Often, we in the high-tech world are shown demos of things that we’re told will make our lives better, even if we’re sitting there wondering if the opposite will be true.Take voice activation apps. I’ve witnessed a demo where the computer asks questions and the person doing the demo happily, willingly speaks the answers and everything works out fine and dandy. If this were only the case in the real world. First of all, the notion of being ordered around by a piece of software and an X86 chip is a bit degrading in and of itself. But is the artificial intelligence of these applications up to snuff? While I certainly can’t speak for all these systems, I can cite a personal example from earlier this week.Due to pick up some family members from the San Jose airport, I called the airline’s help line to get a prognosis on the flight’s arrival. I already knew the flight was delayed because the airport was fogged in for several hours that morning.So, the system asks, “What is the departure City?” With teeth gritting, I respond, “Austin.” It then asks, “What is the arrival city?” I then respond, “San Jose.” I hear back, “You are looking for flights from Boston, Mass. to San Jose. Is that correct?”After a few seconds more of frustrating attempts to make this thing work, I gave up and sought out real live, human help – somebody with an actual pulse and heartbeat. I suppose someday these systems will get the kinks out of them so the computer can figure out the difference between Austin and Boston without the customer having to shout loud enough to drown out airplanes flying overhead. The issue of people being instructed by a computerized voice is one that shall remain, however. Perhaps customers should be greeted with an apology: “We realize you may find these systems annoying, but they are helping to keep your costs down. We apologize for any inconvenience and frustration this system may cause as we introduce it, and we seek your feedback to improve it.”Funny thing, an hour before all this, I was using one of those self-serve checkout stands at the supermarket, where you run your items over the scanner and bag the merchandise yourself. I think those are actually kind of fun. Putting aside the issue of job losses from these types of systems, which is a another matter altogether, it is inevitable that people are going to increasingly have to interact with computers in situations where they dealt with humans in the past. (Come to think of it, human customer service agents aren’t always the easiest to deal with, either.) It will be up to technology vendors and companies deploying these systems to make sure user experiences are seamless and pleasant, rather than demeaning and frustrating. Software Development