprehension these things have, they're complaining about always-on microphones in their homes.

But even with typed instead of spoken commands, wouldn't the natural language processing still done in the cloud? Admittedly, typed instructions instead of recorded sounds is less intrusive but still intrusive because it requires the internet, not processed locally.

If it was implemented using something like hitting super/the Chromebook search button and then typing your intentions, it would be a more deliberate choice to send the data than it is using a voice assistant which is constantly recording to look out for the keyword.

yes - a physical interlock would be infinitely preferable.

Except that voice assistant are not self-discoverable (in addition to being very unreliable and sluggish, which granted could be improved over the long run). And it forces me to memorize commands. Not just "switch on x". But like I want to play that song from that band I don't remember the name of but I remember it is a blue album a few songs after that radiohead song in my playlist. I don't want to have to memorise all these names.

I'm with you, until you lost me on:

> Now try teaching a non-technical user about cron, its flags, and its relationship to other shell commands, using natural language.

I'm just not sure what you mean with this statement. Are you talking about setting up cron jobs via voice? Or are you just making an analogy about the (perceived?) complexity of cron and teaching it to a non-technical user?

I would assume they are saying that it's a whole lot easier for the average person to say:

"Please remind me every day at 5pm to water the plants", or "Please play this song at medium volume every morning at 7am"

than to learn how to do the equivalent in whatever operating system their device uses, and I'd tend to agree. Cron is certainly a much higher bar than learning to use the alarm app in your phone, but the point remains, particularly in a home context.

But who's using cron to set a reminder or an alarm on their phone?! That can't be it, but if it is, then they are ironically overstating.

I mean you can use the GUI (launching apps etc.), or literally just type "remind me every day at 5pm to water the plants" into the home screen search bar (on Android at least).

The voice recognition and the assistant parts are decoupled.

You two are talking about different groups of people. crontab/Linux/Win: definitely needs learning smartphone: a little bit easier to use, open an app and everything is set visual assistant: out of box for being ready to use.

I taught one of my family members about using PC and Android, and found that almost everything needs to be explained. For example: - What's Google/Microsoft for? (Yes, even the giants in tech may never be heard for some people and it's common) - Browser? And there are many of them? (Not everyone has a computer and Internet access) - URL? What is that? I cannot even spell it! (This is more complicated and requires people to remember the addresses of tens of commonly used websites, btw, what's a bookmark!?) - register? with what? bank account or passport? (if someone doesn't have a email account, it's likely that they have no idea about the process of register, activation.) - App market? wait a second, what's an app? (not to mention built-in ones and those from 3rd parties)

The thing is Alexa, google home and many others provide a unified, easy to use substitute(well, I have to admit these devices are pretty dumb these days. So they are not 100 percent alternatives). The only requirement is being able to speak in a clear way, which is true for almost everyone.

PS: I don't have any of these devices. As a hard-core programmer, my choice is, without any doubt, *nix, shell, etc. GUI sucks ;-)

> Having a voice assistant means not having to learn to change application contexts inside an operating system follwed by a few seconds typing

Are you saying that voice UI is not its own "application context"?

It's an undiscoverable mess.

It doesn't take "thousands of hours" to learn how to launch a web browser and type some words into a search engine box.

Then why do so many people not do it?

> Having a voice assistant means not having to learn to change application contexts inside an operating system follwed by a few seconds typing. You are ignoring the hundreds/thousands of hours you've spent learning which software is appropriate for which contexts. Not to mention the latency of instantiating them, or possibly even installing them, migrating data between them, etc.

I can type everything I'd issue as a voice command into my home screen. I have to install and learn just as few/many things and commands as I'd have to using voice recognition. Op might have underplayed something, you just made things up.

How do you manage to do the typing when you're in the bath?or stepping out of the shower? or when you've left your laptop in another room? or if someone else is using your laptop for something important? The point is not that the voice commands are easy to learn or remember, it's that you have with you at all times (even if entirely naked, hey it's your house) the equipment needed to issue these commands...

>I can type everything I'd issue as a voice command into my home screen. I have to install and learn just as few/many things and commands as I'd have to using voice recognition. Op might have underplayed something, you just made things up.

You are not the market that these are targeted at then. The normal person cannot do those things.

A normal person cannot type an English sentence? Wow, I really seem to he disconnected from normal people.