Enter the ‘Whisperverse’: How AI voice agents will guide us through our days

A standard criticism of massive tech is that their platforms treat users as little greater than glazed eyeballs that may be monetized through targeted promoting. This will change soon, but not because tech platforms are moving away from aggressively targeting users. Instead, our ears will turn into the best channel for hitting us AI-powered impact that responds to the world around us. Welcome to

In the next few years, an artificial intelligence-powered voice will nest in your ears and live in your head. He’ll do this by whispering directions to you throughout the day, reminding you to choose up your dry cleansing while walking down the street, helping you discover your automobile parked in the stadium parking zone, and telling you the name of a co-worker you pass by at the gym. It may even offer you suggestions when talking to friends and colleagues or on dates, supplying you with interesting things to say that will make you seem smarter, funnier, and more charming than you really are. They will feel like superpowers.

“Whisperverse” will require highly advanced technology

Of course, you will not be the only one who will be “boosted” with contextual AI guidance. Everyone else will have similar abilities. This will create an arms race among society desirous to adopt the latest AI-based improvements. You won’t have a sense of alternative because the lack of those options will put you at a cognitive drawback. This is the way forward for mobile computing. It will transform the bricks we stock around into wearable devices that may see and hear our surroundings and secretly offer useful information and friendly reminders at every turn.

Most of those devices will be deployed as Glasses powered by artificial intelligence because this type provides the best vantage point for cameras monitoring our field of view, although camera-enabled in-ear headphones will even be available. Another advantage of glasses is that they may be enhanced to display visual content, allowing artificial intelligence to offer silent assistance in the type of text, images and realistic immersive elements spatially integrated into our world. In addition, glasses and headphones with sensors will allow us to simply respond silently to the actions of our AI assistants head nodding gestures consent or rejection, as is naturally the case with other people.

This future is the results of the maturation and combination of two technologies into one – artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Their combination will enable AI assistants to enter our lives at gunpoint, observing our world and giving us advice that is so useful that we quickly feel like we won’t live without it. Of course they exist serious privacy concernsnot to say the risk Persuasion powered by artificial intelligence and manipulation, but what alternative will we have? When big tech starts selling superpowers, the lack of those skills will mean you are at a social, skilled, mental, and economic drawback.

An “expanded mentality” that changes our lives

First, I have been writing about our expanded future for over 30 years as a researcher at Stanford, NASA and the US Air Force, and then as a professor and entrepreneur. When I began working in the field we now call “augmented reality”, such a term didn’t exist, so I described the concept as “perceptual overlays” and showed for the first time that AR can significantly enhance human abilities. Nowadays, words are similarly lacking to describe the artificial intelligence-powered beings that will sit on our shoulders and train us all day long. I often call this emerging field of computing the “prolonged mentality” because it will change the way we think, feel, and act.

Whatever we call this latest field, it will come soon and it will mediate in our liveshelping us at work, at school, and even while having fun with an evening snack in the comfort of our own kitchen. If you are skeptical, you have not been following the massive investments and rapid progress Meta is making on this front, and the arms race they’re fueling with Apple, Google, Samsung, and other major players in the mobile market. It is becoming increasingly clear that this will turn into the major battlefield in the mobile industry by 2027.

The first of those devices is already on the market – artificial intelligence-powered Ray-Bans from Meta. Although it is currently a area of interest product, I consider it is the most vital mobile device sold today. This is because it aligns with a latest paradigm that will soon define mobile computing: context-aware guidance. To make this possible, Meta Ray-Bans have built-in cameras and microphones that power a powerful AI engine and transmit verbal cues to your ears. At Meta Connect in September, the company showed off latest features for these consumer-facing glasses, similar to helping users find parked cars, translating languages ​​in real time, and naturally answering questions about belongings you see in front of you.

Creatures that are “cute” as a substitute of “scary.”

Of course, Meta Ray-Bans are just the first step. The next step is to visually enhance your experience as you navigate the world. Also in September, Meta unveiled prototype Orion glasses that deliver high-quality visual content in a form that is finally suitable for public wear. The Orion device is not planned for business deployment, but paves the way for consumer versions.

Where is this all going? By the early 2030s, I predict that the convergence of artificial intelligence and augmented reality will have improved enough that AI assistants will appear as photorealistic avatars embodied in our field of view. No, I do not think they’ll be displayed as human-sized virtual assistants that follow us around all day. That can be it be scary. Instead, I predict they will be presented as cute little creatures that fly in front of us, guiding us and informing us of our surroundings.

In 2020 I wrote a story (Carbon Dating) for: science fiction anthology in which I call these AI assistants “Electronic Life Facilitators”, or ELF for short. I wish to think of those AI-powered beings as elves, because that is what they will turn into in our lives – helpful little creatures that will let you know the exact capability of your cart when you just cannot remember an vital meeting, or that take the type of a flying fairy that will guide you through Costco to search out the items on your shopping list as efficiently as possible. These features will not only be helpful but will make our life magical.

On the other hand, implementing intelligent systems that whisper in your ears as you go about your life can easily be used as a dangerous type of targeted influence. And when combined with the ability to visually modify the world around you, AI/AR-powered glasses can provide the strongest tools of persuasion and manipulation ever created. For these reasons, I sincerely hope that industry leaders do not adopt an promoting business model when commercializing these AI-powered glasses. I also hope they consider how these products will shake up social dynamics because they will change the way people interact face-to-face in harmful ways (short film Privacy is lost shows examples).

For thirty years, I have been researching how AR and AI can positively enhance human capabilities. That said, the very last thing I need is for giant corporations to compete for marketing dollars based on the effectiveness of their AI assistants encourage me to purchase things I do not need or consider in things that are not true. To enable magical advantages while protecting ours privacy and agencyI like to recommend that regulators quickly focus on this emerging market. Their goal needs to be to define the playing field so that big tech can aggressively compete on how magical it makes your life, not how effectively it will probably influence it.

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