There is a time and a place for everything. In the privacy of my own home, I have no problem saying hey to Google, Alexa, Siri, Meta, and sometimes Bixby. But in public? Where can other people perceive me? I’d rather crawl under a rock.
This has been one of my biggest gripes with AI widgets for the past few months. They all seem convinced that the best way to interact with AI assistants is actually i speak for them, not unlike the movie her. In reality, I’ve rarely seen my friends and family use their phone’s assistants when we’re out alone and never publicly. So it felt like a tiny “Aha!” moment when, during last week’s WWDC keynote, Apple mentioned that iOS 18 would let you type into Siri instead.
Technically, you can already do this through the iPhone’s accessibility settings. (Go to Accessibility > Siri > Type Siri.) This brings up a fairly clean window and keyboard to type a command into. But in iOS 18, Apple embraces the feature by letting you double-tap the bottom of a screen to bring up a Siri keyboard. You’ll also be able to see quick suggestions that you can just tap instead of having to type (or say) an entire query.
There are many reasons why this just makes sense. Although digital assistants have gotten better at understanding commands, it’s still difficult to speak to them naturally. At home, I feel that I am affecting a certain pitch and tone when I use a wake word. I find myself thinking ahead about how I want to phrase a query. Regardless, I still occasionally screw it up when I ask Google to turn on my living room lights at 25 percent brightness. I feel even more reticent if I have to do this in public.
It’s also incredibly noisy outside. While testing the multi-modal AI features of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, I often got the AI to tell me that the glasses were not hearing me correctly. Either my surroundings were too noisy or I was subconsciously so embarrassed that I spoke too quietly for the device to clearly pick up what I was saying. This led to a lot of frustration, which in turn made me pull out my phone – the exact opposite of what the AI hardware wanted me to do.
It’s not just the newfangled gadgets with artificial intelligence. Talking into a smartwatch looks cool if you’re James Bond. Most of us aren’t. If anything, most people I see doing it look a little confused and frustrated. Is this in vain? yes But self-consciousness is a big reason people are hesitant to experiment with voice-controlled assistants when out and about. A 2018 PwC study on the use of voice assistants found that 74 percent of consumers prefer to use voice assistants at home, with participants saying that using them in public places “just seems weird.” In the same study, a lack of trust was identified as another major barrier to the use of voice assistants in general – people simply did not trust that the voice assistant would understand the commands correctly. If your experience tells you that an AI assistant probably won’t understand you, why bother using it in a place where you’re more likely to be sued? (Also, imagine saying “Hey Siri” and activating your coworkers’ iPhones. A new nightmare is unlocked.)
Technical logistics aside, writing to your AI assistant also gives you a greater degree of privacy. I don’t need people to know what I’m doing on my phone, even if it’s something as innocuous as playing a song or setting a timer. I especially don’t want to dictate texts out loud when others can hear me. Entering these types of requests allows me to keep my business to myself – and for that I’m happy to sacrifice some hands-free capabilities.
I don’t deny that there are reasons why it might must to talk to an assistant, even in public places. Voice commands are especially useful if you’re not using your hands or driving a car. But having multiple ways to interact with AI assistants allows them to fit more seamlessly into the way we want to use our gadgets—rather than forcing everyone to adopt new paradigms. Maybe one day you won’t feel weird talking to a chatbot out loud while walking down the street. For most people, that day is not today. And until that time comes, I’ll happily text Siri instead.
