Hi there,

Big companies are spending big money on allowing consumers to control everything from their TV, smart speakers, lights, microwaves, etc with voice commands. But do people really want that?

I'm curious because I very much do NOT want to interact with computers vocally. I find it's slow and prone to error, not unlike writing out long passages on a smartphone. It functions, but it's not a great experience and remains a novelty for me.

Bought both kids Echo Dots which is a smart speaker with Amazon's Alexa assistant. It's cool, really innovative. But after a couple weeks both remain unplugged in my kids' rooms - totally lost interest. The only person who I've seen really use a voice speaker is an elderly gentlemen for whom it was the easiest way to interact with a computer (using it specifically to play music and get news).

My friend swears that teens commonly use Siri on their phones to look up information. I can only think of one person I've seen actively use the voice controls and that was an older woman who wanted show her friends how Siri could "rap."

So I was curious how many of you find yourself frequently interacting with computers via voice commands. I personally feel very awkward and self-aware and get easily frustrated because it reminds me so much of the terrible automated attendants on 800 numbers.

Edit: You all are confirming my suspicions. Anyone under age 25 use the voice commands often? I feel like this is all just the first step in designing AI interfacing

I was looking to maybe cut down on my Googleness and replacing Keep seemed like a good start. I need something that has a simple interface and most (if not all) of the same features as Keep. Any suggestions? Also I'm on Android btw.

We're obviously being denied the benefits of so called advances in algorithmic search, as evidenced by the poor showing of Google Itself in unusual searches. For example, if you search images for "runners wearing green hats -shamrock -st. -patrick" Guess how many runners wearing green hats you get?

So search is hard? I think it's more likely that Google and everyone else is more interested in selling you a hat than helping you find a picture of a runner in a green hat.