Google is rolling out a lot of updates to its text messaging suite this month; most recent is the appearance of context-sensitive suggested replies.
In this case it did a good job: its suggested replies were very close to what I actually replied, manually.
I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, printer and developer.
To learn more about me, read my /now, look at my bio, read presentations and speeches I’ve written, listen to audio I’ve produced, see the places I’ve been, or get in touch (peter@rukavina.net is the quickest way).
Mailing Address
100 Prince Street
Charlottetown, PE
Canada, C1A 4R4
Comments
I immediately turned these off. The idea of being gently nudged into pre-defined ruts gives me the creeps.
It also changes the way I interpret incoming messages. Are they asking how I am because they were curious, or because it was the most appropriate of several pre-defined choices they were offered?
I also expected tapping the suggestions to pre-populate the regular text input, where I could either customize, or send. So, when I tried this out, I immediately send out a "Sounds great!"
Maybe it will just start suggesting "Get off my lawn!" for me.
I agree with some of your wariness, especially because it tends to decrease creativity and end up with robots talking to each other.
You might text me “hey, how about lunch?” to which Google might suggest “Great!” and “Where should we go?” and “What time?” whereas my natural creative inclination might be to text back “That’s peachy!”
Sounds great!