Into the world of “whispers”: How AI voice agents guide our daily lives

A common criticism of big tech companies is that their platforms treat users as nothing more than glass eyeballs to monetize with targeted advertising. This will change soon, but not because technology platforms are moving away from actively targeting users. Instead, our ears are trying to become the most efficient channel for giving us something. Influence powered by AI It is a response to the world around us. welcome to Whisperverse.

Within the next few years, AI-powered voices will invade our ears and take up residence in our heads. It can whisper guidance to you throughout the day, remind you to pick up your dry cleaning while you’re walking down the street, help you find your car parked on stadium grounds, or help you spot a co-worker you’re passing. This is done by calling out the name. hole. They may say funny things to you when you’re talking to friends, colleagues, or on a date to make you seem smarter, funnier, or more attractive than you actually are. These will feel like superpowers.

“Whisperverse” requires advanced technology

Of course, you’re not the only one who will be “enhanced” by context-aware AI guidance. Everyone else has similar abilities. This will create an arms race among the population to embrace the latest AI-powered enhancements. It doesn’t seem like it’s an option, since not having these abilities puts you at a cognitive disadvantage. This is the future of mobile computing. It will turn the bricks we carry around into body-worn devices that can see and hear our surroundings and covertly provide useful information and information. friendly reminder In every situation.

Most of these devices are deployed as follows: Glasses equipped with AI That form factor is because it provides the perfect vantage point for cameras to monitor our field of view, but camera-enabled earphones will also be available. Another advantage of glasses is that they can be enhanced to display visual content, allowing AI to provide silent assistants as text, images, and realistic immersive elements that can be spatially integrated into our world. Sensor glasses and earphones also make it easy to silently respond to your AI assistant. nodding gesture We can either agree or deny, just as we naturally do with other people.

This future is the result of two technologies maturing and merging into one: AI and augmented reality. Combined, this means that AI assistants will be riding shotgun in our lives, observing the world and giving us advice so helpful that we’ll soon feel like we can’t live without them. Probably. Of course there is Serious privacy concernsNeedless to say, the risks of Persuasion using AI and manipulation, but what options do we have? As big technology companies start touting superpowers, not having these abilities means being socially, professionally, intellectually, and economically disadvantaged. means to be placed in

“Expansion spirit” that changes our lives

I’ve been writing about our expanded future for over 30 years. as a researcher He served at Stanford, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force before becoming a professor and entrepreneur. When I first started working in what is now called “Augmented Reality,” the term didn’t exist. That’s why I explained the concept like this:perceptual overlay”, demonstrating for the first time what AR can significantly achieve. enhance human capabilities. These days, we’re at a loss for words to describe the AI-powered beings that sit on our shoulders and guide us through our days. I often refer to this new field of computing as “augmented spirituality.” Because it changes the way we think, feel and act.

Whatever we ultimately call this new field, it’s coming soon. mediate our livesuseful when eating late night snacks at work, school, or even in your private kitchen. If you’re a skeptic, you’ll appreciate the huge investments and rapid progress Meta has made in this space, and the arms race they’re engaging in with Apple, Google, Samsung, and other major players in the mobile market. That means it’s not being tracked. It is becoming increasingly clear that by 2027, this will be a major battleground for the mobile device industry.

The first of these devices is Meta’s AI-powered Ray-Ban, which is already on the market. It’s a niche product right now, but I think it’s the most important mobile device on the market today. That’s because it follows a new paradigm that will soon define mobile computing: context-aware guidance. To make this possible, the Meta Ray-Ban is equipped with an onboard camera and microphone that powers a powerful AI engine and sends verbal guidance into your ears. At MetaConnect in September, the company announced that these technologies will help users find parked cars, translate languages ​​in real-time, and naturally answer questions about what’s right in front of them. The company unveiled new consumer-focused features for eyeglasses.

Creatures that are “cute” rather than “creepy”

Of course, Meta Ray-Bans are just the first step. The next step is to visually enhance the experience as you navigate the world. Also in September, Meta unveiled prototype Orion glasses that finally offer high-quality visual content in a form factor that makes sense to wear in public. The Orion device is not expected to be commercially deployed, but it does pave the way for a consumer version.

So where exactly is this going? By the early 2030s, I predict that the convergence of AI and augmented reality will be sophisticated enough that AI assistants will appear as photorealistic avatars materialized within our field of vision. No, I don’t think they will appear as human-sized virtual assistants chasing us around all day long. If you do that It gets creepy. Instead, I expect they will be rendered as cute little creatures that pop out in front of us, guiding us and providing information about our surroundings.

In 2020, I wrote a short story (carbon dating) for a magazine. science fiction anthology In this, I call these AI assistants Electronic Life Facilitators, or ELFs for short. I like to think of these AI-powered beings as elves. Because they become elves in our lives. helpful little creatures Show me the exact load of a rail car when you can’t remember during an important meeting, or guide me around Costco in the form of a flying fairy to help you find items on your shopping list as efficiently as possible. There are also things that you can do. These features are not only useful but also make our lives look magical.

On the other hand, deploying intelligent systems that whisper in our ears as we go about our daily lives can easily be exploited as a dangerous form of targeted influence. And when you combine this with the ability to visually alter the world around you, AI/AR-powered glasses could potentially enable the most powerful tools of persuasion and manipulation ever created. For these reasons, I sincerely hope that industry leaders do not adopt an advertising business model when commercializing these AI-powered glasses. I also want you to consider how these products shake up social dynamics, as they can change the way people interact face-to-face in harmful ways (short film ) loss of privacy example).

For 30 years, I have been researching how AR and AI can enhance human capabilities in positive ways. The last thing I want, though, is for giant companies to compete for marketing dollars based on how efficiently their AI assistants can function. persuade me to buy something I don’t need or to believe something that is not true. How to protect our bodies and enjoy magical benefits Privacy and independenceWe recommend that regulators urgently focus on this emerging market. Their goal is to change the playing field so that big tech companies can compete aggressively not on how effectively they can impact people’s lives, but on how much magic they can make in people’s lives. should be defined.

Louis Rosenberg is a computer scientist in the field of AR and AI. He is known as the founder of Immersion Corp, Outland Research, and Unanimous AI..