Will UI survive AI?

Imagine 2077. That cyberpunk video game is finally out and those of us who lived to this day can finally enjoy playing it. Alright, seriously though, what would the technological world look like at that day and age? The key word is LOOK. Will visual interfaces be still omnipresent? Seems like so, since eyesight is our strongest source of external information. But would we still use our limbs to input and manipulate information and give commands to our loyal machines?

Machines don’t care about the way you input commands or other information. In future the technology will be designed to minimize human effort and manual input. So, machines will learn about us from unobtrusive observations. With time they would be able to learn our preferences and behavioral patterns to improve our lives without us asking. It would be like having a personal butler, that knows exactly what sort of tea you prefer, how do you like it brewed and what it should be served with. Machines might even understand your current emotional state based on circumstances and take actions to improve it, like playing energizing music to get you pumped for that gym session, suggesting a meditation session to help you calm down before a job interview, the possibilities are endless and specific to each particular individual.

Now back to the UI question. Information would still be fed to us visually, since evolution has invested countless years of optimization for us to be able to process images quickly and efficiently. But will visual interfaces that resemble physical ones — survive the advances in understanding of human brain and improvements in AI field? Would we still have buttons to press, or would they be a thing of the past you can only find in museums?

You might be asking why would buttons be obsolete, since they are such an integral part of our current lives and it is impossible to imagine a world without them. Hear me out. What buttons are used for? To communicate user intentions. It is a way to input information into a system. We are very adapt at using our arms and fingers, so we are able to use physical interfaces quite efficiently. But the input doesn’t originate at the physical level. It comes from the brain. And what if we could tap into the brain directly, without any middlemen in between. What if it was as accurate as physical input. After all our brains are flexible and we could possibly learn to use a machine as proficiently as we can use our hands. A machine would become our physical extension. We would not need fingers to type. We would type via a brain interface. We could possibly type at the speed of thought. We wouldn’t be limited by physical or digital interfaces of applications anymore. The same way we don’t use a digital interface to manipulate our muscles, we might not need an interface to manipulate all kinds of things.

Let’s face it. AI will probably take all the work that doesn’t necessarily require human input. It will not take our jobs just yet, but it will empower us to do more. AI will do all the mundane work that requires high accuracy and is well defined. People would gravitate towards decision making that requires empathy and creativity. People would make things for people, as people are the best at understanding people.

Now, let’s recap. People do creative work. Machines know more about people and don’t have to be directly controlled. Control is done directly using a brain interface. We no longer need keyboards. We no longer need sign up forms, since information is shared between systems and our identities are the same tomorrow as they were yesterday. We don’t really need user interfaces anymore, the way we know them today. Information is still communicated to us primarily through the visual medium, but the concept of a digital button is extinct. We can travel around the city and interact with systems without direct physical contact. Artists can draw with pure thought (which is trippy to imagine). Machines would generate samples of work and people would choose the preferred ones. Machines would take care of the work’s structure, ask us important questions, make sure we don’t miss on important things and stay on track. People would bring originality, artistic vision and empathy. One man would be able to do the work that currently can only be produced in large teams. This leads to endless creative possibilities, where only thought is the limit.

Related posts:

me or you that is the voice of the siren or is she always inside us and we are all victims and does that i can’t tell when you try to pretend we were not born millions of years ago and born into…

Biggest load of bollocks I have read on coffee in a long time, from Morning Advertiser, aimed at, don’t laugh, failing pub industry. Those of us who appreciate coffee, drink in speciality coffee…

Cheating shows we made a mistake and we don't know who our partner is