Examples from sci-fi of voice interfaces that stay on task (Interconnected)
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Building the AI clock
Check out Poem/1
Examples from sci-fi of voice interfaces that stay on task
17.49, Saturday 11 Jul 2026
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I wonder how you would design a really single-minded voice UI?
Like, voice interfaces are really good now because of AI.
But they’re so unbounded. If you’re having a voice interaction with a computer or with a device, you could end up having a conversation about anything.
And while a voice UI is great within a domain, do you really want to be gossiping about movies or having a psychotherapy session with your fridge? I mean, at that point what even is a product?
i.e. how would you have a single purpose Alexa?
So I’ve been spelunking Technovelgy for things that speak but only in a limited domain.
(Technovelgy is a database of over 4,000 inventions from sci-fi.)
Like this ATM that discourages long convos:
He headed for the ATM in the back… he knew it was watching him as he walked up to it.
“Identify yourself, please.” Lucky Dragon ATMs all had this same voice, a weird, uptight, strangled little castrato voice … probably kept people from standing around, [talking] with it…
– All Tomorrow’s Parties, William Gibson, Lucky Dragon ATM
You can’t imagine this smug door talking about anything else except its fee. It would accuse you of changing the subject.
The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”
…he found the contract. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.
– Ubik, Philip K. Dick, Toll Door
Doors are often single-minded.
As the door closed behind them it became apparent that it did indeed have a satisfied sigh-like quality to it. “Hummmmmmmyummmmmmm ah!” it said.
– The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, Self-Satisfied Door
For obvious reasons I like this singing clock, although the user doesn’t appear to speak back to it.
In the living room the voice-clock, Tick-tock, seven o’clock, time to get up, time get up, seven o’clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would.
Somewhere in the walls, relays clicked, memory tapes glided under electric eyes.
Eight-one, tick-tock, eight-one o’clock, off to school, off to work, run, run, eight-one!
– The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, Voice-Clock
As it happens I did once build a speaking clock based on Poem/1.
It was made from a Yoto player, and when you stuck a special card in then it would tell the time by speaking a poem out loud every 15 minutes. (I was given earlier access to the expanded developer API.)
It was enormously distracting haha
UNTIL:
I switched the speaking clock voice to an ASMR voice from ElevenLabs (which it turns out they go).
It turned out that, if you’re in the zone, a whispered poem doesn’t intrude on your focus. It’s like the traffic outside or the soft wind in the trees. You don’t notice.
But if you’re not focusing, you hear the ASMR whisper as a kind of chime.
It was weird in a short demo, but the attentional impedance matching was absolutely perfect as a device in your room.
I should share a video at some point.
My absolute favourite is this hotel that wants to exist.
This Texan hotel, for instance, was an entirely virtual construction, ones and zeros embedded in a set of chips. And yet, the hotel direly wanted to exist. It would become very beautiful, and it was already very smart. It could sweet-talk itself into physical existence from random piles of raw materials.
Oscar lugged the self-declared cornerstone to the corner of the southern wall. “I belong here,” the cornerstone declared. “Put mortar on me.”
Oscar picked up a trowel. “I’m the tool for the mortar,” the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.
– Distraction, Bruce Sterling, Bambakias Hotel
I love this idea: a pile of bricks and tools, and a speaker that calls out to passers-by and asks for favours.
We’ve spent decades using technology to commoditise labour. Why not use it to commoditise management?
There’s more detail:
Oscar peeled a strip of tape from a yellow spool and wrapped the tape around a cinder block. He swept a hand-scanner over the block, activating the tape…
“I’m a cornerstone,” the cinder block announced.
“Good for you,” Oscar grunted.
“I’m a cornerstone. Carry me five steps to your left.” The construction system was smart enough to...