With AI, typing's out, talking's in

Voice-based writing is becoming common as AI speech-to-text tools capture spoken words and infer intended meaning. These tools remove filler sounds and automatically refine sentences to sound more articulate. Desktop voice applications such as Wispr Flow and related products enable users to replace typing with speaking. Mainstream coverage has noted workers moving away from keyboards and toward whispering. Cultural shifts around communication technology have followed similar patterns in the past. Early public cell phone use felt awkward and prompted apologies. Bluetooth headset use also initially looked socially strange, leading people to step outside to talk. Over time, these behaviors became normalized.

"What's changed is the rise of super high-quality AI-based speech-to-text tools, which not only capture what you say, but figure out what you intended to say, erasing your "ums" and "ahs" and tweaking your sentences automatically to be more articulate."

"He argued that talking instead of typing was the next great leap in computing. Being "voicepilled," he said, was the epiphany that you can be vastly more productive and creative when not bogged down by the Victorian-era contraption known as the typewriter ,or its modern version, the PC keyboard."

"A change in technology is always accompanied by a change in culture and social norms. In my career covering technology, I've weighed in on several of them. In the 1990s, most people felt uncomfortable talking on a cell phone in public. Back then, my boss apologized to several of us at lunch for answering his cell phone, which he said he had bought only for emergencies."

"People later felt uncomfortable talking on a Bluetooth headset (because they looked like a crazy person talking to themselves). For several years after the advent of Bluetooth headsets, people routinely excused themselves and went outside. It was"

Read at Computerworld