065: What is the Future of Virtual Assistants?

What this episode covers

In today's podcast, we discuss the future of virtual assistant software. A long list of major companies and startups are racing to develop voice activated software that can help organize your life. Today's assistant apps are still incredibly primitive, but it appears they may get considerably better in the near future. We identify and analyze three major trends that are poised to make computers into more powerful assistants: natural language interfaces, big data, and increasing autonomy. Will you be able to trust your virtual assistant not to steer you toward products you don't need? Will social interactions be increasingly influenced by the realtime suggestions of virtual advisors? Will "being good with computers" stop being a relevant descriptor once everyone has easy access to powerful natural language interfaces?

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