Natural Agents
It is time for a conversation with our computers.
The Sesame demo is a step towards a natural user interface that will transform the way we interact with our personal computers. And it is not just about voice, but rich conversational context. It is still missing non-verbal cues, but with multi-modal models we able to capture the emotional state of a user.
What a natural agent brings to the table is the opportunity for a deep conversation. We, humans, evolved alongside each other, learning, sharing, and inventing new things in conversations. It is common to come up with new ideas while talking to your collaborators. We build rich contexts (often with inner jokes and non-formal interactions) that then help us to connect.
The bandwidth of information exchange of just voice is low, but the bandwidths between two friends catching up is very high. Rich context is the key to unblock natural interactions.
My best work was done when I had a chance to discuss my raw ideas with great engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs. Something magical happens when you empty your mind and get immediate feedback. The best ideas are born in this empty space.
Now, we will get to the same level of connection with the computers. This will empower a new type of workplace: the one where you can talk to a narrow specialists with rich voice and video, as well as with text, images, and (with spatial computing) gaze and gestures in your space.
We will have natural agents specialties like common law or compliance frameworks of specific regions, helping us out with complex tasks. We will have natural agents tapping into data lakes and helping us to find signals in a lot of noise.
Natural agents will represent governments, institutions, bodies of research, and narrow specialties.
We will co-author papers, books, and podcasts with natural agents.
It will fundamentally change personal and professional computing, bridging the gap between humans and knowledge as never before: empowering individuals and teams.
It will put under stress every system we created with new challenges in social connectivity, security, and governance.
It is exciting to witness the transformation of human-computer interactions from command-response to collaborative conversational flow.
Next
Read how AI is changing personal computing or my Case for the voice interactions.
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