Some months ago, I wrote about the need for Voice recognition to catch up with iris and fingerprint as a means of unique identification. I concluded that article by asking, “The next question is, Who will be the first to conquer this frontier? Who will make voice recognition truly secure?” News flash! Google Home has made voice recognition authentication possible.
Voice Recognition Authentication is a necessity
Before now, regular voice recognition meant the system obeys commands as long as it can understand what is said. The speech could come from anyone, but as long as it was understood, it obeyed. With Voice Recognition Authentication, the voice of the speaker is authenticated. As such, my smartphone will not respond to your commands even if it understands what you say.
It is not difficult to see why voice recognition authentication is a necessity, really: we are not ready to interact with artificial intelligence in full until we can do it by talking and having our individual voices recognized. That is how we interact primarily with other humans. We talk, and our voices get recognized.
Between fingerprint, iris and voice recognition, voice is the only one with the ability to combine the easiest level of interaction and authentication at the same time. You are your voice.
Imagine Iron Man without the ability to interact with JARVIS (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System) via voice. No, no, no. See what I mean? Mark Zuckerberg built an AI assistant for his own home. That kind of system will work at a whole new level with voice authentication thrown into the mix.
Google Home Adds Voice Recognition Authentication
Google Home now recognises up to 6 different voices. It distinguishes your voice from your sister’s or your wife’s. Four of you can be having a conversation and the system will recognise commands and queries from only you. That is just awesome – and the recognition is done in milliseconds – just like it happens with humans.
Google says this new voice recognition authentication feature has started rolling out for Google Home users in the United States already. The United Kingdom will be next. Hopefully, the rest of the world will get it before the down of the next century.
New Frontiers On The Way
You can expect to see more apps and services deploy voice recognition authentication as artificial intelligence systems keep being pushed out. This cannot arrive at our smartphones long enough, and when it does, we are inches closer to smartphones finally going almost 100% hands-free. The implications of that are huge. Think of the convenience and the new applications that can be built into mobile devices. There is a whole new level of everything waiting out there.