Food for thought.

Food for thought.

This article is focused on voice control and it's attendent technologies. (One of the commenters on the original post even says he's dictated a 750 novel using Siri!) It is improving rapidly and since it's a back-end process it can be significantly improved without the end users (us) having to upgrade our terminal hardware very often.

I think the next step after that will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary but will require changes to the terminal hardware (cell phones or whatever we carry next). It will be powerful enough to do the processing independently and/or the pipeline to the offline processing facility will be fast and wide enough to process and respond in near real-time. That will make the technology and it's avatars conversational. 

The revolutionary change following that will be the ability for this technology to perform always-on ambient listening. Unlike the previous conversational step which was triggered (however subtly) by the user and only required computational resources during a conversation, ambient listening will always be processing cues in the user's environment. These cues will include not just the words spoken by the user but all words spoken within earshot (and beyond?). In addition, other audible (and sub-audible?) sounds will be included. Adding visual input ( one or more cameras, light sensors, etc.), motion sensor input, and other environmental sensor data will help build a thorough model of the user's situation. Add to that non-local input based on the user's interests and the ambient AI can make suggestions, know when to interrupt and interject appropriately, reveal immediate threats, and more.

This step will require massive upgrades in data storage and retrieval, processing power, data movement infrastructure. It will also require more forms of communication to the end user than just audio through a speaker or an earpiece!

And if you thought the privacy concerns and claims of "creepiness" around Google Glass were loud just wait!

Originally shared by Mike Elgan

When artificial intelligence is everywhere, all the time.

(Read my column: http://goo.gl/8mHB99 )

If you look at a roster of the sure-fire hit gifts for this year's holiday season: The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, the iPad Pro, the Amazon Echo, the Apple TV, the Amazon Fire TV, Android phones and tablets, Hello Barbie and the Star Wars robot (Sphero's BB-8) -- the robot is the only product that doesn't come with instant access to supercomputer artificial intelligence. And it would be trivial for Sphero to add A.I. access to the app. In fact, they probably will within the next year.

Voice-interaction A.I. assistants and chatbots are the future of how we interact with machines. They will guide us, watch out for us, help, inform, entertain us and even befriend us.

Because they live in remote data centers in the cloud, they'll be constantly and rapidly improved without any action (such as buying something new) on the part of the user.

Artificial intelligence virtual assistants are already part of our lives. But very soon they will be far more advanced than ever before and they will be everywhere. They're going to change everything.

Brace yourself. The real A.I. revolution is like nothing you've ever experienced before, and it's going to blow your mind.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2984683/emerging-technology/when-artificial-intelligence-is-everywhere-all-the-time.html

#ai #artificialintelligence #siri #googlenow #cortana   #amazonecho   #Xiaoice