[originalcopy]

It always surprises me when someone predicts that keyboards will go away. People love typing. Or I do love typing. No way I am going to talk to my phone, especially if someone else can hear it (which is always basically).

[SilasX]

Heh, I had this dream/nightmare where I was typing on a laptop at a cafe and someone came up to me and said, "Oh neat, you're going real old-school. I like it!" and got an info dump about how everyone just uses AI voice transcription now.

And I was like, "But that's not a complete replacement, right? What about the times when you don't want to broadcast what you're writing to the entire room?"

And then there was a big reveal that AI has mastered lip-reading, so even then, people would just put their lips up to the camera and mouth out what they wanted to write.

With that said, as the owner of tyrannyofthemouse.com, I agree with the importance of the keyboard as a UI device.

[glhaynes]

It’s interesting to note that nobody even talks on their phone anymore, they type (on terrible “keyboards”!).

[SvenL]

Interesting, I get so many "speech messages" in WhatsApp, nobody is really writing anymore. Its annoying. WhatsApp even has a transcript feature to put it back to text.

[lazide]

Personally I block anyone who does that.

[TheDong]

For chat apps, once you've got the conversation thread open, typing is pretty easy.

I think the more surprising thing is that people don't use voice to access deeply nested features, like adding items to calendars etc which would otherwise take a lot of fiddly app navigation.

I think the main reason we don't have that is because Apple's Siri is so useless that it has singlehandedly held back this entire flow, and there's no way for anyone else to get a foothold in smartphone market.

[richiebful1]

Google Assistant is/was pretty good...for Google apps. It's useless for anything else. The new Gemini powered version is actually a regression imo

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

I have fat fingers, I always dictate into the phone if I need to send a message longer than 2-3 words.

[monkeydust]

They talk on zoom, teams etc. yes phone is almost dead in the office.

[asadotzler]

Those are applications, not interfaces. No one controls those applications with their voices, they use buttons, either touch or mechanical.

[fragmede]

Just because you don't doesn't mean other people aren't. It's pretty handy to be able to tell Google to turn off the hallway light from the bedroom, instead of having to get out of bed to do that.

[goatlover]

They talk to other humans on those apps, not the computer. I've noticed less dictation over time in public but that's just anecdotal. I never use voice when a keyboard is available.

[ivape]

I think an understated thing that's been happening is that people have been investing heavily into their desktop workspace. Even non-gamers have decked out mics, keyboards, monitors, the whole thing. It's easy to forget because one of the most commonly accepted sayings for awhile now has been "everyone's got a computer in their pocket". They have nice setups at home too.

When you have a nice mic or headset and multiple monitors and your own private space, it's totally the next step to just begin working with the computer with voice. Voice has not been a staple feature of people's workflow, but I think all that is about to change (Voice as an interface, not as a communication tool, that's been around since 1876.

[elictronic]

Voice is slow and loud. If you think voice is going to make a comeback in the desktop PC space as a primary interface I am guessing you work from home and have no roommates. Am I close?

[48terry]

I, for one, am excited about the security implications of people loudly commanding their computers to do things for them, instead of discreetly typing.

[mlyle]

Everyone having a computer in their pocket and multiple modes of access have made the keyboard and conventional computer less relevant.

But-- that means "not pivotal any more, just hugely important."

[sharemywin]

I talk all the time to the AI on my phone. I was using ChatGPT's voice interface then it failed probably because my phone is too old. Now I use Gemini. I don't usually do alot with it but when I go on walks I talk with it about different things I want to learn. to me it's a great way to learn about something at a high level. or talk through ideas.

[Sean-Der]

What failed about ChatGPT Voice? I work on it and would love to see it fixed/make sure you haven't hit a bug I don't know about!

[b3ing]

Nobody wants AI voice to say : uh um er. Otherwise we’d have the radio and tv full of people talking like that

[rtp4me]

Honestly, I would love for the keyboard input style to go away completely. It is such an unnatural way to interact with a computing device compared to other things we operate in the world. Misspellings, backspacing, cramped keys, different layout styles depending on your origin, etc make it a very poor input device - not to mention people with motor function difficulties. Sadly, I think it is here to stay around for a while until we get to a different computing paradigm.

[nancyminusone]

I hope not. I make many more verbal mistakes than typed ones, and my throat dries and becomes sore quickly. I prefer my environment to be as quiet as possible. Voice control is also terrible for anything requiring fine temporal resolution.

[rpdillon]

> make it a very poor input device

Wow, I've always felt the keyboard is the pinnacle of input devices. Everything else feels like a toy in comparison.

[int_19h]

The only thing better than a keyboard is direct neural interface, and we aren't there yet.

That aside, keyboard is an excellent input device for humans specifically because it is very much designed around the strengths of our biology - those dextrous fingers.

[4b11b4]

Buttons are accurate (1:1) input. Will never go away

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

I play as a wizard character in an online game. If I had to actually speak all those spells, in quick succession, for hours at a time ...

[skydhash]

If wizardry really existed, I’d guess battles will be more about pre-recorded spells and enchanted items (a la Batman) than going at it like in Harry-Potter.