The conversational

revolution T The rise of voice interfaces he use of computers and

more powerful: their ears and voices.

by the end of 2020, it was four-and-a-half

mobile devices has become

These allow for a nearly limitless range of

billion. This pattern of adoption not only

so ingrained into our reflexes,

expression and comprehension – and beg the

rivals, but rather exceeds the last digital

that few give thought to

question: why don’t we use them to interface

revolution of mobile devices.

the fact that modern graphic interfaces –

with our digital ‘counterparts’? After all,

regardless of how well they’re implemented

we’ve been speaking for 1.75 million years!

– are in effect straightjackets. They starkly

in Natural Language Processing technologies

narrow the full possible spectrum of human

algorithms were implemented nearly 70

and the development of Conversational

expression and interactions into a single

years ago, the use of voice interfaces was

Design as a body of knowledge have

focused command, such as a mouse click,

until very recently at best a stultifying

combined to make voice interfaces pleasant

in order to execute a single command

experience – and at worst, a wholly irritating

and reliable to use. Consumers are re-

and perform a function on the device and

one. Currently however, voice interfaces are

learning their modes of interaction and

application involved.

enjoying an exponential rate of acceptance,

– increasingly often – using pre-existing

with the number of applications and voice-

voice interfaces at home and underway.

touchscreen: all interactions with these input

enabled devices reliably doubling every

This learning curve is vastly easier to master

aids are artificial in nature and functionally

year since 2018. For instance, the number

compared to learning to operate a computer

highly limited. Luckily, human beings possess

of voice-capable devices in the world was

– humans need no instruction on how to use

input and output ‘devices’ which are much

roughly two billion towards the end of 2019;

their voices!

Be it a keyboard, a mouse, trackball or

6

Even though the first voice recognition

The reasons behind this astonishing rate of adoption are twofold: vast improvements

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