The Idea in 60 Seconds

  • People are lazy and tend to use the solution which will help them achieve their goal the quickest.
  • Progress in technology over the last 50 years has been away from computer interfaces and towards more human methods of interaction.
  • As a result, it seems chat will be the most useful computer interface.
  • The ramifications of that are substantial in business.
  • And even bigger in consumer, affecting individuals, phones, companies, everything really.
  • And it seems likely that the changes associated with these things will happen quickly for reasons we already know.

Why is Conversation So Important As a User Interface?

I think conversational interfaces (talk and text) are going to be important in the future because we’re lazy. Laptops took over from Desktops because they were more convenient to use. Laptops could be taken mostly anywhere – and, at a certain point, the processing cost per $ became affordable compared to the desktop equivalent.

People find talking easy – that’s why it’ll be a more common user interface.

We think chat will become a more common way of interacting with computers.

Source : Microsoft designer

Mobile took off, first with the BlackBerry, which, although it is rarely credited with the achievement was the first device to tether humanity to the internet 24 x 7. Then the iPhone did it better and we had a more convenient way to get to the internet services we need.

It’s worth saying that neither laptops or mobiles are the one ‘catch all’ solution to internet access. They’re right for some situations and not others. Heavy gamers use desktops for the cheaper processing power required to render their video games. Laptops are usually best if you’re writing an essay or doing some serious research but don’t need a whole lot of processing power. Mobile is often useful, even if it’s harder to use because that’s the internet connection we have in that particular place at that particular time.

In the early days of Microsoft and home computing, only serious computer users could figure out a CLI – Command Line Interface. People used to type specific commands (woe betide you if you make a ‘syntax error’ in doing so) to load or copy a file. In time, we moved to WIMP environments – Windows, Icons and Mouse to Move a pointer. Why? Because WIMP was a more human level of abstraction away from the complexities of machines which required esoteric and idiosyncratic inputs, in order to do what we need them to.

So, why is chat going to be such an important interface?  Because, in many situations, chat is more convenient than either desktop or mobile. The simplest way to get something done is to ask someone else to do it, as any manager or, for that matter, mother, knows. It’s also another layer of abstraction away from the complexities of machines. Speech is the ubiquitous human interface – worldwide – cross culturally. You can talk to a child, an 80 year old man, in time, you can learn a few words of any language with no assistance other than someone to talk to in that language.

Just like laptops or mobiles, chat can’t be right for every use case. For example, you might be happy to ask your chat assistant for your bank balance on the bus but you wouldn’t want it read out aloud in response. It’s hard to draw something specific with words (try drawing a bike and describing it so accurately to someone who can’t see it that they can emulate your image.)

Caption : This chatbot is happy because he is taking over the world.

Alt text : Conversational interfaces will win because they’re easier to use.

In short, we’re lazy. We’re human, not computers. We will gravitate towards the simplest way to achieve the task or goal we have in mind. And, since NLP (Natural Language Processing) is now able to perform at better than average human levels (so long Turing test), Chat will become more and more important.

As a result, in my view, we all need to start to familiarize ourselves with the technological capabilities and limitations of chat interfaces and start to imagine putting them in to our work.

Having established what I think the reason conversational interfaces are going to be important, in the next few articles, I want to cover the current focus on AI for Business and why I think Consumer applications are more significant in many ways, AI Assistants and Agents, eServices and finish by pointing out that all the change associated with these things will happen quickly as a result of a number of factors we already know.