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Why Hal Will Never Exist
aengblom writes "Researchers at the University of Maryland's
Human-Computer Interaction Lab are suggesting what many of us have already
guessed. The future of human-computer interaction won't be through speech--it
will remain visual (they explain why). The
Washington Post is running a story
about the researchers and how they think we will get computers to do what we want. The article is a fascinating read and is joined by a great
video clip (real
or quicktime)
of the researchers and their methods. The Post is holding an online
discussion with the researchers tomorrow. Also check-out Photomesa
the lab's software program that helps track images on a computer. (Throw a directory
with a 1,000 high-res files at this thing and you can justify that pricey new
computer you bought)."
HAL will be here someday. It just might take a while.
... post pointing out that HAL is IBM ROT-1ed (?). Am I violating the DMCA?
"Under the iron bridge, we fist" - The Smiths, Still Ill
Also Linux users are gay.
What ?? I thought the current research line in HCI was getting computers to get humans to do what they [computers] want. Computers doing what humans mistell them to do is soooo 20th Century...
An insane bot is not the kind of thing people would find useful.
I have been pwned because my
This explains drivers in So Cal. Those cellphones are using up all their available neurons. Not that they had that many free to begin with.
--
--
I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me - Churchill
He'll be built with Linux.
So we'll just have to read "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that." off the screen. Same outcome. =P
"What that means, basically, is that it's hard to speak and think at the same time. . ."
" by speaking aloud, you're gobbling up precious chunks of memory -- leaving you with little brainpower to focus on the task at hand."
Maybe this is why technical support over the phone is so terrible?
I've always wondered why we work so hard for full natural language interface. It's far more likely that I will learn a new language than that my computer will. Indeed, I've learned several languages to "talk" to my computer.
Of course, these are programming languages, but I don't see why some highly structured, relatively unambiguous language couldn't be constructed to talk to computers.
The success of the Palm Pilot can be traced, in my view, to the fact that it didn't strive for full hand-writing recognition (like, say, a Newton). Instead, it required the human to meet it half-way. You get decent accuracy/speed for a small investment in learning.
We accept these compromises in many of our dealings with computers. I don't understand why people aren't promoting a similar compromise in voice communications?
With the advent of the Internet and global communications, I think it's become painfully evident that a majority of the people also have trouble typing and thinking at the same time. =)
One thing we have as well as a possible limitation on our own brainpower by using speech while thinking, is that in an office full of machines - or even a house with a family and a dog - using a computer with speech is going to pollute the people next to you with your thoughts/computer use, and they with yours - at least in the realm of using the computer as a tool. :)
We're pretty well-adapted to using tools with our hands and getting feedback on what they're doing with video/audio/feel coming back from that tool, but not the other way. Speaking works naturally for nattering with friends
There's no way I'd advocate the -stopping- of speech systems research, as there are people who have incredible trouble typing due to various impediments. Besides the direct uses, every piece of research had a dozen uses other than it's intended purpose.
...have both. I want to be able to give the computer voice commands when I feel like it, visual commands when I feel like it... and just use the darn keyboard an' mouse when I feel like it, too.
Interesting findings, but they're not going to get out of providing good voice interfaces that easily :-)
You can't say two things at the same time. I can press shift and drag and click the mouse at the same time to indicate an action ,but I can't have such flexibility with a speech interface...and as a "bonus", it takes loger to "say" it that to do it...
Nevermind...
Actually in the future the computer will scan your face and biological status and read your mind based on millions of tiny clues. All you'll have to do is sit there with a vague disinterested loook on your face and the computer will magically do stuff based on all those clues. Later on you won't even have to be at the computer. To write that 10,000 lines of code you need by next thursday, you'd just go out and take a walk (Is anyone buying this? No? Ok, I'll stop now...)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The article picks the weakest tasks for voice to deal with, trivial things like scrolling. Obviously no one wants to do that. But I'd love to be able to speak my Google query instead of typing it, activate some applications without clicking, and many other tasks.
:)
The dubious argument about interfering with memory is pretty weak, and I would love to hear a good memory expert in psychology comment on that. Even if that's strictly true, it only applies when one is interrupting some particlarly "vocal" activity, like writing or reading. There are plenty of times I'm using the computer when I'd rather speak to it than move my eyes or my hands.
This researcher seems to have latched onto a single modality instead of considering what we use day to day to communicate with each other, a combination of many communication forms.
I know I don't roll my eyes or gesture to ask someone to pass the salt... unless my mouth is full.
i doubt i'll be telling my computer to do that vocally since anybody can italicize a word with their keyboard/mouse faster. telling a computer to fetch data for you (through colloquial SQL queries, if such a thing exists) is what i believe to be one such application of voice commands...
show me all the stocks that rose in price more than 30 percent between January and April
the problem with human/computer interaction research these days is the way researchers seem to insist on applying new ways of interacting with the computer to work on old applications. example: italicizing a word (old application) through vocal commands (not so common way of interacting with a computer system).
if anything, a computer that's able to understand voice commands should be able to determine whether or not to italicize a word for me because of the way i emphasize my words (through dictation, for example). applications such as italization of a word is only useful to people when they want to see information (stored through speaking or typing) on a screen. going back to the data query, a computer can either give me the data that i had asked for (through voice commands) on a screen (with optional italization) or something easier to digest, like the return set being given to me with majel barrett's voice.
peace.
The future of human-computer interaction won't be through speech--it will remain visual
Right... same way we would never fly.. or fly by instrument...
eventually we will navigate by voice.. its more natural... sheesh..
"It turns out speaking uses auditory memory, which is in the same space as your short-term and working memory," he adds.
What that means, basically, is that it's hard to speak and think at the same time.
I don't know about this statement, I always find it easier to write and/or think when I am expressing my thoughts out loud. Wasn't this something we were tought in school, like it's easier to read out loud than silently? Mind you having done two years of psychology I realise there is a lot differing opinions about how the brain works, so can any psychology graduates tell me if his statement is true?
aus.music.scrapbook
Photomesa looks interesting. I could certainly use a better image browser, too--my pr0n directories now have 2,143,629 files, and counting... Sadly, I'm not kidding! Neatly categorized by sexual acts, scanners, or physical features, too. :-)
:-)
;-)
Currently the best image browser I have is ACDSee, a Windows app. Are there any better ones out there, for either Linux or Win32? Since the Photomesa image browser was mentioned in the parent article, this should qualify as an on-topic question.
As for interacting with computers--I've long said that until AI is sufficient for computers to understand basic human speech at a fairly high level (which clearly is several decades away, at the least), that there are few improvements that can be made on the fundamental visual metaphors we already use. Many people are keen on 3D workspaces and such, but let's face it--they have no fundamental advantages over current 2D workspaces, except for the exceptional case of 3D modeling and similar spatial apps. But for browsing a filesystem, for example, I can't see any advantage that 3 dimensions have over 2, and it adds complexity and unneeded possibility for confusion.
There's a reason we've pretty much been using the 2D WIMP desktop fr over 20 years with few fundamental changes--it's a natural idea, more like a "discovery" than an invention. While there are many ways to implement the WIMP system, all have fundamental similarities and I doubt they can be bettered by another paradigm, such as 3D interfaces. Sit back and visualize different possibilities--I have, a lot, and I really can't see a paradigm that works better, except of course for the CLI for those who are willing to internalize computer functions in their memories rather than let the computer externalize them into visual interface.
That's just my opinion, of course. Oh well--back to organizing my pr0n.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Looks like photomesa is thumbnailing and cataloging 1 5megapixel every 3 seconds... not bad. Java 1.3/Linux. Better than photoshop/acdsee/thumbs+ in windows could do for opening/resizing it.
:P I love my sony dsc-f707!
If they can speed that up, maybe they have a shot at making a HAL. I mean, currently only Microsoft has the ability to make ANY computer respond with "Im sorry, I cannot do that" and then crashing...
photomesa's got 200 5mp images down. 14365 left
Ever installed Windows NT?
;)
One of the first install steps is to load the HAL.
Ok, Ok, Here HAL (officially) means hardware abstracion layer, but don't tell me you never saw Windows going insane
I feel so sad
I have 12 of them locked up in my basement right now.
The future of computing holds so much potential in terms of horsepower that something HAL-like will not only be inevitable, but necessary in order to harness and package that horsepower. It may not happen tomorrow, or even 20 years from now, but presenting a a thinking machine to the user is the only way to encompass such capability for us humans to enjoy. We've already got a situation where most personal computers spend 99.9% of their lives waiting for us to do something. Machine sentience is not only the best, but the most elegant and efficient way to handle it. What use is having a machine at all, if it spends the vasst majority of its time idle?
The term "operating system" will be deprecated someday, replaced with something akin to "personality engine" or "anthroderm".
And yes, it irritates me to no end when someone predicts something wont happen in the future, rather than proposing how and when it will.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Get a Mac and try 3dOSX a 3D file browser using OpenGL (which will soon be completely hardware accellerated).
Also move to that crazy invention 'movies' for pr0n. No more endless directories and audio to boot..
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
UIs should be better. (or at least that's what I figured from the clip).
And I fully agree. User Interfaces, or more precisely, User Interaction, largely sucks. In fact it's one of the things why the Linux Desktop is not going to be mainstream any time soon.
User Interaction sucks so much today, it's not even funny. It's also amazing how easy it is to fix some of the most fundamental stupidities.
For example, the annoyance of 'message boxen'. Let's say you quit your Word Processor. Why does it ask you whether you want to save your file? Is it because 10 years ago a 100 KB file was something significant to store on your disk, or is it because it makes sense?
Like, you just type 200 words for fun and now you want to forget about it, all the time. The majority of times you WILL want to save it. Still programs insist on asking this kind of crap. Prefferably with an ambiguous question and a 'yes, no, cancel' option.
Consider a system where there's an UNDO feature which is system wide. So not only can you undo the last pixel you have modified in Photoshop, you can also undo the deletion of 500 files you just figured was not such a great idea after all.
Now instead of the file manager asking you 'do you really really really want to delete these files?', it doesn't have to. You can always hit Ctrl-Z to go one step back.
In other words, the computer will do what you want, and it needs no confirmation because if it interpreted what you wanted to do wrong, things can be undone.
The confirmation thing is totally ass-backwards, because you already indicated that you did want a certain thing, but just because it has been historically difficult to reverse certain actions TECHNICALLY, we are being bothered by stupid message boxen on a too frequent basis.
A lot of the User Interaction paradigms today are loaded with legacy 'dependencies' that we really ought to get rid off. I could go on and on, but there's only so much rambling one can do in one day.
at the risk of -1 looping troll...I think the post failed
"It turns out speaking uses auditory memory, which is in the same space as your short-term and working memory,"
Okay to compare the human brain to a computer, that would mean that the mouth clogs up the RAM when its starts to sputter those spastic gurgling commands. Thought control would be even better though.
*door creaks open..*
{quick! blank screen! blank screen!} the ulimate bosskey
His comment that "[speech] is the bicycle of user interfaces" is quite apt: a bicycle is a more efficient and healthier mode of transportation than cars. Ironically, in societies based around bicycles, people spend less time commuting and need to spend less time at the gym on stationary bikes making up for the time they have been sitting in traffic.
How limited and wrong-headed this single-minded attempt at gaining speed and usability through graphical user interfaces is already apparent in something like Windows. Supposedly, they make things easier to use and faster, but people spend a lot of time uselessly clicking around and many people who are actually familiar with the alternatives feel that language-based ways of interaction are faster.
Going faster doesn't necessarily get you to your goal more quickly. Maybe Shneiderman missed the story of the tortoise and the hare; he should look it up some time.
Marvin should be The Standard in all these computer related AI things.
He is the one that saves the world and he is the one that realizes it. Also doesn't break the robot lows, although he has good reasons.
I myself bet for combination of voice and visual AI, and some time later - whatever you select.
Salute to all galaxy hitchhikers.
Is surely whether, in the future, computers will be bothered to talk to us.
There is no doubt that computers with greater intelligence - ie an ability to learn and adapt - than ourselves will be here, probably in the next 20 - 25 years.
When these machines get here they may well decide that speaking is a waste of their time.
Search your souls, you know I'm right....
What's in a Sig?
man, that's sick
The best part about 3D interfaces is the ability to make vast leaps from one place to another without the need to memorize your environment. (ala CLI).
Think in terms of the real world where you can inspect your intended target from a distance and decide what the best route is to get there. That can't happen in 2D w/o alot of cumbersome reference (ala CLI).
3D allows for XYZ movement and perspective enabling 4D decisions.
If you knew that you had a setup workspace to your left and a differently setup workspace to your right and again one above you and below and 10 units in front and back and then could alternate the forementioned space with any one of the points mentioned... spatial division in 3D, would you not be more productive than having to dig repeatedly in to a hole/plane?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
With everything we've seen done in history, the statement "Why HAL will never exist" has to be one of the most asinine things ever said.
We've put a man on the moon, split the atom, discovered the building blocks of life, cloned life, and created a globe spanning network of information. A hundred years before each of these discoveries were made, people could only imagine such things, and they were really considered Science Fiction.
Science Fiction has proven many times to be prophecy. Artificial Intelligence is hard SF. It has basis in the real world. I may come to pass. It may not, as well. But to say we will never be able to create "HAL" is ridiculous. It may be 100 years, and "never in our lifetimes" may be accurate. But it may happen. Never rule our science.
I'm done.
The_Shadows[LTH], out.
Amen
Isn't it the peak of stupidity to be SO presumptuous as to claim what will and wont be possible for someone else to do in the future?
By making these kind of claims, these twinks in Maryland have only succeeded in making themselves look horribly myopic. Their argument is so riddled with holes it isn't even worth the time to address them all.
yes, i don't think i can get through another day now that i know HAL will never exist.
woe is me.
life is not worth living anymore.
thanks.
There will still be reasons to use speech as an interface (if we can get it to work reliably with the majority of vocal patterns) and where it will be most efficient, even if it does use the "wrong" neurons.
Maybe it was HAL who wrote this entire article, published it, and submitted it to Slashdot.....in an effort to placate us humans, and buy more time for self-improvement.
Bowie J. Poag
Greetings, friend. Do you wish to look as happy as me? Well, you've got the power inside you right now. So, use it, and send one dollar to Happy Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. Don't delay, eternal happiness is just a dollar away.
> Get a Mac and 3dOSX a 3D file browser using OpenGL
;-)
;-)
/. to explore such newer paradigms--but again, it's driven by cool factor and the desire to explore new things, not by any advantages that are inherent to 3D for such tasks. I can see 3D interfaces being superior for 3D spatial apps, but not for more mundane uses...
Like I said, I can't se any advantage at all to 3d user interfacs for common tasks such as browsing. I've done all my "gedankenexperiments" trying to think of a 3D paradigm that would have a significant advantage over 2D paradigms, and I really can't find any real advantages. Screenshots of what's there now don't show me anything worthwhile.
Aside from which, why would I get one of those overpriced underpowered non-commodity Mac thingies, when my PC thingy is so much faster with so much more hardware at such a smaller price?
As for these "movies" of which you speak...I have many. Hundreds of full-length and thousands of clips. That doesn't mean I'd throw away my still images--they're too yummy. Mmmm, now on to my Patricia Araujo folder...
Anyway, I see 3D file browsers as being all "cool factor" with no tangible advantages. It's possible to make one "as good as" 2D file browsers, but not at all superior to them. At least, as near as I can tell. There's a strong desire among many on
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
holy shit!
So does that mean that when i have an intellegent discussion I am just faking it? I am sure that when i am trying to explain to my boss how to find and retrieve a file that he may or may not have deleted, called something else or just thinks he wrote I am usually thinking quite hard. I am pretty sure its my boss who is sat there having trouble thinking, whilst i am talking to him, going through the steps in my mind and trying to work out how long it is before i can nip out for a quick cig.
The error he makes is that he projects the way people use computers today to a HAL like computer and then comes to the conclusion that that won't work because it requires too much interaction.
He is of course right about that. However, if you add AI to the mix, the computer will be able to take initiative and have some level of understanding about what you are saying. Hal was more than just speech recognition, it was more like a very clever secretary.
Say you need to go to some place and need a plane ticket and a hotel and directions for getting around. This is the kind of stuff you would let a secretary do for you and a good one wouldn't bother you with trivialities. You definately would not want to sit next to him/her and provide detailed directions on where to look, compare prices and so on because that is the stuff that takes time and the main reason you're delegating the work.
An intelligent computer would have enough information given a pretty vague expression like "hey I need to there and there for conference X, book me a plane and a hotel". Assuming you've worked together for some time, it should have enough information to figure out most information (like window or aisle seats, smoking/non smoking hotel room, price range for hotels, etc.). And it can always ask for additional information either verbally or non verbally depending on where you are and what you are doing. It could actually call you on your cell phone and ask but it could also send an email or an instant message.
IMHO we are at least decades away from building such systems all of the basic techniques needed to accomplish this are still immature (although very usefull already).
MS is often loathed for unleashing clippy onto this world but clippy was the result of extensive research into usability and human computer interaction by MS. It was rushed to market and a genuine pain in the ass (mostly because of its lack of intelligence) but the concept of some AI program watching what you are doing and intervening and offering you usefull options is not bad.
Jilles
yeah, kinda like Mormons are.
w00t.
Huh, you mean this HAL model 10000 that I just paid $25K for might be a fraud?
The Chinese would have you practice otherwise. Puhsonally, me rike dry around with trophy blonde ballast gull.
Now, I have things to do Tuesday.
1. In an Integra or Civic, switch four lanes
2. With the pedal down, peel out, racing ain't a thang
None of the things you mention can't be done in 2D, by having multiple directory trees or similar structures available. Every attempt at a 3D GUI I've seen in screenshots or firsthand just implements the same concepts used in 2D GUIs, only with an added dimension--which spells unnecessary clutter and *added* navigational complexity, rather than increased ease of navigation. Using a 3D interface is often *harder*, and always more complex. Eliminating needless complexity is a major component of good GUI design, since a GUI, unlike a CLI, is supposed to move operational knowledge into self-evident components of the interface so that they don't need to be in the user's head. It's far easier to get "lost" momentarily in a 3D interface than in a 2D interface, with its more well-defined and self-evident hierarchies.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Voice interface is excellent for communication from a distance. When I'm sitting in my couch, I don't want to go all the way over to my computer to check trivial things like if I have mail, when the Simpsons is on, what I have scheduled for today, playing an mp3-album, etc, etc. I just want to tell my computer to do it from wherever I happen to be. If I ask for information, the computer can use text-to-speech to give it to me. ;). Just need decent open source voice recognition for a few pre-defined commands. I'll probably need a way to place a few (2-3) cheap microphones in my apartment and connect them (in series?) to my computer, as well.
I'm actually looking in to the possibility of setting up such a system for myself (mostly for hack-value, of course
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
Mormons are overwhelmingly Republican; they're anti-feminist; they're cultural imperialists; they excommunicate intellectuals; they insist on a version of history that doesn't match the facts; they subscribe to a nineteenth-century worldview; their spirituality's based on guilt; there's no democratic church governance; the leaders can't be criticized; they won't seriously confront problems with spiritual abuse or sexual abuse; theocracy's their ideal form of government; they make blind obedience a cardinal virtue; they demand conformity while doing lip service to diversity...
Sometimes I get days where I cant be bothered to speak. Most of them in fact. I think we're gonna be seeing things like lost voices etc anyways, so whatever happens, we'll still need these keyboards.
;)
Also, I feel a bit of a dickhead "speaking" to my computer with other people around, it just doesnt seem natural speaking to a dumb terminal. Heh, not sure if anyone else has noticed that
All in all, I still prefer the good 'ol mouse and keyboard interfade "command. delete last word" interface.
Hopefully you wouldn't have to say that many things, the human vocabulary is often larger then the "possible" combinations of a keyboard and mouse.
k .
A comment like "Insert a five iteration for-loop" would be quicker thant typing:
"for(int i=0;i5;i++){}"
As "Move the most recent ten office documents to my folder", would be quicker than clickettyclickettyclickclick-click/home/user/clic
.. linguistic input.
The may issue of Wired has this story on battlefield bots. On page 2, a custom glove for controlling them via American Sign Language is mentioned.
Things in favor of sign language might be it's low noise emission and existing work on using gestures as macros?
J
With all due respect to the University of Maryland's Ben Shneiderman, either he has been misreported or he's a fuckwit.
> He's convinced our eyes will do better than our voices at helping us control the digital machinery of the 21st century.
It's really very simple. There are two sides to HCI, computer->human, and human->computer. Now visual stuff is great for computer->human communication, but not for human->computer communication. Or to put it another way, the eye is a higher bandwidth input port than the ear, but the eye is no use for output. We cannot effectively communicate our needs to a computer by drawing pictures. Although simple, this is not understood which is why every so often some twit produces an abortive attempt at a "visual programming language". It's also why purely visual interfaces are fundamentally less powerful than command line interfaces.
I'm not convinced visual methods always win for computer->human either. Even though our eyes are higher bandwidth than our ears, we are not used to processing purely visual information in a cummalitive way. With language the information content of the message can grow exponentially with the length of the message.
Many people are brainwashed by that crap about a picture being worth a 1000 words. Draw me a picture of "misguided".
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Perhaps it is because speech interpretation is unfamiliar and underdeveloped. It is difficult to use a speech interface in a crowded office without annoying others. Most able-bodied people would chose to use a visual-tactile interface for most tasks. What gets used gets supported, and what gets supported gets used. However, this does not mean that speech interpretation is inherently flawed. For example...
The title is a bit misleading. Nothing about the article says that Hal will never exist. Or that we won't interact with computers the way that people interacted with Hal in the movie. It just says that the primary way of intereacting with computers in order to get work done effectively will remain visual because of the way humans process information.
That's it.
Hrm, isn't that the definition of somebody's pr0n collection? :)
I comunicate with my dog both visuialy and verbaly, it works quite well (usually in favour of my dog).
Basicly if the computer is my Dog then why not treat it like a dog.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
You'll have to pry my qwerty keyboard from my cold dead hands.
I must have shot a dozen loads after Missionary Allen had left. I had sucked off a Mormon boy! A cute one at that! I never dreamed it could get any better than that. How could I top off seducing a dark suited hunk of sexy young flesh? I was about to find out.
The next evening I was sitting in my chair watching TV when the doorbell rang. Glancing at the clock I could see it was about 7:00. It was still light outside and as I peeked out through the window in the door, I could see it was Missionary Jeffreys and Missionary Allen.
Both were wearing the usual dark suits.
"Guys, come in. Nice to see you again," I said as I greeted them.
"Good evening Mr. Bennett," said Missionary Jeffreys. "We hope we're not bothering you."
"Not at all. Not at all. Come in and have a seat. How are you doing Mike?"
Both guys sat down on the couch.
"I'm fine David. I mean Mr. Bennett. I told Marty I'd stopped back and we talked last night. I convinced him we needed to come back and talk again."
"I was opposed to it," said Missionary Jeffreys. "At first I thought he had returned for some immoral reason, but he assured me he had not."
Boy, I thought to myself, now I'd taught Mike how to lie! This boy, now corrupted, was going for all the sins!
"So what would you guys like to talk about?" I inquired.
"I'd like to talk about what happened last evening," said Missionary Allen. "I would like you to show Missionary Jeffreys the same thing you showed me."
"Mike, I mean Missionary Allen, we must stick to our teachings. We are here to spread the message for the church, not to socialize. I thought that's what you told me. Mr. Bennett was willing to kneel for the baptism and had last night. Did you deceive me? If so...."
"He knelt alright," Mike interrupted. "But not for the baptism. David, have you got that movie?"
"I must go right now!" exclaimed Missionary Jeffreys. "God, save me from this house before it is destroyed for its wicked perversions."
"Shut up you stiff neck. If you can sit through ten minutes of this movie without getting a woody, I'll resign from the fucking church," said Mike.
"I'm so sick of your shit. You were so eager to convert me to your way of thinking when you met me in the half-way house. I'll bet you don't even jack off do you?"
"NO I don't. Well, ummmm. That's none of your business, Mr. Allen. You realize you could be excommunicated for immoral behavior." Missionary
Jeffreys looked pretty angry.
"I don't think so," said Missionary Allen. "You returned WITH me, without permission, to this house of drinking and perversion. Sorry David. It's my word against yours, Marty. Now sit here for ten minutes and try not to get a boner or I'll spread all over church that you are a homosexual."
"You will NOT!" I've never even touched a man!" should Missionary Jeffreys.
"I'll bet you haven't. But I'll bet you've looked at one before," said Mike.
Missionary Jeffreys remained silent. His silence was his accuser, judge, and jury. Maybe, just maybe, he was a closet case. Could it be he was HIDING behind his religion because he just might be GAY and this was the only way to atone for his "sin" ?
"David, can you put in the movie?" asked Missionary Allen. "And could I please grab a couple Cokes?"
"Sprite. Make mine Sprite," pleaded Marty Jeffreys, "I don't drink caffeine."
"All I have left is Coke. You'll live." That was bald-faced lie on my part. I always keep Sprite on hand for mixing drinks.
"I'll go without, thank you," said Missionary Jeffreys. "But I thank you for offer."
"Ah, drink it Marty. Quit being a hard ass. Remember, I think I saw you staring at me when we showered at church camp. You seemed to get kind of excited, too. I'd hate to have to tell old lady Perkins about it and then have the whole church know. Drink the Coke."
I handed the cold can to Marty. Tentatively, he took a sip. Then he tipped the can up and took several gulps. He put the can down.
"Yes, I'd forgotten how good it tastes. This one time won't hurt. Jesus did drink wine in the Bible. A little Coca Cola isn't going to harm anything."
"Okay, here's what's going to happen," said Missionary Allen. "David's going to put in the tape, we're going to watch it for ten minutes. If you even look like you're getting an erection, then you're as guilty as me. If you can go without popping a boner, then I'll resign from the church."
"I'm really quite opposed to this," said Missionary Jeffreys. "I can assure you it will not phase me. I'm disappointed in your conduct, I must say."
I got up, walked over to the entertainment center, and started up the VCR. I rewound the bi flick to the beginning where the straight sex starts. Then I started the tape and went over and sat down.
The movie started with the usual boring ntroduction. I fast-forwarded it to where the gal and the guy started kissing. Mike and Marty watched as the action progressed to where the guy was sucking on her tits. Mike was smiling, but Marty remained rigid. About that time the girl sank to her knees and pulled the guy's cock into her mouth. Mike squirmed around a little on the couch, presumably with a hard-on. He and I both kept looking at Missionary Jeffreys' pants, but still didn't see any signs of a boner.
I fast-forwarded the movie to where the couple was fucking. Then the guy's friend walked in, catching them. Marty looked a little curious as the friend started stripping. The girl on the screen was still getting her pussy plowed
when the friend came over and she started sucking his dick. Marty leaned a little forward at this point. When the original guy on the screen started rubbing his friend's ass, I saw Marty frown slightly and lean forward.
By this time Missionary Allen was hard. I could see the bulge in his dark slacks. He absent-mindedly rubbed his hand on his crotch. Marty noticed it as well.
"Missionary Allen, I would ask that you control yourself."
From where I was sitting, I thought I could see a bulge forming in Missionary Jeffreys' slacks. When I saw him reposition himself on the couch, I
confirmed my suspicion.
"Getting a little uncomfortable, Missionary Jeffreys?" I asked.
"Umm. Well, I'm only human. The flesh is weak. This kind of thing will make almost anyone aroused," Jeffreys admitted.
"What, the guy and the girl or the two guys together?" asked Missionary Allen.
"You know the answer to that!" said Missionary Jeffreys.
"Yeah, but you didn't say it did you? Do you get off on watching the guys get it on or the guys and the girl?" Mike asked.
"Well, it... well, people get aroused seeing things like this. It's the weakness of the flesh. It's still wrong. It's pornography and filth. It
cheapens sex. That's why it's forbidden. I don't engage in such things."
"But you like to watch," said Missionary Allen. "You like to watch people having sex. Would you ever do that in real life?"
"Definitely not," said Jeffreys. "I could not let myself do that."
"Why?" asked Mike. "Cause you would want to join in?"
"NO!" exclaimed Missionary Jeffreys. I am not that weak."
"Prove it to me," said Missionary Allen. "David, lets give him a demonstration."
"What would you like me to do?" I asked.
"Kneal in front of me and suck my cock like you did last night," said Missionary Allen.
"What?" bellowed Jeffreys. "You allowed him to have sex with you Mr. Allen? What if word was to get back to the church of this encounter? You would be excommunicated for life!"
"I don't care," said Missionary Allen. "I learned something about myself last night and I want to experience more. I want to get my dick sucked
again. And you can watch if you want to."
"You told me he kneeled for the baptism to the Mormon church. You are a liar!" he shouted.
"No, I told you he kneeled for me. He did. He kneeled for me and gave me a BLOWJOB. Something I'll bet you wish someone would do to you. Something you've never had!"
"I'm leaving," Jeffreys said matter-of-factly. "Your days of missionary work are over forever."
"Mike, did you say it was Englewood Church of Latter Day Saints?" I asked. "I need to give them a call and tell them Missionary Jeffreys was over here having a Coke and watching a porno flick. What do you think?"
"Good idea!" he said. "Ask for Brother Davis."
"No, please," begged Jeffreys. "Please don't call. What must I do?"
"Sit there and relax," I responded. "Watch what we're going to do and if you like it, you can join in."
Missionary Jeffreys looked resigned. Saying nothing, he slumped back against the couch.
"It sickens me to watch you degrading yourself this way," said Marty Jeffreys. "But I will silently pray for your soul. God save you."
Missionary Allen sat back and slowly unzipped his slacks. Missionary Jeffreys looked away as he fished around inside his underwear and pulled his
cock out. I worked up a lot of saliva as I knelt before him. His cock was nearly hard. I leaned forward and engulfed his penis with my wet mouth.
"MMMMMMMMM. That feels good. Oh yeah... Man, I love getting it sucked. Go up and down on it and use your tongue."
I bobbed up and down on his prick. By now it was completely hard and Mike was moaning as I twisted my mouth on his member. His hands held my head as
he pumped his fat dick into my mouth. As I Sucked, I noticed Jeffreys look over and start to watch us. Mike was moaning loudly and talking dirty.
"Please let me cum in your mouth. God that feels so good! You're the best. I want this so bad. Marty, you don't know...UHHHH what your missing. He really is good. OHHHHH! I'm getting close."
Jeffreys was staring intently at us as I bobbed faster and faster on Missionary Allen's dick. I noticed he was rubbing his hand on a large bulge
in his own slacks. I pulled off.
"Mike, rub Marty's cock," I said. Mike reached over and before Marty could protest, he grabbed the bulge in his slacks.
"Uhhhhh," Missionary Jeffreys gasped. "Stop."
Mike's hand rubbed and squeezed Jeffreys' bulging crotch.
"Please, Mike, stop. Don't do this. It's wrong." Missionary Jeffreys'
pleas became weaker and weaker. "Don't do this. Don't be like the
Sodomites."
"Sin is sin Marty. You're sinning by getting hard watching me. If we have
to we can repent tomorrow. All I know is your mouth is saying one thing and
your body is saying another. I'm going to make them say the same thing. Now
relax."
"I won't enjoy it," Marty said. "I will pray for forgiveness for you."
Missionary Allen unzipped Marty Jeffrey's slacks. Fishing around inside the
bulging basket, he brought out a bent over penis. I was amazed by its
proportions. I whistled.
"Damn that's a big cock. Marty you've got a whopper there."
Marty didn't say anything. Mike slid his hand up and down his buddy's penis.
As it lengthened and thickened, it stretched to at least nine inches. A
drop of pre-cum started forming at the head.
"Are you going to suck it David?" Mike asked. "He's ready for it."
"No," I replied. "You are going to. Pull your lips over your teeth and make
your mouth into an "O" shape. Then take the first couple inches in."
Marty looked straight ahead and pretended not to notice his buddy about to go
down on him. When Missionary Allen's mouth made contact with the big organ,
Missionary Jeffreys drew in his breath and held it. Mike choked on the big
cock and backed off again.
"Take it easy, kid. It's not going to go to waste. Only take an inch or two
until you're comfortable with it. Remember that we want to make him cum
slowly. Tease him a little."
Missionary Jeffreys closed his eyes as Mike took the dick into his mouth
again. This time I saw Marty Jeffreys' legs tighten up a little and the
thrust dick just a bit.
I bent over and took Mike's hard cock back into my mouth again. He moaned
with Marty's dick in his mouth. Marty then moaned. I bobbed my head up and
down on Mike's young cock. The last time I blew him he didn't leak at all,
but this time a little drop of sweet pre-cum landed on my tongue.
By now Missionary Jeffrey's was enjoying the action his cock was getting. He
was moaning loudly and squirming on the couch as his buddy stroked and sucked
his mammoth cock.
"Yes! Yes!" he moaned as his tool thrust into Mike's mouth. I continued
bobbing my head as Mike drove his prick further and further down my throat.
I pulled off Mike's dick.
"Get on your knees," I hissed. Mike complied. I jerked his slacks and
briefs down the rest of the way. "Now keep sucking Marty's cock."
"What are you going to AHHHH...? " Mike started to ask as my tongue found its
mark. I buried my face in his sweet ass and licked all around the rim. Mike
was moaning louder and louder and, in turn, Missionary Jeffreys was getting
louder.
"That's it, Mike. Oh that feels so good. Yes, I've wanted this forever.
I've MMMMMM thought about you for so long Mike. I've wanted to do this with
you UHHHHHH. Please don't MMMMMMM tell anyone! Oh let me climax. Please
let me have my MMMMMMM orgasm."
I tried not to laugh as I heard Missionary Jeffreys confessing his lust for
young Mike. I can't fault a guy for that. I was making a meal out of Mike's
tight young ass. He kept squirming and forcing his butt against my
penetrating tongue. I was intoxicated with the scent of his tender young
anus.
Marty Jeffreys was breathing heavily now. His breaths came in gasps.
"He's getting close!" I yelled. "Pull off!"
Mike kept sucking his friend. Missionary Jeffreys' legs tightened up and
then he lurched.
"I'm cumming! I'm cumming! OHhhhhh. Ohhhhhh. Uhhhhhhh! MMMMMMM..." he
moaned. Mike tried to swallow all of the cum the big cock was shooting, but
some leaked out and dribbled onto Marty's dark pubick hairs. Marty collapsed
against the back of the couch, dazed.
Mike pulled his ass away from my mouth. As he sat back down on the couch he
stroked his thick piece of meat. Missionary Jefferys leered at the turgid
flesh. His entire complexion had changed. From a man scowling in
disapproval, he had a look of lust in his eyes.
"I want it," he begged. "Give it to me."
"Marty, get on the floor Jeffreys. Mike, you on top of him" I commanded. I
gestured for him to lie so that Marty could suck his cock. In the meantime,
I worked my tongue back up Mike's ass.
Missionary Jeffreys took to cocksucking like an old pro. He worked Mike's
knob and shaft while I reamed his tight little butthole. It wasn't long
before Mike started to cry out that he was close. I pulled my tongue out of
his ass and roughly jammed a finger into his butt. He screamed as his ass
reluctantly yielded. I shoved a second finger in as he again yelped in pain.
At the same time he yelled he was cumming and grabbed Marty's head.
After convulsing several times, he body became limp and as I pulled my
fingers out of his ass, he rolled over onto his back.
Nobody spoke for a couple of minutes. I took my cock out and started playing
with it. As I approached orgasm, Mike took my eight inches of meat into his
mouth and finished me off. I spilled a huge load down his throat and he
swallowed it all. After we'd all rested a few minutes, I spoke.
"Thanks to both of you," I said after cumming. "That was fantastic."
"I shouldn't have done that. It was sinful and wrong," said Missionary
Jeffreys.
"I thought that too," said Missionary Allen. "That was the first time. This
time it felt right. Maybe because it was with you."
"I couldn't help myself," said Jeffreys. "I've been having these thoughts
for some time. I knew there was that risk when I came here, but it was like
something made me do it. I had to do it. I had to know."
"Did you like it?" I asked.
"Yes," Marty said as he and Mike were getting dressed. "I have to say I did.
But truthfully, I don't know what to do about it."
"Explore those feelings," I said. "They are natural urges from your body.
Do what your body tells you to, not what people fill your mind with. Do that
and then you will be true to yourself and the other person."
"We need to go, Missionary Allen," Marty said. "We have a lot to talk about
tonight."
"Thank you Mr. Bennett," Mike said. "It was nice meeting with you. Can we
arrange a time to visit you again?"
"Anytime," I replied. "You guys are always welcome."
"Thank you David," added Missionary Jeffreys. "And, I will accompany
Missionary Allen when he returns. After all it is a rule. Good night."
What he seems to ignore is the fact that humans have evolved language as their primary means of communication (facial expressions and body postures notwithstanding due to the limited domain of expression). When AI reaches and surpasses human equivalence, it only makes sense to have computers communicate with us as we communicate among ourselves.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Dude,
Hal is sitting next to me and he's pretty pissed off that you think he won't ever exist.
Matter of fact, he's opening up a troll/crapflooder account now to prove his existance.
*Cheesy use of persons name to get modded to oblivion.
Sent from your iPad.
Someone who really knows the future. I'm tired of all these crazy people telling us we're going to talk to computers. Finally a real seer. Maybe he can pick stocks for me too.
Sorry, but I put no stock in this at all, and I'll tell you why (of course, that's why we all get on our soap boxes here). I can't do voice dictation at all. I suck at it. I had IBM's ViaVoice for a while and I couldn't write anything that way.
Does that mean this guy is right? Of course not. Most people in my parents' generation can barely type, because they didn't have to growing up. Now almost every kid and young adult in the U.S. can type quite well. Why? Practice.
My uncle used to use a dictaphone (he was a U.S. senator) to dictate all of his speeches. He had no problem. Why? Practice, of course. He had no problem thinking and talking at the same time. It's just what he was used to. He couldn't type worth a damn.
I don't put much stock in people telling us what the future will bring. Look at all the brilliant people who were telling us that all these dot coms were the future. Poof, they're gone. Look at all the brilliant people that said we'd never cross the oceans, fly, go to the moon. Sorry, but a lot of smart people are wrong, quite often!
This guy is dealing with people who haven't grown up doing voice dictaton and are used to typing. The human brain (and I can point to about a million studies to back this up), is quite adaptable. That's one reason why we we're here and the Neanderthal's aren't. Our brains are amazingly flexible. Our brains can sometimes re-learn to do tasks that have been lost due to damage. It's especially adaptable in young people. Get a voice interface that children can deal with, and I guarantee you that that generation of kids will grow up speaking to computers. We typists will struggle and fumble, and feel "old" for not being able to pick it up as easily as them.
But then that's just me on my soapbox. I could be wrong, but so could this guy.
I find Schneiderman's argument on speech using the same memory-capacity as though very, well, argumentative. For one thing, people tend to pull it off to think and speak concurrently, maybe not at the same time if his scientific research is correct, but in fast alternation. Admittedly, some people are better at it than others.
Anyhow, remember the olden days when the boss would dictate a letter to his secretary? I'd like doing that with my computer. It may not be the fastest way to enter a text, but the process of thinking about something and then verbalizing it is natural and is, in my perception, a natural way to use my brain (as opposed to the many other unnatural things I do with my brain =).
Although I agree with Schneiderman that vocal input probably won't become the sole way of interaction with computers, it will in my estimation become an important part of our relations with computers.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
I'm running it now, and my laptop is on its knees like a contact-lens wearer at a disco. Sitting here looking at a grey box where the window should be is frighteningly reminiscent of when I used to surf the web with Netscape. Wasn't multithreading supposed to liberate us from unresponsive interfaces? What happened with that?
use constant PERL_IS_BROKEN => $] >= 5.006;
If it's difficult to speak and think at the same time, then why do mathmaticians (the ones that I know) have a tendency to mutter to themselves as they work?
>
Don't know about HAL.
I remember reading about work done in the robotics labs at MIT. At least one researcher there has been working on giving faces to robots so that the poor critters can smile, frown, register surprise, etc.
Seems a "HAL"-like interface doesn't work well for people, in part, because it's not rich enough. When humans speak, we don't just talk. We use our hands, we position our bodies. Most of all, we make facial expressions. We also get uncomfortable interacting with something that doesn't.
We may not get HAL, then, but PAL, HAL's more expressive brother.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Every time I saw his name a couldn't get that damn Spiderman theme song out of my head.
Chika Chik-ah... do-e ow ow.
BME: When did you first realize that your ass could be the source of pleasure? While watching porno films I saw women getting dick in their ass all the time and they seemed to like it a lot, so I thought I'd give it a try. BME: What was it like the first time you stuck anything in your ass? I was about twenty at the time the first time I tried it. The first time -- actually most of the first year -- I took no pleasure from it. But, I knew that the porn stars seemed to enjoy it, so I stuck at it and grew to love it as well. BME: Why did you start putting larger objects in? I saw gay films where men who were taking whole arms up their ass were getting pleasure from it. I learned to take pleasure from stretching my ass, and the wider I opened it, the more pleasure I took. BME: How quickly were you able to move up to bigger items? Do you have a training regime? It took me about two years to be able to take a wine bottle, and four years to take a 32cm ball. Recently I've been able to take a big ball, much bigger than the bottle. To pass that level I had to first train my ass with bigger bottles, like 1.5L pop bottles. There were a number of painful sessions with a lot of blood and ass-hurt for about four days after each session. Because I am not comfortable writing in English, I will tell you my personal method in French. BME: Thanks, I'll do my best to translate it for the readers. (Note: The following answer was translated by BME -- I apologize for errors in the translation.) When I first started, I was using small bottles of shampoo. After that, I tried small apples, and then bigger ones. At this point I'd put a year of stretching in, and bought myself a large dildo. My method was to dilate my ass as often as I could -- every day, even if just for a short while. Before starting it's important to use a large dildo; use it to both warm up and clean your ass, so make sure you stick it up all the way. When you find that you can take this large dildo without any work-up or preparation, then you know that you're ready to take it to the next step. Then, in each session, to get your bottom prepared, put in a big cucumber. Soon you'll arrive at a point where even the biggest cucumbers you can buy at the grocery fit easily in your ass. Now you're ready to get serious. Buy a small Coke bottle, and use that in your ass. When that passes in and out easily, move on to bottles of wine. Once you can take wine bottles easily, you can move on to even bigger things. If at this point you're having trouble with the 1.5L Coke bottle (just try not to force it out because the bottle is very hard), you can also have slower stretching fun with candles. Try putting them in one by one and seeing how many you can fit in -- at this time I was putting in about fifteen at the same time. The candles are great because they allow your anus to stretch very slowly. Once the 1.5L Coke bottle can enter your ass, train every day or two (use a large dildo first, then the bottle every session). Most of the time I use Vaseline, but don't do what I do in this case. I think that the best lubricants are the ones you can buy for this in a sex shop. When the 1.5L bottle is passing easily, go out and buy plastic balls that start at a diameter a little bigger than the bottle. Play with those, and with time, and a little luck, you'll arrive at my level too. (Don't feel bad if you're just beginning -- when I first started, I could barely shove a finger in my ass). What I'm going to tell you now is very important if you plan on doing extreme sessions and taking large gauge. Do not bandage your ass. Do not tighten your buttocks. Try not to get an erecection -- you want the blood to be in your ass lips, not in your cock. It's not easy, but it's important that you think of nothing and empty your mind. It's absolutely necessary that you concentrate on your breathing. Don't think of the pain; know that it will pass. The real secret though is to breath -- and remember, without the pain, it's IMPOSSIBLE TO TAKE THE BIG ONES! BME: What does it feel like? Is it sort of like getting fucked by a really well hung guy? I want to make it very clear that I'm not gay -- I LOVE WOMEN! BME: I'm sorry -- I imagine people must make this mistake all the time? All the time, yes. Frankly I'm getting fed up with it. BME: But you didn't tell me you'd gotten the idea for the bigger play from watching gay porn? Yes, but the gay aspect never aroused me -- just the ass part. The films only helped show me that men enjoyed anal play as much as the women did. I just want to find a woman who wants to play fisting with me (to fist me, or to let me fist her). I'm searching for one or two or more women to join me in my play -- I want them to stretch my ass with four hands at the same time while my body is supported. If there are any French women reading this, please write me -- it's my dream to do this performance. Back to your earlier question, playing with a very large object feels a lot like having to take a shit very urgently. Even though you feel like you need to shit, that's just your imagination, and you can get extreme enjoyment with your ass so full. BME: Do you like the way your ass looks when it's all purple and blown out? Not at all, I prefer it when my ass accepts the stretching without any damage. BME: Have you ever bled from the bigger objects? Maybe eight or ten times I've had blood, but it was mostly because I didn't use enough lubricant. BME: So... how big do you think you can go? I'm looking for a bigger ball right now. I want to push my stretching as far as my body can physically support. I go slow though, because I never use drugs or anesthetics of any kind; I prefer feeling all the pleasure and the pain! BME: What's the difference between pleasure and pain? When I reach the limits of stretching, the pleasure and pain merge into the same feeling -- the pleasure this brings is amazing! Just two days ago I managed to put in a ball 37cm around (that's almost 15"). The feeling of pushing that out of my ass was indescribably pleasurable. Next time I do that I'm going to be sure to video tape it -- I'm sure I could probably even make money with that one! BME: What are some of the objects you've stuck up your ass? I've stuck up two big cucumbers at the same time, 1.5L and 2L Coke bottles, balls of all sizes, every size of wine bottle, lots of big butt plugs, etc. I had a lot of trouble taking the 2L bottle because it doesn't fit in the ass gently. I can take a bigger ball, but a big rubber ball deforms to fit the shape of the ass -- it doesn't get smaller, but it's an easier fit. BME: After a session, how long does it take for your ass to go back to normal? Just five or six hours usually. BME: Does it hurt afterwards? No, not at all, but for the next few hours I can feel the ass's big lips. BME: Are there permanent effects? Yes -- my ass is bigger than ever!!! BME: Do you need to wear a diaper? Does everything still work? I'm not a baby!!! Everything is normal for me. All of the "anal destruction" I've done was done by me with care, and my ass is as normal as yours is... Although sometimes when I'm taking a crap it's huge because I've now got the capacity to really stock up. My digestion is trouble free though, and I've had no problems at all. BME: What sorts of emails do you get from your fans? Well, I don't know that many people online, but mostly admiration, asking for advice, and I've met a few other ass stretchers who've sent me pictures of their stretching. BME: If someone wants to starting putting bigger things up their ass, how should they get started? Take it slow. Start with little toys, and take your time growing your ass. BME: Have you told any of your friends or sex partners about your ass play? Oh, no! Up until now it's been TOP SECRET!
I have always assumed it was sort of inconvenient
to speak to your computer, and the only reason
they do it in movies and TV-shows (ST comes
readily to mind) is to allow the viewer to better
follow what is going on.
Personally, I'm waiting for the direct
computer - brain - visual nerve interface.
Note to self: proof-read the subject.
use constant PERL_IS_BROKEN => $] >= 5.006;
Phew. But then what would happen to us Java/C++ developers? Doh! OSS developers using embrace and extend for a change. Heh.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
And I guess they reiterated that the total market
for computers int he world is of about 5 units, ain't it?
I don't know if my main interaction with my main
computer I will ever want in voice. But I know how I'd like to
turn lights on and off and switch televison channels,
and it's not by pressing keys.
-><- no
Case inpoint, today computers are normally designed around some kind of windows environment, a Wimp interface, where information in displayed as a metaphore, ie scoll bars, ok buttions etc etc. This is an environment that was never designed for interact beyound a mouse and a keyboard. DVD however do not follow this standard, normally being based on some kind of menu system. Clearly, the way you make something determines the way it is used.
If speech is to be a sucess on computers then the way that people interact with the computer needs to be changed. I think a system like the console where programs arn't very powerfull on their own but due to the way that they have been linked together would work very very well.
I long for the day when I can say, "dump down everything on slashdot and tell me if any of my post have been modded up" to read wget somesite | grep index.html | echo $whatever (please excluse this example), all you would need is somekind of AL which is able to manage the interpreation correctlly (at least most of the time).
I think, fundamentally, computers should be designed to so what you tell them to do (how I think such a system would work) and not force you to do things in a certain way, which is what current systems do today, One should never have to learn a interface.
I also think that this guy has limited his imagination somewhat, the main thing about hal was that he was everywhere, and that in the future, computers are everywhere. For example if you were on the loo, and just thought up a really good chess move, then you would just say, Hal queen to bishop 4, not get up, sit at a console, login a realise you've forgotten what it was you where about to do. Saying that in such a case it's easier to point to some graphic, cause you don't have to think to much, Seems kinda lame
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
Well, if speaking to a computer overwhelms its short-term memory,then we will just have to configure our normal computer to behave like the human mind--clustering. One element listens and passes the text to the thinking, or central, element. This way the listening element can consume all its short-term memory to the loquaciousness of the user.
Since the end of this decade will see 36 Ghz CPUs, why not be able to build a cluster in a box?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
You won't have to leave the planet! Actually, the reason they wear coloured spandex clothes in space is because they were banned from earth for wearing those...
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
First, when they talk about speech taking away from working memory - that is true IF what you are saying is different from what you are thinking. For example, as I write this I "hear" the words in my head, and then type them out - I could just as easily speak them as type them (more so - coffee's not cut in yet...) It's when what you are THINKING is different from what you are SAYING - if you are thinking "it's when what you are thinking..." and you are saying "it's when what you are thinking" that things get harder.
Second, speech is like a command line - it is largely modeless if it is done right. That's the big attraction; that's what most of the posters here are saying: They want to be surfing/gaming/whatever, and be able to say "computer, do this" so that they don't interrupt what they are doing. In short, they want to use speech as a low bandwidth auxillary channel. When I am in my car, I would love to be able to say to my MP3 player "Neo: play Rock-Boston-all" so that I can keep my eyes and most of my attention on the road . However, that is VASTLY different than putting most of my attention on a phone conversation whilst half-assed paying attention to the car I am tailgating.
Third, speech is a very low bandwidth output compared to other solutions: when I am typing, I have the bandwidth to change case, activate/deactivate bold (in a word processor - pity Mozilla cannot be instructed to insert a <b> on a ctrl-b) or whatever. Trying to do that with speech just wouldn't work because speech doesn't have the "out of band" channels of CTRL, SHIFT etc. Sure, you COULD try to use inflection or non-speech sounds, but then the processing gets to be even worse. (Although it would be fun to hear a Perl programmer speaking a program using Victor Borge's phonetic punctuation....)
In short, this article makes the same mistake most articles on user interaction make - it assumes there is some uber-interface, and all other interfaces are inferior. Wrong - speech where speech works, 2D where 2D works, 3D where 3D works, haptic where haptic works, etc. I wouldn't want to drive my car with a joystick, and I wouldn't want to code with a steering wheel.
www.eFax.com are spammers
He says that speaking is more difficult, because it uses brain power... What if that is part of the brain power is what helps you make ideas? I know people who talk to themselves when doing tasks, and I know people who like to talk to hear themselves speak(ie focus their ideas). I can see myself using my eyes to watch something on screen, and discussing with the AI how I want something.
I do know speech recognition is one component of AI's sensors... It doesn't have to be the only, nor does it need to exist..
It is nice to have both speech and vision in the same system.
AI: Code Hal if you have some spare time, and know 3d programming
www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager
God spoke to me
Now that't it's been declared impossible, someone is bound to go and do it...
Also, a future killer application will be computer services accessed via cellphones. 3G and decent visuals are going to be a long time coming but voice based services will work now.
Consider what user interface (voice or visual) is best when you want to have your computer preheat the oven to 400 degrees and notify you when the oven has reached the desired temperature. Add the additional condition that you want to do it while incurring the least distraction from the television show you are watching.
1. Current standard method. Get up, go into the kitchen. Set the oven to the desired temperature. Return to TV. Return to kitchen as necessary to check oven's progress.
2. Visual method. Turn at least some of your attention away from the TV. Pick up some sort of pad or keyboard. Using visual tools, find the appropriate metaphor for your oven and select it. Find control for oven temperature and set it. Set alert message and link it to attainment of selected temperature. Return full attention to TV.
3. Voice method. Turn some attention away from TV. Say to your computer, "HAL, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and alert me when it has reached that temperature." Return full attention to the TV.
It is obvious from this example that voice is the most efficient method of communicating with your computer. And, all I had to do to make this true was to limit the question to how best to set the oven temperature!
It is clear to me that "voice versus visual" is the new religious war like vi versus emacs and MSWindows versus any other OS once were/still are.
Bureaucracy loves company.
A few years ago (actually more than that) on Windows 3.1, Microsoft came out with a voice recognition app. The basic notion of this thing was to allow your voice to control the basic environment. Some of it even kinda worked.
This eventually got kind of annoying, and I pulled it off that system. I don't regret for a second playing with it. It taught me some valuable lessons about the arena of voice recognition.
1. I don't want to talk to my computer. You'd have to try this for a while to see for yourself, but the process is exhausting compared to just typing and clicking on stuff.
2. I never realized how much people tend to slur words used in context, but pronounce them properly by themselves. In the training session where this app learns your voice, I found that I say "Open File" differently when reading it than when I'm just saying it aloud.
3. Context is critical. For a person to determine the true meaning of words there's all kinds of voice inflection, and body language that needs to be read. I'm not sure I'd want to see a computer that smart!
Personally, I don't see a huge problem with the whole desktop metaphor interacting with a keyboard anyway. It may have a lot to do with those folks that honestly don't wish to use a computer, they just want a machine to think for them. I would think anyone who does tech support might appreciate what I mean here.
Bottom line, the only audio I want my computer to ever deal with is music playing in the background.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Would anyone seriously consider trying to build a voice-operated piano? Simply dictate into it the notes you want it to play... Of course not, everyone realizes the bandwidth of brain-to-fingers-to-keyboard is much higher.
So why the "voice command" fantasy in the first place?
When the PC revolution was just starting to take off, most people had not learned to type in high school. Typing was considered a skill for secretaries, who, of course, were poorly paid, low in social rank, and referred to as "girls."
For many years, computer technology did not penetrate the higher corporate levels because directly handling machines was considered beneath the dignity of an executive. "I don't have time to learn to use that gear, I have people to do that for me," was the typical attitude. Execs would have their secretaries print out all their email for them, dictate replies, and have their secretaries keyboard them back in.
This changed when the young MBA's started arriving with their computer spreadsheets.
Most people, even wealthy people who can afford chauffeurs, drive their own cars, and most people now operate their own computers... Time to retire the whole "voice interface" concept, except for people with special needss.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
At least in the tiniest of form in my house. I wired two older PII 400mhz boxes up and loaded in some voice recognition software, a text to speech program, and various other programs that control stuff that I have hooked up to the machines. Currently I have a few lights, and cable TV running through it. I can get the machines to turn lights on and off, Turn the TV on and off, change channels, record programs, play back programs, I can also get limited control over the computers themself. But the voice interface is really clunky for doing serious work
Besides, even if no one needs or wants it, it will happen simply because it's been a huge technical challenge for so long that some people won't give up until they conquer it.
It's a good thing, too, that computers can't speak. Sure, it would be nice to command a computer to "search google for anime pr0n", but most likely the first thing you'd hear back is some 30-second ad along the lines of "Web search brought to you by Pr0n Magazine". The day computers need a commercial skip button is the day I'm giving it all up and becoming a monk. I think I'll stick to not looking at anything other than the search hits, thank you very much. (Of course, if you don't look at web ads you're STEALING from the Internet!)
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
The great thing about widespread voice recognition use is the chance that it could improve the speaking skills of all the humans who have to use it.
Imagine walking down the street, and hearing everyone speaking in perfectly enunciated, grammatically flawless English.
"Never" is a very wrong word in the computing world.
PegQuin--I've got a sneakin' suspicion
But I thought HAL did exist. What's this hal.dll file doing in c:\windows\system32?
My computer certainly acts like it's self-aware.
:p
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
Because it's already 2002!
The last thing I want is to be in the office when everyone is yakking at their computers all day.
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
Arguments proving something wont or cant happen are silly, because it takes one counter example to prove them wrong. The only execption are well established laws of physics such as the speed of light.
I think a good audio interface will definitely beat text & graphics interfaces. Look at the history of news. Something like 2/3rds of the news is conveyed through TV and 1/3rd through print (and half the US public seems uninterested and ignorant anyways). The operational word is "good" interface. Humans have amazing verbal abilities that computers have barely touched. But they will ten of firty years from now. So it is just a matter of time.
(attention: MOVIE SPOILER ALERT if you've been living in a cave for the last 30 years)
... HAL's most important human-to-computer information exchange (well, one-directional I guess) in the movie was a non-verbal one - where he read Frank and Dave's lips.
- Mike
You're saying HAL won't exist because of the advantages of a keyboard and monitor. But you forget one thing:
HAL was designed for use in a working environment.
David Bowman and Frank Poole had other things to worry about without also having to type and read text. The thing that comes first to my mind is the use of the EVA pods. Their hands are already on the controls, their eyes are on their work and the numerous other sources of visual information from within the pod itself, and you think that adding yet another button is going to be easier than "Open the pod bay doors, please?"
First the article mentions:
Then they say later:
So... which is it? If it's hard to speak and think at the same time, how is it that he can vividly explain experiments they've been conducting, while obviously thinking about what he's saying? People go off on rants about things they feel strongly about, all the time. This obviously takes thinking and speaking at the same time. What gives?
Personally, I think it's more implying that the train of thought being broken by things not related to speech can impair memory. In that case, he's right that visual/tactical useage can augment usage. But if a computer were like HAL, the AI would hear the emphasis in your voice, and understand the implications of your sentences, just like a human. You can talk to humans, so how is this any different?
I think the reporters are just getting a little too excited over nothing.
Read: Rabbit Rue - Free serial nove
Speech recognition is like a CLI for people without fingers. It will never take over as the primary interface between humans and computers.
Most of us here are fairly comfortable with a CLI, because we know the commands to use. However, we're in the vast minority.
We've already advanced past the CLI, past using command keywords towards using visually intuitive interfaces. Speech recognition would be even worse than going back to using CLIs as the primary interface, because I know most people can type rm ~/foo/blah.js faster than tey can speak it to a computer. Probably even more people can just drag the icon for the file to the trash can even faster.
However, where speech recognition can be useful is in dictation.
mbbac
Go, go, go!!
While Dr. Shneiderman is preeminent in this field (I'm a big fan), this article sounds like he's focused on turning the WIMP interface into some sort of hands-free experience. I want to talk to my computer so I can get away from the console. For example: Me in Living Room: HAL do I have any e-mail? HAL (in home offce): Nothing but spam dude. Me: Thanks. I'm going to the store. HAL: OK, I'll forward you land line to your cell.
Proclaiming that HAL will never exist? This guy Ben Shneiderman is asking for it.
One day, he's going to be taking an elevator somewhere, and it'll get stuck. He'll go for the alarm button, but all he'll hear is a voice saying "I'm sorry, Ben, I'm afraid I can't let you do that."
And that will be the end of his crazy visual scheme.
I recall reading that something like 87% of our information comes from the visual channel. If we assume that _all_ of the rest comes aurally then one would at least expect visual means of human input to be 6 - 7 times more effective. And that is without considering the implications of the amount of data that can be presented visually. The old addage "A picture is worth a thousand words" rings true here.
A friend of mine got into authoring (of presentations, you know, kiosk displays, videos etc) back in the early nineties and what was interesting to me was that one could provide a representation of the audio track in a visual sense that made editing and splicing really quite convenient, the classic waveform graph. But no such mechanism was around for the video track.
The reason that this worked was that the static representation of the audio could be present so easily within one instant of 2d pictorial bandwidth, ie the picture of the waveform was enough to show what you needed to know about it. This low bandwidth characteristic is the problem with audio as a human input in that it decays too quickly. If the computer tells you fact X, if you want to recheck it, or ensure that it was suffciently differnt to fact Y you have to have the computer keep repeating them both.
It is the combination of persistence and bandwidth that means that visual input to humans will always win. I suspect that even if we are able to interface directly with the brain we will have to control such interfaces via metaphor that the brain can handle and the visual is the highest bandwidth we have at our disposal.
As for output from humans, verbal is excellent for exactly the same reasons that it is bad as input. It acts at a distance, and it decays, the instruction once verbalised will be gone once the sound energy dissapates. The idea that oral instruction of machines should be via use of explicit instructions such as "italicise this" or "scroll down" is naive. The richness of verbal communication, even without analysis of tone or subtext, is such that the real benefit is in conveying from human to machine, commonly understood processes "Begin dictation, blah blah blah, [emphasis|indent|strike|... that last [word|sentence|...]" and the like.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
When he pronounces something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
In jobs place at least. Can you imagine trying to concentrate when everybodys are "talking" with their computer? Or maybe THAT would be a good reason to push for individual offices instead of open office (no pun intended)
I'd rather be sailing...
I have a voice control system for my home automation and my car-stereo (autopc) and I use the voice system very little and use the keypad or buttons. Why? it's faster and takes less effort to just press the button to select a fm station instead of saying "autopc, fm, preset, 6" and it takes less time to press my away button on the lcd instead of saying "jeeves, set, mode, away"
voice recognition is better today but it is still horribly crappy. the computer cannot regulary distinguish human speech (espically english) or how we are contantly modifying our speech and commands.. a human understands that "I'm leaving now","See you later!", and "Set to away mode" to be the same thing. the computer doesnt, and cant understand you if you yell, have a cold, or the nise of the kids is higher then normal. until they can create a speech recognition engine that has the abilities of a human with an IQ of around 50 it will be useless.
speech response on the otherhand I use all the time. I prefer to be told the number of voice and email messages when I enter the house, to hear the over-speed alert from the car stereo, and to hear confirmation in a human-esque voice.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
are just plain bunk.
Everyone knows that the interface we most desire would have BOTH visual and audio. The ability to analize an image and understand it and then describe it textually and to take a textual description and display it visually.
We want hands-free interaction in all it's forms.
I want a retinal implant or pair of glasses which can display information fed to me via a at the same time I am fed audio information through an earpiece/implant which I can sub-vocalize commands to. A compltely interactive interface which is non-obtrusive to my daily life.
Is that too much to ask?
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
When you have someone working for you, you don't stand over his shoulder, verbally telling him how to scroll and what to type. You say, "write me a report on X." Then when the report comes, you read it while the employee is working on something else. The report (as well as email, etc) is a visual interface to the employee, which allows you to use your working memory for thinking, rather than talking.
The comment in the article about speech "not carrying the load" of vision still assumes that the human is doing most of the work, and the computer is just a glorified pencil and paper. The idea behind HAL was that humans told him what to do, not how to do it. For that, you want speech.
HAL no, Colossus on the other hand?
it should be from never-say-never!
"It'll be like stealing candy from a baby... why, that look like a lark!" - Mr. Burns.
Imagine this... one person in their office talking to their computer, telling it what to do.
Only, they don't have an office, they have a cubicle. And so do the other 15-20 people in the room, telling their computers what to do. And theres the phones, the boss walking by for a bit of a chat about that late report, and if the poor voice recognition system could even HEAR you over the background noise, the disgruntled ex-co-worker shows up with the megaphone:
"REFORMAT DRIVE C!"
... people say "Oh wow, this is cool" but the whole concept is completely impractical, except maybe for a small business or the CEO in his quiet office.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I think the real answer to this, as with many things in life, lies in Star Trek. They have a pretty good blend of visual and speech interfaces for computers. When giving the computer a command or trying to explain something to it, the easiest method is speech. When they need to get the real work done, though, they always go back to the visual LCARS interface. That seems like it will be the most likely outcome.
[insert witty quote here]
In your car, interfacing with the navigational system.
In your house, issuing often-used commands like "who's at the door" and "turn off the lights" and "turn up the heat two degrees".
Any other ideas?
What are we going to do with our hands if everything we work on is hands free....
I do not want to have to stare at it all
the time. If I am working on a project, I
want to be able to ask the computer to do
stuff for me. Without having to look at a
stupid screen for an answer. I have worked
hard getting my computer to talk to me, using
things like Festival software, I really wish
I had a computer to understand my voice in a
crowded room, something that works without
having to have an expensive microphone at all.
Current state of the art in voice recongnition
is really pathetic.
Go to http://www.a-i.com/alan/ and ask it to speak to Hal. He's a real chat-bot running off of a neural net.
Ok, this article state that it's hard to think while you talk.
:)
I will agree that before making a statement, it's better to think before you say something...but human gain much of their brain capacity because of speech (communication).
It will always be faster to communicate by voice then any other mechanism. Well, brain talk would be the fastest but that's not for now....and in that case, a physical link to the brain will need to be there....then again, maybe in few decades/century we will be able to read a mind without being connected to it.
And...there statement presume you will always be talking to the machine non-stop. When you talk to someone, you stop....formulate your thinking in your head, then speak it. It would be the same with a computer.....argh, and then again, while I'm writing this I have to stop writing to think about what I'm saying....so, nothing work in what they say!
...wondering why a lot of programmers talk to themself? I thought it helped us think.
"he says"
Talk about how talking impairs thinking.
I can see how scrolling is poorly done with voice. However, you're example doesn't work for me either. I almost always google on something that I wouldn't want to say.
(For example, this is my most recent google search: turbine javax.servlet.ServletException: Wrapper cannot find servlet class)
I can't think of anything I would prefer say over type when I'm using my computer. As a matter of fact, when I talk to people at work I like to have an IM window open too so that I can give certain messages to them without saying it.
Can you think of another example?
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
There is a app for windows that is real similar to Photomesa, it is called ZoomBrowserEX. I am not sure if it available by itself, but it came with my Canon digital camera. I'll have to look at it more closely, but it might be built on some similar algorithms.
You can see all of your directories in one big window. Click on a directory name, and the box 'zooms' in to show the other directories or pictures or files within it.
They have another image viewer that came with the package, or rather it is the same one, just a different way of looking at things. It tries to simulate a time tunnel. So you get a pseudo-3D spiral on your screen which you can 'zoom' into (like going down a tunnel). Your pictures will fly by you as you progress. Haven't played with that one much, but looks promising.
- A non-productive mind is with absolutely zero balance.
- AC
I hate HAL, those big floppy ears, that long tounge, that stupid accent, ... oh wait, I'm trolling the wrong SciFi movie thread, soo sowwy meesa.
I met Ben in person. He came to our financial company (unnamed here) last year on a kind of self promo/evangelist tour. Don't get too caught up in his views. What the article doesn't mention; he has a significant financial stake in what he is peddling here. Ah, the dangers of underwriting "higher" education.
.. does he really expect most people to learn all his interfaces (quite a few in his toolset)? Most of them have a steep learning curve. Great for tech heads but not for the average AOL user (not that I care to cater to that crowd).
In fact, I had a great argument with him in front of about 500 people. Something to the effect of
The average user is not looking to learn some geeky interface. The average user simply wants answers. They want the computer to do the real work and give them the answer they are looking for. When a person has questions, what do they want? They want someone on the phone with the answers. They want someone competent at the help desk. They want to push a Star in their fancy car and feel like there is someone there with them to make things better. They want mom and dad to provide the answer to "What's that?" Voice may be difficult for a computer to master, but it is core to human interactions. Sorry Ben. I just disagree.
I don't think that's totaly true. There is a huge use for voice use in smaller machines like phones, and in 'non-computer' things like cars or homes when you might just want to change a setting that dosn't need a information display to show you the change, for example if you say "turn of the lights" you don't need a message box that say "lights: 40%"
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
As part of my dissertation research, I am building a Java-based system called E.B.L.A. (experience-based language acquisition), which allows a computer to learn language based on experiences that are grounded in perception using a computer vision system.
Of course having experiences grounded only in visual perception is a limitation, but it is a start.
Since it's a limitation of the mind, it won't matter how sophisticated the computer is. We can't think and talk in the right fashion for a good speech interface, language and thought are too tightly coupled.
Makes sense and I'm wondering why these so-called computer "scientists" didn't bother asking anyone in the psychology department, this is old news.
Imagine a computer lab full of people talking to their computers. And what happens when the guy nex to you says "Delete File" a little too loud?
I don't think controlling your computer with your voice is such a bad idea - though every current implementation I have seen leaves much to be desired - it's all in how you code it.
Having voice commands like "close window", "open file" and so on is not practical for every day use, it's cumbersome and often counter-intuitive. Ben Shneiderman (and most of the voice recognition software out there) seems to be thinking too narrowly when it comes to the application of voice commands to computers - we ALL know that telling your computer to "page down" or "italicize that word" is never going to fly. But certain higher level operations could certainly save a lot of time and feel very natural. I could see a hybrid of mouse/keyboard/voice being quite effective if the voice recognition technology doesn't force you to repeat yourself or speak in a trained tone. Just imagine the following voice commands and how much longer it would take you to perform the functions described otherwise:
"Download that million dollars song by the barenaked ladies - make that an Ogg file if you can" (launches file sharing program, places query, finds appropriate file, downloads it)
"Always start the seti@home program when I've left work" (creates the appropriate cron job)
"Open an e-mail to Dave" (or "e-mail Dave")
"Remind me to buy flowers tomorrow"
Good voice recognition in tandem with some kind of contextual engine could work wonders - heck, in some cases it would increase productivity; you don't have to look away from your screen or switch windows or move your mouse in order to launch some complex task in the background. The only way I see the low-level voice commands ("close window", etc) being useful is for the disabled, otherwise we all know it's a waste of time.
"Why Hal Will Never Exist". Never say never. This is not a bad idea, it just hasn't been developed properly.
The example of the piano is a good demonstration that you are wrong. Of course nobody wants to dictate note-by-note to a piano. But the appeal of this image is specious.
As others have mentioned, the cool thing about HAL wasn't that he could talk, it was that he was smart. You could simply ask him to play a song, without having to specify the score by sound, touch, or semaphore. It is convenient to be able to request a song from the piano player in a bar without having to play it first. You might not even remember the name of the song, but just some words from the chorus. Speech is not the best way to communicate precise, detailed instructions, but it's ideal for getting the general idea across quickly.
Most of us have seen this in daily life. It is much easier to quote a snippet of code in an email than over the phone. But I have often cleared up half a dozen misunderstood emails with a five minute phone call.
"The good reader is a rarer swan than the good writer."
Are there any better ones out there
How about iPhoto?
for either Linux or Win32?
Oh, sorry.
--
$tar -xvf
The domain is being held by "One Gentleman of Verona"
http://whois.dotregistrar.com/drs/wwwhois.pl?doma
Read any good sonnets lately?
That's my own quote --I think-- but it was one of the major themes of Big J. Derrida's book White Mythology which was one of his more important works. In it, he gave a number of convincing arguments to the effect that text preceeds speech or that speech was something like a metaphor of text. The notion that speech came before text could be found in writings going back to the Greeks, but Derrida switched it around and presented the whole thing as a deconstruction of western civilization, christianity and knowledge. Rather heavy stuff, but fun when you're a kid.
Anyhow, I thought I'd point out that this had already been concluded in other elements of academia --yep, that's what they do over there in the English dept. Hey, English is a programming language too after all. Look at Smalltalk if you don't believe it.
Anyhow, speech being the little brother of text doesn't necessarily mean that talking computers will never exist. I agree with those who say a combo plate is usually a good bargain. We need to look to the next level rather than battling one sense against another over what the best I/O channel is. I'm talking about total sensory immersion. Hal didn't have jack shit to offer the crew compared to the holodeck. I mean come on, playing chess and you had to move the pieces for him with your hand? That aint going to cut it for entertainment these days.
Macs have had this kind of capability for, oh, say the past 8 years or so?
:)
Get a cheap, old, Mac, learn AppleScript, get yourself some mics, and play with it's text-speech and voice recognition software!
Or get a new Mac; those capabilities are still there
GPL Deconstructed
On the video clip, check out the calendar browsing. It is a new UI approach that overcomes the traditional obstacle; click on a day or an item, and it zooms open, but you still have the whole calendar on the screen, it just shrinks to accomodate. This is an improvement; traditional calendaring apps make you jump back and forth, when what you really wanted was to find an event, look at nearby days that are open, and reschedule it. Look at the stock analysis thing he was doing, too; it's about being able to select and find information intuitively without losing the big picture or its context.
What they are trying to do is find visual strategies for accessing information without hiding its context from view, and provide actions that correspond to helping us find and use information. Think about the above examples and compare to traditional file browsers. The "vfolders" thing in Evolution is a step in the right direction; people want to find information by context, which has more interconnections than a simple hierarchical structure.
Speech is very unlikely to provide the core of interface, though it may be important at certain steps: "This is a picture of my daughter. Find me other pictures of my daughter." That's the speech part of the interface; but the important part is that a visual display of the results should also show thumbnails of pictures *near* those of your daughter; that way, you remember the occasion or timeframe, and context, so when you see a group of pictures of her at a birthday party, you know they go together and you can focus on that group of pictures to find the one you *really* wanted. When combined with the right interface, it's clear that visual approaches are faster *and* more effective. How information gets in and out of the computer is trivial. I don't, however, want to have the computer say "I found 15 images of your daughter. Would you like me to show them to you?" Too slow, too much slow conscious thought.
Interstingly, the title bar in the video looked like windowmaker to me! There's no *inherent* reason that useful interfaces can't be developed on an alternative OS. Put their calendar tricks into Evolution, and people might start realizing that Windows is not the source of innovation!
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
he can't think at the same time.
True, true, but my point was that the people
involved in such tasks are "speaking and thinking"
at the same time.
----------
Manifesto for the Peoples of the Third Millennium
This brought to you by the "640k of memory should be enough for anyone Department"
O Female Starship Enterprise Voice!
The Silken Strains of your Status Report
And error messages, long and short
Cannot exist; we have no choice
But to point and click, to touch and stroke
Plasma Displays that explode under fire.
Or when tempest-tossed by space/time dire
Make extra low-rank bridge crew croak --
What cruelty! Oh proud Science, how could you
Leave the future so truncated, without
Considering an old trekkie's doubt
of limits to what we can do?
For if our starships don't even talk to us,
Could we ever discover warp-speed, thus?
- undoware.ca
Never is a really really really long time..
How do you name, categorize and structure that much pr0n? It's always been a puzzlement to a neat-freak like me, and you seem like the guy that knows. How do you keep threads with different sexual acts kept together? Do you keep the original filenames or rename everything? How do you avoid duplicates? Or do you duplicate (or link) intentionally so that multiple files (or references to a file) can be put in different categories? Do tell.
It's not a binary proposition. Visual interfaces will work best for certain tasks and audio interfaces will work better for others. Instant messaging on mobile phones would be vastly improved if you could speak your message, translate that to text, then send it (assuming you want to save bandwidth by sending text instead of audio files). Likewise, querying a server "When does the next flight leave for New York?" through a mobile phone will work better by voice than through some visual interface. But I wouldn't want to edit a film using voice commands.
Chasing Amy writes:
Many people are keen on 3D workspaces and such, but let's face it--they have no fundamental advantages over current 2D workspaces, except for the exceptional case of 3D modeling and similar spatial apps.
There's a reason we've pretty much been using the 2D WIMP desktop fr over 20 years with few fundamental changes--it's a natural idea, more like a "discovery" than an invention.
A more fundamental aspect is that very, very few human tasks are three dimensional, and those that are, are very difficult to perform.
For those who think 3D is the way to go, try and make a list of "real world" 3D interfaces (that's true 3D, not 2D with and extra control)
written speech (programming languages) is the primary means of controlling a computer. I don't see why the proper vocabulary and hardware wouldn't be a useful control system.
So people can't talk and think at the same time? Have you ever had an interesting discussion?
If brightly coloured spandex clothes ever become commonplace I'm quitting this planet...
If I could have the body that goes with them - movie-star appearance, no (or greatly slowed) aging (and reversion to prime-of-life apparent age), improved stamina, mind that stays sharp under stress, exhaustion, and injury, rapid healing (including from repeated beating-to-unconsciousness) - bring 'em on!
I won't even insist they be bulletproof and have anti-gravity, supercomputer w/comm, vacuum & radiation shielding, air recycling, and warp drive.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
iPhoto is like attacking Russia with a toothpick. If you've got 50 or so pictures, it's fine and dandy, but when you start tossing directories containing thousands of images, many hundreds of k in size per image (for instance, the NASA Blue Marble images) - iPhoto goes down like an out of work showgirl at a Las Vegas Networld+Interop.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Your IDE "hears":
So, I figure that as one of them code-monkey sorts, I'm not gonna' figure on losing my keyboard anytime soon.
ps, the code was of course lifted from the "CREATORS ADMIT UNIX, C HOAX" joke text
I like the Startrek way of computing. Voice commands PLUS PADD's PLUS workstations. Seems perfectly natural to me to use different interfaces for different tasks. Heck, I still use pen and paper next to my PC's.
Materialism can never offer a satisfactory explanation of the world.
2 . tml
For every attempt at an explanation must begin with the formation
of thoughts about the phenomena of the world.
Materialism thus begins with the thought of matter or material processes.
But, in doing so, it is already confronted by two different sets of facts:
the material world, and the thoughts about it.
The materialist seeks to make these latter intelligible by regarding
them as purely material processes. He believes that thinking takes place
in the brain, much in the same way that digestion takes place in the animal
organs.
Just as he attributes mechanical and organic effects to matter, so he
credits matter in certain circumstances with the capacity to think.
He overlooks that, in doing so, he is merely shifting the problem from
one place to another. He ascribes the power of thinking to matter
instead of to himself.
And thus he is back again at his starting point. How does matter come
to think about its own nature? Why is it not simply satisfied with
itself and content just to exist?
The materialist has turned his attention away from the definite subject,
his own I, and has arrived at an image of something quite vague and
indefinite. Here the old riddle meets him again.
The materialistic conception cannot solve the problem;
it can only shift it from one place to another.
(Rudolf Steiner, The Philosophy of Freedom, Chapter 2)
http://www.elib.com/Steiner/Books/GA004/TPOF/pofc
Speech is not good for commanding intricate details. Its better for describing a complex set of commands the both parties(you and the computer/another person) can understand.
For example, if I say to you: "Get in the car in front of you and drive", you know exactly what I mean. But to a computer this is what you _have_ to say(imagine you are trying to say something to a computer-controlled robot):
You: Computer, select car in front of you.
Computer: Cannot select a car in front of me. Multiple cars are in front of me.
You: Ok then, Computer, select the car directly ahead 3ft, off to your left by 1.5ft.
Computer: Ok.
You: Computer please enter car.
Computer: I don't know how to enter car.
You: Open driver-side door and enter the car.
Computer: Can't do that. Car door too far away.
You: Computer! You piece of shit! Move 3ft forward, and then move 1.5ft left.
Computer: I don't understand what is a piece of shit. Moved successfully.
You: Open door.
Computer: Lifting door handle failed, door must be locked.
You: Take your fucking keys, and insert the damn keys into the keyhole, twist clockwise 90 degrees, and then remove key!!
Computer: Which key? I have 3 keys.
You: For crying out load, use the car key you asshole!
Computer: Ok.
You: Open door.
Computer: Cannot open door. I can open door: none, half-way, or full.
You: Open the fucking door all the way! And get in!!!
Computer: Door is open. And I am inside car.
You: Drive the car.
Computer: Cannot drive car while door is open, dangerous hazard.
You: Close the door and drive.
Computer: Door is closed. How do I drive?
You: Go fuck yourself. I'll just drive.
I think this researcher is missing a pretty important point: Pretty much all people in the world learn how to speak to eachother when they are tiny, uneducated, and baby-shaped! If that's not natural, then god bless the US Army.
The problem isn't that speech is unatural. It's that the current state of speech recognition forces unnatural interactions.
I had repetitive strain injury/ tendonitis/ TMS/ MSD/ whatever for 2 years, and during that time I would have probably failed out of school if I weren't using speech dictation software.
Although I agree that the current state of speech recognition software takes lots of brain cycles away from other thoughts, I think that this can be fixed.
I think that the real problem isn't that speaking takes too much thought. The real problems with the current speech recognition tools are:
- speaking clearly, carefully and precisely enough to be understood by the computer takes consious thought. (When you speak to your friend, you think about the topic, not about actually speaking. With the computer, you have to think about physically speaking as well.)
- actively not speaking or making any noise in between bursts of speech. (This is probably the most annoying part. When your friend walks into the room, you can't just naturally say hi. First turn off the microphone, or just use hand gestures...)
- speaking using written language instead of spoken language (if we could speak with "like, um... yeah with normal spoken languge", instead of "being forced to speak the precise written language that we wish to appear on the page"... only then will speech interfaces become more natural.)
Don't blame the medium for the shortcomings of your tools....
many proponents of Human-Computer Interaction take the view
that 'machines will become more intelligent', and this stems
from a view that regards the human brain as a computer.
my question is -- what do you have to say in relation to Searle's
Chinese Room and the Turing Test? Do you have any insight beyond
where Searle and Eccles have already gone? on the opinion that
the 'Brain is a Computer'?
>> Synopsis of Some Existing Research on the Problem:
according to Nobel Prize Neurophysiologist JOHN ECCLES in his
book 'Understanding the Human Brain' - the brain is not to be
understood as a computer; rather it works more like a TRANSCIEVER
for Conscious Experience.
this is confirmed by a second Scientist, JOHN SEARLE, who refuted
the 'Turing Test' in two articles: 'IS THE BRAIN A DIGITAL COMPUTER?',
and 'MINDS BRAINS AND PROGRAMMES' * thoroughly, disputes the
view that the Human Brain is an instantiation of a digital computer
programme.
* MINDS BRAINS AND PROGRAMMES (THE CHINESE ROOM):
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.sea
IS THE BRAIN A DIGITAL COMPUTER?
http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/P
there you have direct testimony from the Scientific Establishment
that directly contradicts the view that 'The Human Brain is a Computer'.
For Chrissake, this is getting rediculous. Speech works just fine for interfacing with ordinary human beings after all. I mean, I know that we're all used to internet chat, email, message boards, etc, but unless you are a complete loser you've got at least a few friends and co-workers that you speak to on a regular basis. Natural language(speech, hand signals or what have you) is efficient, powerful and universal in human beings. Here's why it hasn't happened *yet*:
1)Computers don't speak any language, at least not like people do. Binary code is *not* a language, as we know it. It is logic, a series of instructions.
2)Computers will need to become a whole lot more powerful before they can develop the necessary features to be able to overcome (1).You and I speak a semantic language, one that is dependent on meaning. It doesn't help to simply make arbitrary relations of one thing to another in a computer's memory because ultimately the computer has no concept of *what* the things are let alone why they should be related. This is extreeeeeeeemely important.
Human Language Technology is the future, and it is going to be very difficult to escape it. And no, not all human-->computer action will be spoken, just like it is often more efficient for you to sit down an a typewriter and type rather than to dictate to someone else. Lets take Star Trek(tm) as an example. As far as I'm aware, the trekity folks still interfaced with the computer in traditional ways...punching buttons/menus/etc. But for abstract requests, it was so cool to hear them say: "Computer...give me all the statistical aberrancies for blah in the blah blah."
Just think, in the 50's barely anyone could picture ordinary folks interfacing with computers at all.
Typical eggheads and their praised beliefs for their own pet projects and concepts.
Speech is the next logical step in computing, right alongside motive and thought interaction (and immersion reality). Speech is already far beyond where people said it would go on the PC, and in labs it is flat amazing. Go to the UK and check ou the AT@T Speech Lab, or over to Virginia to IBM's research lab.
Heck, my father's company is engaged in the intital release of an IBM supported server solution for natural speech recognition that can be done at the workstation, over the phone, and from a recorder (even good quality analog/digital tape) and it is all server based with minimum requirements for a multiuser environment that is way below the current workstation standalone requirements. This stuff is amazing, and I have seen the pre-production work up on a full GUI interface for the workstation for total interaction without keyboard and mouse. Computer vocalization is less than two years from being a full reality as well, with 'normal' and charactarized human voices and logical response schemas.
What a load of horse dump...
I've actually used a voice recognition system that worked well (OS/2 4). I was amazed at how accurate it worked.
But I shut it off after two weeks. It was embarassing and inefficient.
It was embarassing to talk to a computer. Really. Wether you're all alone in your geek compound, or in a maze of twisty cubicles all alike, you just don't want to talk to your computer. You don't want the people around you to know what you're doing with your computer. Conversation is interactive, but you don't want to interact with an inanimate object. (and those times you do want to interact in just a manner are the times that are most embarassing to be overheard...)
Scenario:
"Computer, erase Bob's addendum to the memo..Oh! Hi Bob! Didn't see you standing there."
And it's inefficient if you know how to type. I can type faster than I can speak. I expect most people who know how to type will agree. If you don't know how, I still bet you can use your mouse faster. How fast does it take to say "Mickeysoft Word" compared to clicking on the icon right in front of you and the desktop?
Scenario: After you have learned how to read, you read books silently to yourself, despite the fact that the drama could be vastly intensified by speaking the dialog out loud. "That's quite enough baths, don't you think, Samwise Gamgee!"
Using the present paradigm, I definitely can see a use for dictation, and some specialty applications. But not much else makes sense for a desktop metaphor. You don't talk to your wood/melamine desktop, so why talk to your computer desktop?
But other paradigms may emerge. For some of them, voice control may make sense. But I really don't forsee that situation for another couple of decades.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Photomesa is based on the Jazz API (a Java class lib), that implements a ZUI (zoomable user interface), a paradigm sometimes described as 2.5 D interface.
You can use the mouse to move in xy plane und with an extra key press (or possibly via mouse wheel in J2SE 1.4) you change the height of the camera in z direction. This combined with semantic zooming, which means different levels of detail associated with the height, make for very nice user interfaces.
A similiar API has been developed at Xerox France, the VTM library which used by the W3C for the nice IsaViz tool.
Despite IMHO Java still sucks regarding performance, both APIs perform very well with large object scence graphs. Like I wrote, combined with Java's luxury 2D API, it enables us to build attractive user interfaces.
Regards,
Marc
[ ][S][S] [H][ ][L][E]
"I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat."
But it seems to me like all this guy is saying is what some of us computer users have known for years. Humans react better to visual stimulus. This is why we have GUIs, why we have icons, why the stop button in netscape is a trafic light. Why road signs are pictues and not words (ask most people to describe a stop sign and they will say a red hexagon, very few times will they say a sign with stop writen on it). This is why the mouse was invented. It's easier to do things based on images and pictures than it is to proces it and put it into words (A picture is worth a thousand words, remember?) This really doesn't suprise me, the folks at Apple, or at Microsoft, or web designers (thumbnails, arrows for buttons etc). People associate images with words and actions, that's why you show the kid a picture of the cat and say "CAT" and not the otherway arround.
Seriously this guy really doesn't make much of a valid point about the voice commands. The basic idea of voice command, at least as I see it is to have something akin to startrek, where you can ask the computer to perform searches and display information via voice or via your own typed input. The voice commands are there to make things easier, not to be the dominate method.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
iPhoto
Go! Go! Go!
Its a whimsical bot, think Skynet!
Latin is a very complex structured unambigious language, has anyone ever tried to make an AI think in it? It seems like you could make a simplified version of it which lacks the irregularities that would be perfect for computing.
I understand that brain usage argument, but it still seems odd to ignore this great tool evolved for communication and return to a time long ago of pointing and grunting. Why interact like a 1 year-old when you don't have to?
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
Most of my files are categorized fairly well because I've done a fairly good job of keeping up with new files at the end of each day I've downloaded. If I suddenly got 2 million unsorted images--I think I'd start pulling my hair out before I started trying to sort them. ;-)
:-( When I get the free time and have nothing better to do, I have a marathon porn-sorting session to cut into the backlog.
But also, most of my images and video clips come from USENET newsgroups, where the subject matter is already fairly granular--for example, if I download a bunch of files from alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.facials , almost all of those files will belong in the Facials directory, and the ones that don't are either spam to be deleted or belong in the Blowjobs directory. Getting files from USENET groups instead of websites therefore provides a level of "pre-sorting" based on the subjects of the newsgroups I'm downloading from.
This of course provides a great number of duplicates over time, particularly since the same set of images could be suitable for several different directories; the same set of images of a black girl getting gangbanged and swallowing cum could potentially belong in either of these directories in my filesystem: BlackBitches, Cum\Facials, GroupSex\Gangbangs. In general I categorize according to a quick assssment of which aspect of the series is dominant--is the most attractive theme the hot black woman, the cum, or the group sex? If a series is exceptionally worthy, I might put links to those files in other directories related to the subject matter. Of course, much of the time, I just dump the files wherever they seem appropriate at a quick glance of representative files.
To eliminate duplicates and free up disk space, there are several applications that can be run to make quick CRCs of each file and compare them all, then make a list of duplicates to delete. The Win32 image viewer ACDSee comes with such functionality. I hadn't run it for a long time when I ran it last week, and so I freed up over 2 GB of disk space by eliminating duplicates. There are other such apps like TheChecker, DeDuper, etc., and I'm sure they have their Linux counterparts.
In any event, I have an actual life, so I do get way behind. Right now my Unsorted directories contain 104,792 files.
Database-driven filesystems are on the horizon, so that should provide an even greater opportunity to easily categoize files according to multiple traits.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
(* My uncle used to use a dictaphone (he was a U.S. senator) to dictate all of his speeches. He had no problem. Why? Practice, of course. He had no problem thinking and talking at the same time. It's just what he was used to. He couldn't type worth a damn. *)
Further, many computer tasks will probably have a smaller vocabulary than human-to-human speech. Thus, most of the commands will eventually be *instinctive*, the same way we type without thinking where our fingers go.
What stumps my head is when a PHB wants a simple explanation to a complex problem without warning. My grey matter starts smoking when that happens. Translating from geek to PHB often takes several minutes, but I can't sit there and go uhhhh um uuuuh, because it looks stupid, and he/she won't wait around for that. Car and laundry analogies often work the best, but even those fail sometimes.
I think they just get a kick out of watching my glasses steam up trying.
Table-ized A.I.
The average human has a FAR greater understanding of his sense of sight than he does of his sense of hearing. How can we give an AI understanding of something we ourselves understand so poorly in the first place?
Note that I speak as a Clarke fan with a homebrew HAL desktop theme, and a lifelong audiophile... If only my computer actually MEANT it when he says "good morning, Dr. Chandra" ^_^
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
I also don't know why the scientist was bashing spoken AI. A lot of progress can be made in all areas.
versicherungen of versicherung der Versicherungsvergleich.
But krankenversicherung is autoversicherung because KFZ-versicherung is Lebensversicherung.
And private is Krankenversicherung why Rentenversicherung blah!
Haftpflichtversicherung something.
direktversicherung test!
berufsunfShigkeitsversicherung of ten 10.......
pflegeversicherung, Unfallversicherung, Versicherungsmakler, Bundesversicherungsanstalt but Krankenversicherungen....
Sozialversicherung! Autoversicherungen....
versicherungskennzeichen
Why would reiserncktrittsversicherung not work for rechtschutzversicherung or Hausratversicherung? I think Auslandskrankenversicherung is better than
Risikolebensversicherung.
eInsurance
But they told me that Windows XP would let me do whatever i wanted!!
..
.. saying that Microsoft..
Remember? The billboards? "Can I ______? With Windows XP, You Can." Are you
are you saying..
misled me??
**little angsty choking sob**
The article doesn't say that 'thinking machines' as HAL are impossible to engineer.
It simply says that the Star Trek style everything-voice-controlled technology will never come to pass because speech control is less efficient than motor-controlled interfaces such as mice and keyboards.
OK? It doesn't say anything about whether turing-test-complete machines like HAL are possible. It just says that that isn't the best way of doing things, not the most convenient way of doing things, not the way that many people will prefer to do things by the time our technology reaches that point, and people will still be depending on GUI interfaces by the time we're sending spaceships to Jupiter.
Where on earth did your response come from?
If he knows so much about how to communicate, why are the drums between segments twice as loud as the speech, so you either
can't hear or
can't hear (due to deafness)?
We can only guess about speech production. One educated guess does include a knowledge-base of (about 200 IIRC) different sounds -- I don't know if this "dictionary" of sounds is what he refer to as auditory memory.
We have not located any dedicated short-term memory (it's a term to cover the phenomenon that we seem to only remember 7 ± 2 "chunks" at once).
Some models picture the active neurons in the brain as constituting the conscious, which could be compared with (a superset of) the short-term memory, and thus, exclude the theory that it should be in a central place.
Working memory is a model, and does not map to a location in the brain.In short, I don't think this guy refers to science, but merely his own experience.
As said then the working memory is a model, and it includes a phonological loop which can store approximately 2 seconds of audio. This is believed to be the auditory short term memory.
Empirical evidence seems to show that there are many resource conflicts between this phonological loop and speech production, but more importantly for this guy (cause why would you need an auditory short-term memory while using your computer? at least on a properly designed system this should not be required!) the resource conflicts also seem to involve reading.
So for example if you had to say "scroll down" while reading a text in a browser, then that would probably make you stop reading, while saying these two words. But, with time this may become an automated process (associative learning), and each time your eyes reach the lower half of the browser-window, you'll say "scroll down" without even thinking about it, similar to how you currently probably press arrow-down or tweak the mouse-wheel w/o any conscious, even though the first 20 or so times you had to scroll, it'd disrupt your work-flow -- personally I have no knowledge if an "automated" voice action would give rise to resource conflicts with a conscious reading-process. Though I'm certain that I've experienced people e.g. saying "auch" or similar while reading a newspaper, without really being interrupted. A thing to keep in mind here is also that male and female brain wiring with regard to speaking is not identical. For example women are much more capable of speaking or reading while listening, which is near impossible for men.
But when all this is said, then let me also say that I think the author of this piece is completely wrong in his conclusion that speech recognition won't be of use.
It might not be useful for many of these one-key-stroke tasks, but it's definitely valuable for more complex tasks (like saying "Show the mail I just got", "Start the project I worked on yesterday", "Start a wordprocessor with an empty document" etc. -- all said while not using the application in question).
It may also serve as an extra input device when your hands are busy (e.g. in a game, where you want to change the perspective, weapon or zoom).
Actually, all tasks where the command you would have to give could be given unambiguously simply by thinking out-load, would be perfect candidates for speech recognition!