Slashdot Mirror
Api.ai CEO Ilya Gelfenbeyn Talks About Conversational Voice Interfaces (Video)
Api.ai makes an Android voice-controlled utility called Assistant. I have it on my Android phone. It is one of many simiar apps, and I have been trying them a little at a time. Are any of them as good as Siri? Let's just say, "Quality varies."
And Android voice assistants aren't the point of this interview, anyway. It's more about the process of developing interactive, voice-based IO systems. This whole voice/response thing is an area that's going to take off any year now -- and has been in that state for several decades -- but may finally be going somewhere, spurred by intense competition between the many companies working in this field, including Ilya's.
And Android voice assistants aren't the point of this interview, anyway. It's more about the process of developing interactive, voice-based IO systems. This whole voice/response thing is an area that's going to take off any year now -- and has been in that state for several decades -- but may finally be going somewhere, spurred by intense competition between the many companies working in this field, including Ilya's.
Pro-tip, hipsters: people don't need to make stuff more skeumorphic (or whatever the non-visual equivalent is), because computers are part of the real world now. In particular, just because it was routine to ask humans for stuff in natural language, it doesn't mean it's the most efficient way of getting stuff from computers.
This is why VR has been just round the corner since the '80s, and strong AI since forever. They're solutions looking for problems.
(Well, OK, strong AI is a problem looking for a problem - since a silicon-based strong AI has the natural rights of a human.)