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)."

Comments

Wrong Take

[XPulga]

...how they think we will get computers to do what we want...

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...

Who wants HAL anyway?

[ObviousGuy]

An insane bot is not the kind of thing people would find useful.

Re:Who wants HAL anyway?

[ObviousGuy]

Speech is a natural way of interfacing with a control system. "Illuminate"

It's particularly bad for games. "Click both buttons on the unopened square next to the '3'"

Re:All great Sci-Fi ideas come to pass eventually

[Iamthefallen]

All great Sci-Fi ideas come to pass eventually

If brightly coloured spandex clothes ever become commonplace I'm quitting this planet...

What about typing and thinking?

[FleshWound]

From the article:

What that means, basically, is that it's hard to speak and think at the same time.

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. =)

Nonsense!

[Greyfox]

Why, 50 years ago many people said that flying cars would never exist and now, 50 years later... um...

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...)