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Covid-19 hit hard in the first two quarters of 2020. As a result, we were bound to #WFH, keep social distancing and excel our expertise in sourdough bread making and other home-cooking delights.
Still, at this time we were forced to take a moment and think, how are we – the people who develop and deploy new technologies- envision our future world. Every technology vendor evangelizer was bound to think about these issues, as he or she are making their road map, and strategy for the months and years to come.
Inspired by the magnificent Westworld series (binging was one of #Covid_19 effects as well …), we’ve gathered some thoughts to share here, with reference to our view of the future of voice tech.
[Spoiler alert - if you didn’t see this series yet, no worries, nothing here is too revealing]
“Real world is just chaos. It’s an accident.”
The world exhibited in the series is an ultra-tech, fully AI managed, completely voice enabled existence. As a result the humans daily experience is somewhat depressing, as their path in life is determined by the all-mighty AI “Rehoboam”.
The underlined insights from this notion are two: a) data is everything, and whoever controls it (AI in the series) will have the power to change the course of things; and b) the AI machine understands everyone, whenever they speak to it, as natural and intuitive as they are.
In real life: We don’t want our personal data or business data to be governed, controlled and manipulated by anyone or anything who is not under our (personal or business) control.
Think: When you incorporate a voice based solution, it is not only the voice experience, it is the data, and it is valuable to you and to your users, whether you own a small business or a multi-national corporation.
"It doesn't look like anything to me." ...
This is one of the famous phrases in the series, reflecting the rebooted humanoid (robot), indicating a non-human cognition. When reflecting this, we can think of the numerous incidents where our personal assistant doesn’t get it.
In real life: the voice interface agent \ bot \ virtual assistant requires a significant training, data model, specific context, specific language, use case and more – to be accurate and true intuitive value creator.
Think: How much effort you think you should invest in order to integrate voice into your own solution. Voice enabled should be as simple as clicking a checkbox, rather than a huge data\deep tech project.
"This Is The New World. And In The New World You Can Be Whoever The F*** You Want."
The phrase which is screen-played into the famous madam - Maeve’s intro speech – whenever she meets a “new-comer” - a human being. In this simple provocative statement, we are drawn to think that everything is possible, all options are open to our free will, and that we are in a complete and full control over our lives. In fact, every phrase, gesture, behavioral gesture and action is well pre-designed, and thought over by the “content” department.
In real life: new tech, voice technology included, occasionally gives us the illusion that everything is possible, we are in control over the tech, we own our personal information, and the technology is there to server us.
Think: do you have full control over the information used? What is the incentive of the vendor you use to process your users’ data, do you or the platform vendor have your customers’ interest in their priority?
"Free will does exist, Caleb, it’s just F*** hard”
Summarizing with one of the closing statements of the series. The human hero is learning – through somewhat indoctrination process – that despite everything he came to learn about the AI-dominant world, a change can occur, data can be owned by it’s (human) rightful owner, and even in the price of some social instabilities, the world should be human based, not AI one…
Key takeaways and what’s next?
Now is when many of the organizations are looking for incorporating additional technologies, which will make many segments go through a technology leap - especially in healthcare, public services, employment (#WFH), the elderly and in general everything related to user experience.
Tukuoro is the Voice Open Platform. We are happy to share our experience, and insights regarding the right approach for voice interface implementation. Talk to us.