If AI services can understand the user’s intent, it becomes even more obvious what the ideal input and output modes should be.

The core A.I. product is the experience of talking to a computer that talks back

The voice of novel technological communication has been, almost from the beginning, a female voice, which is to say the voice of a helper, a perfect helper, pleasant, unflappable, immune to insults, come-ons and bossiness. It’s a short path from the telephone operator to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, both forever placating, always even-keeled, i... See more