The creation of a new unified artificial intelligence interface is becoming a winner take all proposition.
Do you feel connected to the technology you use? Wouldn’t it be nice to know that the technology that you are using knows you exist as a real and unique person?
That you are not just another technology system or perhaps a robot? This is the first rule of engagement that inspired and drove the development of a new digital interface technology in the age of artificial intelligence products and voice powered services.
To more fully frame this discussion, we need to take a moment to reflect upon the experience with robots. The emergence of robots, especially “humanoid style” robots, have taught us a great many lessons. Interaction and engagement expectations (i.e., human robot interface — HRI) with humanoid robots were and remain high. Today’s robots struggle to meet that expectation. Robots are, however, amazingly powerful in at least two aspects.
Robots attract an audience
One, they excel in the power of attraction. That is, they can attract and gather an audience.
Two, they can be seductive in their anthropomorphic attributes. People like and desire to think and want to believe they are alive. The point is that in hardware technologies, which is what robots are, the current state of interface with robots leaves us wanting more.
The best I have experienced thus far is the seductive power of the NAO humanoid style robot. Its design and its animated engagement using what is called autonomous life does proffer powerful engagement.
These previous robot engagement experiences provided the stimulation that a new style interface to digital technology was needed. One that meets real life personal engagement expectations. AI products are robots of a different sort.
Technology drives the demand
We have moved fast past the point where a breakthrough in creating a new interface to digital technology was needed. AI, voice-powered interaction, machine learning, facial recognition and emotional discernment are the technologies driving the demand and the need for a new unified interface to digital technology.
For product developers, the challenge is even greater. How do you create an application interface that embraces so many disparate interaction elements? The forces pulling and pushing the need for creating a new model interface in AI powered digital technologies has in my opinion become irresistible. With 150 million users using voice to interface with a growing aspect of their daily AI driven technology, the stakes for creating a breakthrough were getting higher.
The creation of a new unified interface is becoming a winner take all proposition. The “mouse” won’t get us there. The stylus was never the end-all be-all. Touchscreen interfaces work well, but many times they too can be problematic. Chatbot infobots are very much solo info-point devices giving square answers to round questions.
Technology is now capable of seeing you and knowing who you are, discerning a lot about your emotional state, knowing your experiential preferences. For example, what will be the defining attributes for delivering AI driven services in collective spaces like transportation centers, hospitals, office buildings and shopping malls? We know for sure that it will be heavily formulated as knowledge-based and experience driven AI services that learn.
The ‘Oxytocin Element’
So, here come the “artificial creatures” and the “Oxytocin Element.”
For further insight we can look around and take note that many of mankind’s most powerful inventions and creations were inspired and derived from the biological world. Outside of person-to-person bonding is there an example of stronger bonding than that between people and their pets? What is the bonding interface attribute that generates such an instant, warm and comfortable sensation reaction in our brains?
When we experience such a warm encounter with a pet or yes, a person, we generate a brain chemical called oxytocin. While oxytocin helps cement bonds between people, it also, simply stated, makes us feel good. Hence, another clue to defining the future AI interface. Its use must result in a positive sense of personal interaction.
An understanding of all this brain functionality, what I call “brain tech” and the power of biological design and what I now refer to as zoomorphic attributes, will become central and powerful elements.
Stay tuned for the universal AI interface.
