The Future: Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Invisible Tech.
The best technology is invisible. It makes our lives better without making itself our life.
Knowledge was once the domain of a few educated sages, known throughout the land for their mathematics, science, and philosophy. Over time this information grew to be too great for one person to learn in a lifetime, let alone to master. Specialization began, breaking disciplines of study into ever finer subsets of knowledge. Collaboration between these experts became increasingly important, many resulting in the wonderful technologies of the past century. There are some notable exceptions to this of course, but generally this has been the progression. At the same time design has moved from artisan to artiste to commercial artist as part of an art department to designers as part of a multidisciplinary team. Technology has already allowed the rise of the entrepreneurial creative, contracting and working alone at the same time, using modern learning methods to gain diverse expertise. The logical progression of these is very much the same: knowledge concentrated in individuals via either non-invasive cognitive assistance technology or via seamless collaboration systems and methods, allowing every person on the planet to realize their creative potential as a creator.
The best technology is invisible, assisting us in the background without pulling us away from our focus and our environment.
How precisely this will happen is still up in the air and depends on a lot of work and inventions by brilliant people. Allow me to paint for you a picture of one possibility. How do we use technology today? It augments our abilities to communicate, create, and collaborate. We interact with it via a mouse, keyboard, or touch screen. We deal with awkward camera angles during Skype chats, carpal tunnel syndrome in our wrists and hands, sore backs, shortened lifespans and increased body fat from sitting, weakening eyesight, dissimilar modalities for similar functions in our everyday lives, constant requests for proof we are who we are, and generally are hamstrung by ergonomics and methods created for technologies we no longer use. This is the reason that HCI and User Experience has become such a big industry. It's also why visual design has become one of the keys to truly successful companies like Apple. Getting at all of that wonderful information, when and where we need it, is the key to letting it improve our lives. The best technology is invisible, assisting us in the background without pulling us away from our focus and our environment.
There are too many modalities of interaction to deal with and keep track of in the modern age.
Mobile computing is a step in the right direction. Apps let us quickly access information we need, but usually we have to proactively seek it out, and we have to jump from app to app for various related tasks. The reason is that they're related in our lives, but they're not related within the phone because they're different aspects of our current task pathway developed by many different businesses. Companies like Google are starting to try to address this in small ways. Maps will show you gas stations along your route. Google Now will warn you about traffic on your commute and urge you to get going, or give you information about your upcoming trip. But overall you're using an airline app to check flight status or check in, jumping to maps for directions, opening outlook to tell your boss you'll be late, texting your wife, checking weather in the weather app. Whatever your task pathway is currently, it requires switching between the world and your phone, and then once in your phone switching between different apps. Then back in the real world you're switching constantly as well, between driving, taking tickets for the parking garage, showing ID, paying with a credit card, eating, looking back at your phone again; it's no shock that we're stressed out. There are too many modalities of interaction to deal with and keep track of in the modern age. Add the endless passwords and user IDs we're all required to memorize and change regularly and you have a nightmare scenario.
You can see already where augmented reality will play a big role. Once the devices become useful and discrete enough, it can provide information and interaction with your digital data without 'leaving' the real world. There are the logistical challenges of whether the device requires a phone, or can even connect to one, the battery life, the display, and of course how well the interactions and visuals are designed. These things will evolve over time. If we judged the internet by the very first web pages we wouldn't think it'd come as far as it has. We're still in out technological infancy with these things, but the good news is that we can design experiences that will be transposable into better formats. Just like good engineering is still good engineering, the things we design today will be the pioneering works that are utilized and modified for years to come. Augmented Reality glasses will be replaced by non-invasive direct-to-brain visual stimulators. As important as this is in casual life, it's just as important in business.
Just as the information you need from the AI is contextual to the moment, so is the method of interacting with that information
We now know that sitting at a desk for long periods of time is unhealthy. But standing for 8+ hours isn't really an option for most people either. Also, the 'natural motion' hand sensors like Kinect and Leap Motion are exhausting on your shoulders when used in repetitive office work. Microsoft has already demonstrated how AR can be used in certain business scenarios alongside a traditional desktop computer. I believe that a dynamically adapting interaction modality that lets you utilize your tools to manipulate information using a variety of methods is important. Just as the information you need from the AI is contextual to the moment, so is the method of interacting with that information, whether we're standing, sitting, lying down, or even walking. The systems we develop must wrap around and not obstruct the natural healthy behaviors of mankind, but gently free us to explore our physical and digital worlds intuitively and fluidly without the unseemly seams we currently endure.
This fluidity will allow us to collaborate more easily, to know more at a moment's notice, and to create with a confidence that what we're creating can be validated somewhere else in the world by an expert in that particular aspect of the project. Knowledge is being ever more liberated, from being focused in one master to specialization to collaboration of small groups to collaboration of the whole world. A properly organized network of humanity can be the greatest supercomputer in the world, but it will need natural interfaces to do it along with good AI to facilitate and organize the communications. This is the future I see, and it's not as far off as you think.
Allow me to leave you with a use case for Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence. Imagine yourself a hospital Pharmacist, a mother of a young child, and someone who takes the train to work. AR and AI assist you, but allow you to stay focused on your environment, your tasks, and smoothing out your day.
Your alarm goes off, your husband and baby still asleep. Lucky. As you get ready you receive a reminder to bundle up due to the temperature. Calculating based on your scheduled work time and your alarm time, combined with real time metro schedules, your AI you're notified when you have to be out the door to make the train. When you do make it to the metro your card has an error, which causes you to miss the train. Detecting this based on your location and the train's schedule the AI sends your supervisor a note telling her the estimated delay. On the train you decide you'd rather be looking out at the Swiss Alps than the graffiti out the window, and the AR system overlays the lake-filled vista. You open the networked chess match you have ongoing against Dr. Tyrell. It floats above your lap. You leave him a nasty surprise for later when he wakes up. You also place a virtual origami lion next to his king for good measure.
You walk to the hospital. AI tells you which unit you're in today and who you're working with, putting in an order for a latte at the Café on the way up there. It authenticates your presence with the hospital network, which in turn notifies the supervisor that you arrived. You begin work. After some time working on data in the computer you get a notice that you need to stand up and move around for a couple minutes. You decide to walk down to the garden and cast your virtual desktop onto the wall there. You continue to work. A chess set appears next to you in mid air but you wave it away and it disappears.
As you're walking back to your unit a Physician stops you. Facial recognition verifies Dr. Howard. He rounded on your floor this morning and had a question about the dosage for one of his patients. The AI recognizes his request and pulls the patient data and the standard dosage information along with warnings regarding med conflicts with another drug the patient is on. You tell the Doctor this and recommend another medication. As you're getting your things together at the end of the day you're reminded that you wanted to stop at Target. You're asked if you'd like the items ordered ahead of time so that they're waiting for you. You say yes.
It's a beautiful day and Target estimates 1 hour before the items are ready, so you decide to walk there and catch the train after. You haven't done this before but as you pass the metro station the AI notices and suggests a route to you. You ignore it and keep walking. As you start getting away from the best route the AI shows subtle indicators of where to go.
Arriving at Target you pick up your order and get directions to the nearest metro stop. You settle into the seat and catch up on your favorite show. The Alps still look very beautiful, sparkles of moonlight dancing across the restless surface of the lakes.