When true AI phones arrive, you will have to give up your dependency on a screen and individual apps as the primary means of interacting with your device.
We have seen AI in operation in modern smartphones, but in the future, AI phones will be totally different from how today’s smartphones work.
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Today’s AI Phones
What we call AI phones today are an elementary stage in the evolution of the concept of Artificial Intelligence. They are like the early stage embryo of a baby’s development. They are at such an early stage that they look nothing like what the true AI phones of the future will be like.
What we have right now are the same old smartphones that we are used to, infused with a smattering of rudimentary AI features in their cameras, image editors, and voice assistants.
Almost every modern smartphone, from the premium flagship models to entry-level Android phones, has some measure of this features. For photography, they use AI to enhance the camera’s performance, including helping the camera to recognize the scene and adjusts settings for optimal results. That’s the most common implementation of AI in smartphones today.
Thanks to Google, almost every Android smartphone also has AI in Google Photos, so they can carry out a number of smart editing activities, including Portrait, Photo Unblur and Magic Eraser, among others.
Voice Assistants have become the poster boys for Artificial Intelligence in smartphones. Whether you are using Siri in an iPhone or Google Assistant in a Samsung, OnePlus, or Google Pixel phone, talking to your phone and having it speak back to you with intelligent answers is cool, next-generation stuff.
It feels like science fiction come true; right? Almost every futuristic movie has humans speaking to computers and vice versa. Beyond the optics, it is a convenient way of interaction, afterall that is primarily how humans have evolved to interact with one another – by talking.
But what we are experiencing with GA and Siri are still pretty basic, because they are unable to actually carrying out a lot of instructions just by talking. We still need to tap and scroll on those big (and small) screens. Today’s smartphones are still tied primarily to screens.
How we interact with cell phones
The biggest shifts in cell phones have been about how we interact with them. The earliest cellphones had alphanumeric keypads. Then a shift happened when a new generation of phones arrived with QWERTY keyboards, allowing much easier and convenient interaction.
Then the first generation of touchscreen phones arrived with stylus-enabled resistive screens. You couldn’t use your finger to interact with a resistive touchacreen; only a stylus. And after that, the iPhone arrived with a capacitive touchscreen, allowing for even greater interactivity via the screen, and we have been tapping and scrolling on screens ever since then. This will again change with the arrival of true AI phones.
True AI Phones of the future will change that
When these futuristic AI phones arrive, the primary means of interacting with them will not be screens or displays, but voice. Imagine speaking to your phone for everything you want to do – to launch your web browser, login to your blog, type an article, and publish it. Does it sound far-fetched? It will happen. You will not need to pick up your AI phone first in order to use it.
Finally, smartphones will be advanced enough to free up our eyes and hands for other activities, the really important ones – to spend time with our family and loved ones, to work, to play, without interrupting our lives. You would no longer have to stop one thing to pick up your phone for anything. Just talk to it like you would talk to your partner, colleague, or your dog. The phone can stay in your pocket or bag, or on the table all day, except for when you need to read an article or book, or watch a video.
This also means that apps will essentially die. AI phones will not rely on individual apps as today’s smartphones do. You simply talk to your phone to navigate tasks seamlessly without needing to open specific apps.
Also, consider a scenario in which your cell phone understands your ever-changing environment per time, so it can anticipate what you need. Your AI phone knows when you get in the driver’s seat of your car and connects to the car’s onboard system, adjusts the seat, the rear mirrors, temperature, and even does a quick diagnostics of the car to alert you of any potential issues. That is super convenience.
Imagine mentioning that you are hungry and your smartphone responds with a list of nearby spots where you can grab a quick bite. That’s the kind of natural interactions that happen between two humans; isn’t it? That’s the whole idea of Artificial Intelligence, and future AI phones will do it.
When you get in bed at night and out your AI phone down, it adjusts to a night mode, powering down volume for everything else but your wake-up alarm (if you have one set), turns off mobile data or wi-fi (if Google, Apple, and con will ever allow that, considering how they are obsessed with always needing to access your data and location), and adjusts in multiple other ways to conserve data, processing power, and battery.
The same way your friend or partner knows what you like to read and watch, your AI phone will learn from your behavior, interests, and interactions, and recommend books, movies, or activities that it knows you will enjoy. It might seem far-fetched now, buy when that time comes, some will say, “If one has an AI phone, who needs a friend?” Trust me; humans can be crazy like that. I won’t be surprised if that phrase ever becomes a buzz word some day.
The whole idea is that AI phones will radically change how we interact with our devices. It will be mostly free us from looking at and tapping/scrolling through screens. The whole idea of having to manage screen time will largely become a non-issue.
Simply put, true AI Phones will make it possible for you to put your device away. And I can’t wait to see that happen.