Life

This New Voice Query App Is A Major Game Changer

I went to high school feeling untouchable. I was a big fish in a small pond, and I was confident that I was going to crush ninth grade the same way I'd crushed all my classmates in junior high. And then...something happened. I realized that not only were there people who were smarter than I was, there were people on a whole different level of existence. And that, I imagine, is how every app in existence will feel after watching the Hound app demo. It's basically the internet on crack, and it is probably going to outsmart us all and take over the world.

In a few short minutes, the CEO of SoundHound, the company behind the voice query app, demonstrates just how insanely Hound can pick up on context and details and rapid-fire answer back. It doesn't just answer simple questions. It is capable of answering complex and compound questions, ones so complicated you might not even think to pose them—for instance, "What is the population of the capitol of the country that has the Space Needle in it?" Like, I'm a human being who lived both in Seattle and right outside of DC in my lifetime, and even I struggled to keep up with that question. Hound answered it in about the time it takes me to consciously blink.

Seriously, guys. This is the future. Watch the full demo here:

I don't know if it will be as satisfying to scream undeserved obscenities at Hound while driving like I do with the GPS, but only time will tell. And time will also tell whether or not Hound is going to start thinking independently and use its knowledge to destroy us all. I refer back to Stephen Hawking, who at least has thought this scenario through:

So THERE'S THAT. Watch his full interview with John Oliver here:

Whatever, guys. I'm totally ready for Hound to take over the world. We weren't always doing such a great job with it anyway.

Images: Getty Images; YouTube(3)