[hn_throwaway_99]

The one part of this thesis that I pretty strongly disagree with is the idea that people would prefer to have long, meandering voice conversations with an AI, compared to text.

Just look at anyone under the age of 25 (35 maybe?) They can easily have long, meandering conversations with actual humans using voice, yet I see them go for text 9 times out of ten. As someone on the backside of middle age, I often find it pretty baffling. I like the succinctness of text when I need to send a quick update or ask a short question, but I normally always call someone for an in-depth conversation. But I'll see my nieces text back and forth with friends for literally hours, sometimes getting emotionally worked up, and I'm thinking "OMG, just pick up the phone to your ear and just talk to them."

But I think the reason people prefer texting is the same reason most people still prefer typing, despite tech that, these days, could easily transcribe with great accuracy. At least for me, typing frees up my brain to actually move faster. When typing, I can think about the next phrase or sentence. When talking, I find it much more difficult to "think ahead", so to speak.

So I'm really skeptical that voice interfaces will be "the wave of the future". Sure, I use OK Google a lot, but basically for the same sets of commands as everyone else (What's the weather? Set my alarm. What's next on my calendar? Etc. etc.) Occasionally I'll ask it "search-like" questions. Perhaps I suffer from a dearth of imagination, but I just have a hard time believing long voice conversations with a machine are something most folks would want.

[satyrnein]

Some potential "costs" of voice/video: it's (often) exclusive to one person, it's immediate, and it's easy to expose your own emotional state. In an emotionally fraught, developing situation, perhaps your nieces want to take it slow, check what their friends think, not let on that they're upset, etc.

This is all just speculation, I'm not really a texter, but I do find it interesting when limitations might turn out to be features.

[spzb]

Typing also has the advantage that several people doing it in the same room at the same time don’t interfere with each other. A train carriage full of people texting is considerably less annoying than the same carriage full of people chattering away with their voice assistants

[throwaway290]

> A train carriage full of people texting is considerably less annoying than the same carriage full of people chattering away with their voice assistants

Can't be worse than a bus full of people recording voice messages aloud and listening to them on loudspeaker which is daily life in say China. I would be lying if I said it's not maddening

[cortesoft]

> At least for me, typing frees up my brain to actually move faster. When typing, I can think about the next phrase or sentence. When talking, I find it much more difficult to "think ahead", so to speak.

I wonder if this would change as we got more familiar with interacting with a voice AI. I think a lot of the extra brain power that goes into talking versus typing is the assumed need to keep talking at a constant pace because that is what a human listener expects. If we were more comfortable with pausing while talking and not feeling like we need to always know what to say next as soon as we get to the end of a word, it might not take as much brain power to speak to a computer anymore.

[throwaway290]

> Just look at anyone under the age of 25 (35 maybe?) They can easily have long, meandering conversations with actual humans using voice, yet I see them go for text 9 times out of ten.

Where do you live that they prefer texting?

My acquaintances in that age range love sending voice (and fucking video, yes yes) messages. And I mean not intimate chats with close friends or relatives where you want to hear the voice and see the face. No this is just how they convey info. Including some people from UK.

[flappyeagle]

Young people text because it’s considered bad etiquette to call unannounced.

No such issue with robots.

[hn_throwaway_99]

That's definitely not the only reason. Again, I've known folks to have long, drawn out, back-and-forth conversations over text, certainly not just a "Hey, can I call you?" text intro, which is what I do.

[nitwit005]

Talking also bothers the people around you, and can tire you out if you do it for hours.

[jeffbee]

Not all people experience thought the same way. Some people (like me) find it no problem to compose a sentence in advance while speaking some previous words. The speaking doesn't conflict with the composition. Some people can count, do math, or keep time silently in their head while reading. Other people can't do that because their thoughts and language processing are linked differently somehow.

For me, I prefer to dictate to my Android phone in contexts where most people choose to type, such as in a short message. It's faster than typing on-screen, and the way I think I am able to compose ahead in a way I can't do while typing. The dictation is so good these days that there are relatively few mistakes and ambiguities to correct, and the UIs for doing so have become easier.