Characteristics

Interface is always a change indicator. If any drastic improvement is made in technology, then firstly, it affects the visual side of it.

The last global breakthrough was 36 years ago when Apple introduced Lisa with a graphic interface. It was something monumental in comparison to other computers at that time which interfaces looked more or less like this:

But 36 years passed and today we have quite decent artificial intelligence works. Our mobile phones know our fingerprints, they can execute voice commands and recognise a person looking at them. And today our interfaces look like this:

But 36 years ago the first Lisa interface looked like this:

So nearly nothing has changed at all, apart from the visual part and several functions performed.

A new type of software demands a new approach in the interface. Our current interfaces are morally outdated and that their dullness limits the development of technology is the worst. We need a pathbreaking approach in interface architecture, which won’t make us study it but work for us.

In this particular case, the idea is simple — there will be no interface. I mean traditional interface concept which we are used to — windows, icons, controls, menus, forms, tabs, etc. All this junk will stay only in a computer science museum and in retro films. Content will be the only thing left for us, the reason why we use our devices, applications, and websites for.

There are 3 global areas where we use our gadgets:

receiving information

creating information

communication

If the system is fully based on the principles from Part 1, then we don’t need an interface in today’s understanding to receive information. In this case, content becomes interface and occupies the whole screen.

Knowing about the circumstances about me and what I prefer, the system will provide me with the content at the right time and right form when I need it. The need for a section like “Settings” disappears automatically. We will no longer need to register anywhere, our information will be in free access anyway. The device sees that I am in front of it and, it is a considerably more secure way of authentication.

Devices will be able to see and hear, distinguish what’s happening around them, they will hear what is said, what is happening, consider and analyse the information, that is, continually study. Having “eyes” and “ears” the system will be able to accurately respond to the changes in circumstances and deliver relevant content by minute. If me and friend of mine are discussing that we are hungry and it would be nice to order a pizza, and then I take my phone and see a pre-order on the screen. It is my favourite pizza and I’m likely going to order it, and its price will be taken into consideration according to my credit card balance. The pizza will be delivered from a reliable place approved by other users and the delivery guy will already have my current address and I will only need to accept the offer. I’m sure it’s going to be the best offer and, I won’t even want to double-check it.

If the device can see, then it will easily distinguish a person in front of it. So when I take my friend’s phone, I will see the same things that I would see on my phone if I took it instead. And such a thing will happen with every device, everywhere. What I won’t be able to see is my friend’s content.

This principle must work on every device. If I stand in front of a display at the airport, the system will distinguish me and will show information about my flight, where I should go. At McDonald’s, the display will automatically make my order and I won’t have to take my credit card out because the system already knows its information. Same as in the situation with the pizza I will only have to agree.

Our whole device usage experience is dictated by the goals we have: we look for flowers to please a person we love (short term goal), we write a report to our boss to continue getting our salary and live with comfort (everyday goal), we are studying a new discipline to start our own business and change our lives (global aim). The problem is that by “users”, use cases of whom designers consider, today we understand the target audience of a business or the majority. And today’s product is designed in a way to satisfy the desires of the majority of profitable users, not individuals.

The main task of the future intelligence systems is to understand user goals and aims at every particular moment. And here by a user, we mean a particular person who is interacting with the interface. If I have just arrived in a new city and went out of the airport, then my goal is to get to the booked hotel, which complies with my habits and my bank account balance. If I went to bed late in the evening and took my phone, what I regularly do, then it is the right time to offer me something not connected with my everyday tasks but connected with my global aim (e.g. find something useful about artificial intelligence, taking into consideration the time of my usual falling asleep). And this is the moment when global access to data about every person and his activities work for the progress of mankind. Because there are people with similar aims to mine and they have already achieved more in the area than I did, so I can use their experience and knowledge.

Mobile phones’ popularity has outrun personal computers and even laptops. You might not have a laptop but you have a phone whose main task is communication. Phone, of course, was initially designed as a communication device but with smartphone advent, the word was reconsidered. Today, communication is less about phone calls and more about text and graphic communication. Communication is a separate type of user-software interaction. It can neither be labeled consumption nor information creation, it has signs of both of them. We communicate to receive and send information.

Today, despite the huge number of messengers, we still have unresolved major problems in this type of interaction:

inability to find the right time for communication;

inability to reproduce the real mood of the message;

lack of instant feedback from the recipient (if understood or didn’t understand, is embarrassed, angry, surprised, etc);

language barrier.

Some of these problems are easily solved by verbal communication (audio/video) but the majority of problems remain unsolved.

On the one hand, having access to user information, it’s not so difficult to notify me that my message is not likely to be read any time soon because the recipient is currently on the plane. On the other hand, if I’m attending a very important meeting, I do not want to be distracted by my device, showing a text from my mom.

Language translation is another field of work for the intelligent OS. We already have enough information about languages, their pronunciation, and constructions. Language is a dynamic system and, if we have global access to all the data, changes in languages can be noticed instantly, so we won’t have to wait for linguistic institutions to make a decision. The profession of a translator or an interpreter is just another atavism which shall bite the dust in history books or an article like “50 extinct professions”. A Greenland Eskimo and a Carribean fisherman can talk to each other only by having a device, which will do the job of an interpreter, at hand.

If the intellectual system knows our habits well, listens to and studies what we say, knows our circumstances and plans, then it can notify people we communicate with without our participation. Just imagine yourself flying to visit a friend in another country, you’ve already got on a plane and has turned all your devices off when your friend suddenly realises he doesn’t even know your flight number so he sends you a voice message which you will be able to answer only in a few hours. But your OS, having this information, can answer your friend and even have some small talk with him, using a pattern of how you usually speak. And this is a completely new approach in communication, it can be conducted without the direct involvement of the user. Worried parents can hear your voice or receive a text message answering their “Did you get safe?” without waiting for you to finish an important meeting. A customer will be able to receive information which the supplier has forgotten to provide even when the supplier can’t reply for whatever the reason. In theory, it might give us possibility to communicate with those who are no longer here. And this will become the most lifelike realisation of the idea that a human being is what they have created, said, learned and decided because the information remains forever and can’t be changed.