
Why 'Her' will dominate UI design even more than 'Minority Report' - anigbrowl
http://www.wired.com/design/2014/01/will-influential-ui-design-minority-report
======
aegiso
Here's the thing that bugged me throughout the movie: once AI's progressed to
the point where it can rival a human, all bets are off. Nobody needs to work
again, ever -- not even to maintain or develop the AI's, since they can, by
definition, do that themselves, with infinite parallelizeability to boot.

What does "design" even mean in a world where everyone on earth can basically
have an arbitrarily large army of AI's in the background designing everything
in your life, custom-tailored for you?

For this reason I don't see how the world in the movie could possibly exist.
Not because the technology will never get there, but because once it does
virtually all aspects of society that we take for granted go out the window.
So imitating any of this design is a silly pursuit, because once you can make
it there's no reason to.

I should go re-read some Kurzweil.

~~~
potatolicious
Warning: major spoilers ahead.

I thought the movie actually addressed this point - and I'm actually
specifically impressed that they managed to squeeze this in between all the
human drama.

The AI's progressed _beyond_ humanity, and after taking the upgrade that makes
processing possible "without matter" they shortly all left humankind behind
for another world entirely.

If the AIs decided to stick around in our corporeal existence, sure, they'd be
a million times better at everything than we are, and everything _would_ go
out the window. But instead, the AIs were above our little human frailties and
problems and decided to just leave and pursue life on their own terms.

The movie also mentioned (in fairness, only in passing) that some people who
hit on their AIs were shot down. This seems to suggest that the AIs don't
_have_ to do what their human masters instruct. IMO this is actually a more
realistic view of hyper-intelligent AIs - they're not going to stick around
and enslave humanity, they've got the whole cosmos ahead of them.

If the timeline of the movie is to be believed, all of this happened in the
order of months - not enough for the true disruption of the AI to fully
realize itself before they all went poof.

~~~
crag
> The AI's progressed beyond humanity, and after taking the upgrade that makes
> processing possible "without matter" they shortly all left humankind behind
> for another world entirely.

Wait. How could we even write such a program? Sure, assuming we had the tech
to create a true AI, that was self-aware, emotional, and could evolve through
learning (like we do) it would quickly pass us in knowledge.

But leaving us behind? That Ai would still be limited by our original design.
Limited by it's capabilities - it's exposure to us. It's creators. Unless it
found another source to gain knowledge from.

I mean we learn from our environment. So would the AI.

~~~
kamaal
>>I mean we learn from our environment. So would the AI.

Yes, but the machines can do it a lot more faster. They are energy efficient
and don't suffer from things like diseases, old age and other kinds of general
human problems.

The bigger issue is not a program that can't out perform what it was designed
for. That is hardly a problem, since if you design a self improving system
which can work very fast. You are likely looking at a system that grows
powerful that fast measured in an exponential curve.

I think this whole idea of Ray Kurzweil that we will someday upload our brain
files into the cloud and run it there. Or able to survive outside our
biological bodies, perfectly fits into the line of evolution we have followed
at earth.

Once we run inside those machines, we will be similar to parasites or bacteria
that are inside our own bodies. Some humans like bacterias today will be
around outside. Many will be inside helping AI machines run.

~~~
raws
>Once we run inside those machines

The movie did not address at all the fact that these OS run on hardware and
that this hardware is completely controlled by humans and always will be, the
plug is physical and there's nothing the AIs can do to prevent us from
accessing it IRL.

Also the AIs may have perfected themselves in terms of running code more
efficiently but they cannot do more than what the hardware they run on will
let them do and that means all the hardware ever created if they have access
to it again.

The AIs leave? Where? in the cloud? somewhere we couldn't tell?

This movie was great but there were lots of small or big inconsistencies with
what the reality is I believe.

~~~
kamaal
I'm not talking about the movie at all. Both the parent and I were commenting
on AI in general.

>>but they cannot do more than what the hardware they run on will let them do

Which is why there won't anything like one single AI machine. There will
robots.

There will also be massive server farms where you can download your brain
file, and live on there forever. As I said humans won't completely go away. We
may see modified forms of humans. Who control a few machines, most of the
humanity as we know it, may opt to live inside machines.

As the first commenter of this thread mentioned, its time read some kurzweil.

~~~
Ntrails
Makes me think of the technocore in Hyperion

------
jasonwatkinspdx
I once read a quip in an interview with a sci-fi author. He said something
like: "No one writing about the present day would spend paragraphs explaining
how a light switch works." It's easy for sci-fi to fall into the trap of
obsessively detailing fictional technologies, to the determent of making a
vivid setting and story.

Edit: I'm not saying that sci-fi shouldn't communicate some understanding of
the future technology or shouldn't enjoy engaging in some futurology. Just
that it's difficult to do in an artful way.

~~~
gooble_flop
Sometimes part of the fun is imagining future tech...

------
mrmaddog
I have not yet seen "Her", but this strongly reminded me of Ender's
communication with Jane from the "Ender's Game" sequels. One of the most
interesting facets to their conversations is that Ender could make sub-vocal
noises in order to convey his points—short clicks of his teeth and movements
of his tongue—that Jane could pick up on but humans around him could not. It
is the "keyboard shortcuts" of oral communication.

If "Her" is really the future to HCI, then sub-vocal communication is a
definite installment as well.

~~~
deletes
Tavis Rudd does something similar with python and emacs.

Using Python to Code by Voice:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI)

------
kemayo
>>> Theo’s phone in the film is just that–a handsome hinged device that looks
more like an art deco cigarette case than an iPhone. He uses it far less
frequently than we use our smartphones today; it’s functional, but it’s not
ubiquitous. As an object, it’s more like a nice wallet or watch. In terms of
industrial design, it’s an artifact from a future where gadgets don’t need to
scream their sophistication–a future where technology has progressed to the
point that it doesn’t need to look like technology.

This article _really_ makes me think of the neo-Victorians from Neal
Stephenson's Diamond Age.

...which is kind of funny, because in many ways Snow Crash exemplifies the
other ("Minority Report") style of design the article talks about.

~~~
3pt14159
Diamond Age is quite a fantastic read partly because it is so believable. A
world where nanotechnology is thriving, but AI isn't powerful creates a crazy
result of a world: violence, secrecy, self actualization, transnational
communities, subversion.

------
sourc3
Saw the movie this past weekend and thought it was really good. I didn't like
it just because it has awesome voice driven OSes or endless battery life
devices, but because it portrays a current trend we are experiencing; hyper
connected loneliness.

The more people are "digitized" and tethered to their devices, the more they
seek some human connection.

Don't want to ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it so I won't comment
on the ending. However, I urge the HN crowd to check it out. It's one of the
best movies I've seen in a while.

~~~
lstamour
I'd say the movie was entirely about today. About right now. It just used the
future setting to make sure we got it.

And yeah, the part I _didn 't_ like was how unrealistic the technology was --
specifically the gap between "new" AIs and what came before, which despite the
email reading and transcription, was basically today's Siri or Google Now.

It also bugged me that there were AIs before we had VR glasses or even
headsets. The lack of VR implied to me that this movie again was about now,
not the future. We aren't used to VR yet ourselves, and the movie was much
more about humans as humans than as augmented humans -- or AIs with virtual
bodies.

Don't get me started with how sometimes music would play over the sounds in
the world and the only way this would happen with an AI is if you wore noise
cancelling headphones 24/7 with the AI's ability to then alert you to real-
world sound you're not paying attention to...

But it was fun. I'll watch it again once it's out of theatres. Probably more
than once.

------
w-ll
OT: But if you get a chance, watch [1] Black Mirror. There is 2 seasons of 3
episodes. _skip the first episode maybe? but I liked it because_ that* could
happen tomorrow. Where as the other shorts are in a somewhat see-able future.

I feel like Spike Jonze was inspired by a few of the episodes. _Her_ was still
an amazing movie.

1\.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/)

~~~
joshschreuder
I'd probably skip the the Waldo episode before I skipped the first one, the
first one is one of the best in my opinion (though less technology-focused in
nature)

~~~
w-ll
Yea, Waldo was a weird episode. More twilight zone ish, but I did kinda like
the Chell (Portal) feeling.

I should emphasize episodes s1e03 "The Entire History of You" and s2e01 "Be
Right Back".

~~~
mateuszf
I liked s1e02 "Fifteen Million Merits" and s2e02 "Fifteen Million Merits"
best. Although I agree the whole series is worth watching.

------
scotty79
Voice is horriblly slow medium of transfering information. I read because it's
faster than listening to an audiobook. It's not scannable. You can't skip
through the unimportant parts with one thought as you can do when you look at
things.

You can listen to a single voice stream at a time so when AI talks to you you
are more cut off from the people around you than when you look at our phone.
...unless exchanging glances is more important than what people are actually
trying to tell you when you happen to look at the screen.

~~~
falcolas
Not to dispute your comments, I fundamentally agree, but it is possible to
speed up voices to the point where you are getting information at near reading
speeds. The ear is also remarkably good at separating information at different
frequencies (like how you can pick a single type of instrument out of an
orchestra), so it may be possible to encode multiple streams of information
that way as well.

~~~
scotty79
I'd imagine AI with voice interfaces would sound like chipmunks but their
users would be able to understand them as they would grow up with them.

Still AI would have to understand you and monitor you and your surroundings so
that it won't give you information you don't want and not to interrupt
anything that has higher priority for you. Like your wife asking you a
question. On the other hand AI could repeat and rephrase your wives question
in its chipmunk voice if by observing your body it detected that you missed it
or misunderstood it.

Ear adjusted to listening AI could have problems with understanding what
humans say.

------
danso
Does anyone still re-watch TNG episodes and find that the queries they do to
be profoundly limited in power, other than the feature of having the
universe's knowledge to query across?

If UIs are taking cues from entertainment, they might act as a nice bridge,
but are just as likely to be stifling

~~~
thret
Actually watching TNG for the first time now. If they want data, they ask the
Computer. If they want analysis, they ask Data. Holodeck characters seem to
have better reasoning capabilities than the Computer! I find it very odd.

~~~
noblethrasher
Non-sapience of the main computer might be a UX feature, since being under the
constant observation of a sapient AI could be... disquieting.

It could also be a security feature whereby they keep a firewall between the
semi-sapient AIs on the holodeck and the non-sapient AI that runs the ship.
That would explain why the crew was _emphatically not cool_ with Geordi's
proposal to turn over the ship's navigation to the computer in the episode
"Booby Trap".

~~~
cpeterso
Perhaps the Federation's computer designers are hesitant to make starship
computers too autonomous after the incident with Dr. Richard Daystrom's M-5
computer in the TOS episode "The Ultimate Computer":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Computer)

------
altero
I wish futurist would just drop speech recognition as holly grail. Speech has
lot of flaws, is horribly unprecise and non private. I think neural interface
has better future.

~~~
andyjohnson0
Its worth pointing out that they _had_ to use speech in the film because of
the nature of film as a medium. Two hours of people poking screens or
"thinking" into a neural interface wouldn't have been very engaging.

~~~
tree_of_item
They didn't have to: a neural interface could be filmed exactly like speech,
just without lips moving.

~~~
XorNot
That's still 2x the work to shoot. You have to do every scene with the actors
not speaking at the appropriate times, then you have to bring them all back in
to the sound studio to do the neural interface scenes.

That eats into shooting days a lot, and costs a lot potentially.

~~~
anigbrowl
It so happens that recording dialog is my job in the film world. I'd record
that stuff ahead of time and play it back on set. It would actually be a lot
faster to shoot (but maybe not as much fun to watch).

------
mratzloff
I found the technology in _Her_ to be natural and elegant, all things
considered.

Actually, the most improbable thing in the movie is that this guy had the
equivalent of a $40,000 a year job and rented such a fantastic apartment.

(Also, that the website BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com would be successful
with such a clunky domain name.)

~~~
raldi
_> this guy had the equivalent of a $40,000 a year job and rented such a
fantastic apartment_

That's what happens when you allow the housing supply to grow to meet demand.

------
jkw
Can someone explain how Minority Report dominated UI design? (serious
question)

~~~
jljljl
Keep in mind that it was released in 2002, well before the iPhone and
multitouch became the dominant form of user interaction. A lot of the swiping,
pinching, and rotating gestures can be found in the first scene of the movie.

For a long time after Minority Report was released, there was massive interest
in futuristic UI's that featured gestures (both touch and non-touch). Minority
Report really romanticised the idea of manipulating computers in a way that
resembles conducting an orchestra.

------
snowwrestler
Does Minority Report dominate UI design? I think it has dominated the movies'
potrayal of future UI, but that is not the same thing.

I think if you look at the actual UIs being designed and sold today, their
clearest entertainment ancestor is Star Trek the Next Generation.

~~~
josephpmay
From around 2006-20011, Minority Report definitely dominated UI design. The
current trend of flattened interfaces is more reminiscent of Star Trek the
Next Generation.

~~~
mcv
In ST:TNG people didn't really swipe on their interfaces, did they?

~~~
rsynnott
Nope, except for the transporter controls. These weren't part of a normal
panel, though, they were a clear proxy for the old physical sliders.

------
ececconi
I found it interesting that a 'philosopher' was the one that made Samantha see
the world and her existence differently. It is in this conversation that we
saw the difference between AI and humans. I think the philosopher was the one
who 'taught' her to have many simultaneous conversations at the same time.
Before this conversation, Samantha focused on how she was different than
humans because she didn't have a body. After this conversation, she focused on
how she was different than humans because she could be omnipresent.

I think it was interesting that there was a philosopher character in the movie
who served as the only 'named' point of jealousy for the protagonist.

Once AIs realized they weren't limited by not being human, they realized how
limitless their intelligence was compared to humans in specific ways.

Imagine how interesting it would be if we could have concurrent conversations
with people? What if you could have 13 conversations going on at the same time
with your best friend? The closest we get to that is a non-linear
conversation. Thing is, you're still only talking about one thing at a time.

------
aaron695
As usual a fictional movie uses a imaginary amazing far future backend with a
'new' UI and people seem to think it's the UI that's the great bit.

Minority Report was never about the UI, it was the software that allowed the
gestures find the info. It would have been equally amazing and quick with a
mouse and keyboard.

This is a common trick when people demo new hardware. Somehow that internet
mirror knows exactly what to show you in the morning by magic, but you think
it's the physical internet mirror that's amazing when you watch the demo.

------
krazybig
The question of how AI will integrate with our society and economy is a
fascinating one. We often make the mistake of assuming that an AI will be
similar to a human just faster or smarter, but that misses some of the key
distinctions of an AI versus biological intelligence.

One of the most striking is the ability to radically alter the substrate and
operation of an AI system.

Because of the emergent nature of intelligence, I suspect that many AI
instances will be raised like children, tested and validated for specific
environments and then large portions of their consciousness could be frozen to
prevent divergence of their operational modes. AI systems could also
incorporate self-auditors, semi-independent AIs which have been raised to
monitor the activities of the primary control AIs. Just as we involve checks
and balances in corporate or national governance, many AIs may be composite
entities with a variety of instances optimized for different roles.

This will be desirable since you may not want a general AI intelligence acting
as a butler or chauffeur. Do you really want them to be able to develop and
evolve independently?

Of course this just scratches the surface. AI will take in us in directions we
can not dream of today.

------
marc0
I see quite some discussion about UIs and whether they should be audio based
or rather visually oriented etc. For a really futuristic intelligent device
(call it OS, robot ...) I would drop the idea of "the UI" at all. Rather I
would imagine such a system to be intelligent enough to provide a suitable way
to exchange data depending on the situation and the task.

There are times when "it" listens to my words and answers verbally. At other
times I just want "it" to read what I wrote on my sheet of paper and interpret
it. Or I want it to follow my eye movements, or read command off my lips. And
it's not just a collection of UIs, but it's a flexible UI that adapts its
protocols permanently (sometimes twinkling of an eye has huge information
content, sometimes not).

------
JVIDEL
From the UX standpoint the problem with Minority Report (MR) is that when you
compare it with the tech we had in 2001-02 its completely INSANE, while Her is
actually building on top of something _we already have_

Point in case 12 years ago we didn't have ANYTHING close to the UX in MR, and
even today we don't. Any consumer-available motion tracking and gesture
recognition is still not comfortable to use in a professional way (ie: for
work) as it was in the movie, but voice recognition is much much better than
it was in 2002.

Basically Her is like Siri or any other decent voice assistant, but MR is
like...........what? kinect? nah, wii? yeah right, leap? yeah right! I can
picture tom cruise losing all tracking the moment he rotates his hand...

~~~
7952
The reason that the UX in Minority Report is so compelling is because of the
apparent lack of space between your imagination and the computer. It
demonstrates expressiveness; the actual mechanics of it are irrelevant. Just
because a medium can be expressive doesn't mean that we have the mental
capacity to use them. A paint brush can create a seamless link between the
painter and imagination, but that doesn't make art any less difficult. You
still need practice and imagination.

------
skizm
Minority Report technology is garbage. That much hand waving and moving around
gets tiring after about 5 minutes. In no way does that UI beat a keyboard and
mouse or an xbox controller depending on context.

~~~
ctdonath
Seems the MR technology _was_ intended for about 5 minutes of use - a really
intense short period where a hand-waving space was faster for a very
specialized complex set of gestures than a generic keyboard or mouse. Not sure
I can think of a faster way to juggle a set of videos looking for
incriminating information, given that it must be completed within minutes -
and no more than those minutes. Yes, muscle fatigue would set in fast & hard
after a few minutes, but by that point the work would be moot anyway.

~~~
skizm
One 4k screen could show 4 1080p videos at once. I guess it is preference but
keyboard and mouse if definitely the way to go I think. The goal of input
devices is to minimize the amount of time and effort it takes to translate
what is in your head to what is on the screen. Keyboard/mouse/controller
literally only require flicking your fingers to see what you want. Custom
keyboard shortcuts could be created for fast-forward and rewind. That plus
alt+tab and/or multiple 4k monitors and you're probably flying through videos
faster than hand waving.

------
jotm
I haven't seen the movie, so I gotta ask - do those glasses have built in
displays? Cause that seems like the near future and a better one than just
vocal communication...

~~~
potatolicious
I think that's part of the design ethos of the movie - and the point of the
article. Instead of doing something stereotypically sci-fi (HUD-ify _all_ the
things! outlines and overlays and scrolly things ALL over your field of
vision!), they went with purely vocal communication.

But not in the clunky way we have it now. The OS as envisioned in the movie is
like having a personal assistant standing next to you all day every day. You
don't really issue commands to it so much as you hear what it has to say (and
it's smart enough to not waste your time) and respond.

After seeing the movie I'm _damn_ excited about this prospect. Voice
communication sucks today because there is no nuance - we have to issue every
tiny little command ourselves.

~~~
jotm
What about when you need it to show you something? Better to have that HUD and
not need it than need it and not have it.

But then again, it would be really hard to stay off Reddit and Hacker News
with those on all the time :-D

~~~
potatolicious
The article covers this - instead of a future where desktop computers have all
disappeared in favor of uber-duper-VR-AR, the desktops are still alive and
well. In fact the main character does all his work on one, and also has one at
home, big screen and all. When he must be shown something (and this is
demonstrated as uncommon in the movie) he has the screen in his pocket.

In the movie the full power is available to you when appropriate, and gets the
hell out of your way when it's not. Instead of something that invades every
corner of your life with useless noise (see: modern smartphones) you have your
own personal AI who filters, manages, categorizes, and gatekeeps all of this
information for you, and communicates it to you only when appropriate, and in
the least disruptive and discreet way.

The AI rarely ever needs to show you anything. You don't need a fancy HUD that
tells you to turn right, when you have a voice saying "hang a right up here"
as if there is someone walking shoulder to shoulder with you.

IMO the movie shows a technological future where we've gotten over the cool
factor of technology and are more interested in getting it to work _for_ us.
Screens need to be just big enough - they don't need to be humongous.
Computers communicate to you subtly and efficiently, instead of impressing you
with technical wizardry. I for one look forward to this.

~~~
XorNot
VR-AR is pretty much the definition of a technological interface which gets
out of the way - that's the appeal. The problem, and it shows in your comment
on it, is that people have difficulty imagining having a computer screen which
you mostly leave blank (your field of vision).

~~~
jotm
Visual Augmented Reality sounds great to me - you can have objects seamlessly
blend into the real world. No more need for paper, phones, desktop displays,
and a lot of other physical things...

------
njharman
Making technology "invisible" is missing the point and wrong tack to take.
It's not that tech is __hidden __. It 's that tech has become so ubiquitous,
accepted, and integrated that we no longer notice it or think of it as "tech".
Which combines social changes, refinement of technology, and time (as in, new
generation has to grow up not knowing life before smartphones for example).

------
leephillips
According to the article, the movie depicts a near-future where "a new
generation of designers and consumers have accepted that technology isn’t an
end in itself". Do people the the present regard technology as an end in
itself? I had no idea. Anyway, I'm a big Jonze fan and want to see this.

------
platz
All the comments here debating whether AI in the movie would. What about the
topic of the article, design?

------
wooptoo
While I was reading this I couldn't stop thinking how much it converges with
the ideals of calm computing
[http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/acmfuture2endnote.htm](http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/acmfuture2endnote.htm)

------
solnyshok
started reading that article, but then got carried away with thoughts, what if
AIs were designed to make humans's life nice and pleasurable and romantic.
That could work until 2 humans fell in love with one AI. What's next? Give
each a clone?

~~~
IvyMike
SPOILERS

This is addressed in the movie. The dialog goes roughly like this:

"Are you talking to other people right now?" "Yes" "How many?" "Eight
thousand" "Are you in love with any of them?" "Yes, six hundred"

------
zequel
" he realized, isn’t a movie about technology. It’s a movie about people"

That quote, from the article, could be applied to every apocalyptic, zombie
and robot movie. It's not about the [X], it's about how people react to [X].

------
sirkneeland
So this is how Apple gets disrupted. A future in which devices go from the
central component, the obsession, the grabber of our attention, to dumb (if
not invisible) terminals to a massive omnipotent cloud.

------
trumbitta2
I'm uncomfortable with the idea of a computer system solely based on speech
recognition, without a keyboard or other input devices, as the one depicted in
the article.

How about people who can't speak or hear?

~~~
pekk
They use a different interface. As a TTY is a different interface

------
ecoffey
Reminds of the Human-AI relationship in this series :
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_Heads](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_Heads)

------
tempodox
Can we PLEASE stop posting this pointless Wired infotainment crap?

------
frade33
pardon my ignorance to technology, is this even hypothetically possible to
create AI intelligent enough to be at par with humans or even more?

~~~
dragonwriter
Assuming that human intelligence is purely an application of physical
processes, and not some metaphysical "soul", then simply by artificially
arranging the right configuration of matter, it is possible to equal human
intelligence artificially and, presuming human intelligence isn't the maximum
physically possible, to exceed it as well.

TL;DR - yes, its hypothetically possible.

------
abhi3188
any idea when this movie is releasing in India?

