There is a time and a place for everything. In the privacy of my home, I have no problem saying “hello” to Google, Alexa, Siri, Meta, and sometimes Bixby. But in public? Where can other people perceive me? I'd rather crawl under a rock.
This has been one of my biggest problems with ai devices in recent months. Everyone seems convinced that the best way to interact with ai assistants is to actually talk for them, not very different from the movie His. In reality, I have rarely seen my friends and family use their phone assistants when we are in private and never in public. Then he felt like a little “Aha!” At which point, during last week's WWDC keynote, Apple mentioned that iOS 18 will let you type with Siri.
Technically, you can already do this through the iPhone's accessibility settings. (Go to Accessibility > Siri > Typing to Siri). This opens a fairly basic window and keyboard so you can type a command. But in iOS 18, Apple adopts the feature, allowing you to double-tap the bottom of the screen to bring up a Siri keyboard. You'll also see quick suggestions that you can simply tap instead of having to type (or say) a full query.
There are many reasons why this makes sense. While digital assistants have gotten better at understanding commands, it's still difficult to speak to them naturally. At home, I feel like I affect a certain tone when I use a trigger word. I find myself thinking in advance how I want to phrase a query. Despite myself, I still occasionally make a mistake when I ask Google to turn my living room lights on to 25 percent brightness. I feel even more self-conscious if I have to do this in public.
There is also a lot of noise outside. While testing the multi-modal ai features of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, the ai often told me that the glasses couldn't hear me properly. Either my surroundings were too noisy or I was unconsciously so embarrassed that I spoke too quietly for the device to clearly pick up what I was saying. That caused me a lot of frustration, which in turn made me pull out my phone, the exact opposite of what the ai hardware wants me to do.
It's not just about novel artificial intelligence devices, either. Talking into a smartwatch sounds cool if you're James Bond. Most of us are not. If anything, most people I see doing it seem a little confused and frustrated. Is this in vain? Yes. But shyness is one of the main reasons why people may be hesitant to experiment with voice-controlled assistants when they're out and about. TO PwC Survey 2018 on the use of voice assistants found that 74 percent of consumers prefer to use voice assistants at home, and participants said that using them in public “just seems strange.” In the same survey, a lack of trust was identified as another major barrier to using voice assistants in general: people simply did not believe that a voice assistant could correctly understand commands. If experience tells you that an ai assistant probably won't understand you, why would you bother trying to use it in a place where you're more likely to be judged? (Also, imagine saying “Hey Siri” and activating your fellow travelers' iPhones. New nightmare unlocked.)
Technological logistics aside, writing to your ai assistant also gives you a greater degree of privacy. I don't need people to know what I'm doing on my phone, even if it's something as harmless as playing a song or setting a timer. I especially don't want to dictate texts out loud when others can hear me. Writing those kinds of queries allows me to keep my business a secret, and so I'm happy to sacrifice some hands-free capabilities.
I don't deny that there are reasons why you might need talk to an assistant, even in public places. Voice commands are especially useful if you can't use your hands or are driving a car. But having multiple ways to interact with ai assistants allows them to better adapt to the way we want to use our devices, rather than forcing everyone to adopt new paradigms. Maybe one day it won't be strange to talk to a chatbot out loud while walking down the street. For most people, that day is not today. And until that time comes, I'll happily type into Siri.
