The computer is disappearing — because computing is moving into everything around us

For most of the history of computing, using a computer has involved going to one.

The first computers occupied rooms. Later they sat on desks. Laptops allowed us to carry them. Smartphones put powerful computers into our pockets.

Now another transition is beginning.

The computer itself is becoming less visible because computing is moving into the environment surrounding us.

Our watches sense us. Our phones accompany us. Earphones can listen for our instructions and speak directly to us. Cars increasingly contain sophisticated computers. Homes contain connected televisions, speakers, cameras, appliances and security systems.

Artificial intelligence provides the missing ingredient that could begin connecting these previously separate machines.

The result may be one of the biggest changes in personal computing since the smartphone.

We may increasingly stop operating computers and simply live among them.

The screen has dominated computing

Every major era of personal computing has required an interface.

The desktop computer gave us the keyboard, mouse, windows, icons and menus.

The smartphone replaced much of that with a touchscreen.

But the fundamental relationship remained surprisingly similar.

The person had to understand the machine.

Want to send a photograph?

Find the appropriate application.

Want directions?

Open the mapping application.

Want to transfer money?

Find the banking application.

Want to book something?

Find a website or application and work through its interface.

Modern computers are extraordinarily sophisticated, but humans still spend enormous amounts of time telling them exactly how to perform relatively simple tasks.

Artificial intelligence could begin changing that relationship.

From instructions to intentions

There is a fundamental difference between telling a computer how to do something and telling it what you want done.

That difference may define the next generation of computing.

Imagine saying:

"Find somewhere good for dinner near the theatre tomorrow night, make sure we can get there after work and remind me when we need to leave."

Several separate computing tasks are contained within that apparently simple request.

The system needs to understand the location of the theatre.

It may need access to a calendar.

It needs to know what "after work" means.

It must identify restaurants, determine travel time and perhaps check availability.

Eventually it might make the reservation, place it in the calendar and provide directions when it is time to leave.

Today a person might accomplish that by moving between several applications.

Tomorrow the applications may still perform the underlying work, but the user may barely notice them.

The artificial intelligence becomes the intermediary.

The interface begins disappearing.

Apple provides a useful glimpse

Apple's developing ecosystem provides an unusually clear illustration of where this could lead.

An iPhone is carried almost everywhere.

An Apple Watch is physically attached to the user for much of the day.

AirPods provide an audio connection.

An iPad or Mac provides a larger workspace when required.

Each device has traditionally had its own purpose.

Artificial intelligence potentially changes that.

The Watch can provide information.

The phone can provide processing and context.

Earphones can provide conversation.

The computer or tablet can provide a workspace.

The devices begin behaving less like independent products and more like components of a personal computing environment surrounding one person.

Apple is certainly not alone in pursuing this future.

Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Meta and numerous AI companies are approaching the same destination from different directions.

Some possess powerful AI.

Some control operating systems.

Some manufacture hardware.

Some operate enormous cloud-computing networks.

The strategic prize is increasingly obvious.

It is no longer sufficient merely to manufacture the computer.

Technology companies want to provide the intelligence connecting the computers around us.

The computer may become an environment

This is a subtle but profound change.

Think about electricity.

We rarely consciously interact with an electricity system.

We turn on a light.

We charge a device.

We use an appliance.

The enormous generating, transmission and distribution infrastructure behind those actions largely disappears from our consciousness.

Computing could move in a similar direction.

Instead of consciously thinking, "I am going to use a computer," we simply attempt to accomplish something.

Computing happens around that intention.

The smartphone was an important step towards this because it made computing permanently available.

Artificial intelligence could provide the next step by making computing increasingly capable of interpreting what we mean.

Your watch knows something your laptop doesn't

Different devices also understand different parts of our lives.

A desktop computer knows what happens while we sit in front of it.

A smartphone knows considerably more because it travels with us.

A smartwatch knows something different again because it is physically attached to us.

A car understands aspects of our movement.

A smart home understands aspects of the environment around us.

Until recently these have largely been separate pools of information.

Artificial intelligence makes it possible to identify relationships between them.

That could produce genuinely useful services.

A system might recognise that a meeting has moved, traffic has deteriorated and the journey will now take longer — then advise its user to leave earlier.

A wearable might identify a change in physical activity and incorporate that information into a broader health picture.

A translation system could hear one language and deliver another directly through an earpiece.

The technology becomes useful not because any individual sensor is extraordinary but because context accumulates.

Context may be the next great technology commodity

For decades, technology companies competed to organise information.

Search engines organised the internet.

Social networks organised relationships and interests.

Smartphones organised applications and communications.

Artificial intelligence creates another valuable resource: context.

A system that understands the question "What time should I leave?" needs much more than a clock.

It needs to know where you are.

It needs to know where you are going.

It may need to know why you are going there.

It needs traffic information.

It needs to understand your preferred transport.

Perhaps it needs to know that you normally arrive 15 minutes early.

That is context.

And the company capable of providing useful context without becoming intrusive may possess one of the most valuable positions in the next era of computing.

There is an uncomfortable side to convenience

This future also presents an obvious problem.

For a computer to understand our circumstances, it must know something about them.

The more context an AI system possesses, the more useful it can potentially become.

But the same information can reveal enormous amounts about a person.

Where they travel.

Who they communicate with.

What they buy.

What they read.

What they photograph.

When they exercise.

Where they work.

When they sleep.

What appointments they have.

Perhaps eventually even how they are feeling.

That creates a fundamental technological bargain.

How much understanding are we prepared to give a machine in exchange for convenience?

Privacy will therefore become more important, not less, as artificial intelligence improves.

Where information is processed, how long it is retained, who can access it and whether it is used for advertising or other commercial purposes will increasingly distinguish competing ecosystems.

The most intelligent personal assistant may not necessarily win.

The system people trust enough to allow into their lives may have the greater advantage.

The battle for the ecosystem

This also explains why the world's largest technology companies are investing so heavily in AI.

The prize is considerably larger than selling access to a chatbot.

Whoever controls the intelligent layer potentially occupies the space between the person and almost every digital service they use.

That is an extraordinarily powerful position.

If you ask an AI assistant to organise a holiday, which airline does it suggest?

If you ask it to find somewhere for dinner, which restaurants appear?

If you tell it to buy something, which retailer receives the transaction?

If you ask what happened in the world today, which information sources does it consult?

The interface between people and computers has always carried commercial power.

AI could make that interface dramatically more influential.

Apps may become infrastructure

Applications are unlikely to disappear.

But our relationship with them could change substantially.

Today we consciously choose applications.

Tomorrow an intelligent system might increasingly choose which services are required to fulfil an instruction.

The application remains underneath, performing the transaction or supplying the information.

But from the user's perspective it becomes infrastructure.

That would be an extraordinary reversal.

For nearly two decades, technology companies have fought for space on the smartphone's home screen.

In an AI-mediated world, the most valuable position may no longer be an icon on the screen.

It may be becoming the service an AI chooses when the user asks for something.

We have seen this pattern before

Technology frequently becomes less visible as it becomes more important.

Electricity disappeared into walls.

Motors disappeared into appliances.

Computer processors disappeared into cars, televisions, cameras and household equipment.

Internet connectivity is following the same path.

Artificial intelligence could accelerate that process for computing itself.

The most advanced computer may eventually be the one we barely notice ourselves using.

It will simply be present.

In the pocket.

On the wrist.

In the ears.

In the car.

In the home.

Perhaps eventually in glasses or other devices that have yet to become commonplace.

The physical computer does not disappear.

Our awareness of operating it does.

The end of "using a computer"

Children growing up today may eventually find one of our current expressions peculiar.

We say we are "using the computer."

Future generations may hear that the way we would hear someone say they were "using electricity."

Of course they are.

It is simply everywhere.

The same could eventually become true of computing.

The smartphone placed a computer permanently within reach.

Wearables began attaching computing directly to us.

Artificial intelligence may provide the ability for all those machines to understand enough context to operate together.

The next revolution may therefore produce surprisingly little visible technology.

Instead, the technology recedes.

What remains is the outcome.

The Times View

For 80 years, humans have adapted themselves to computers.

We learned keyboards, commands, operating systems, menus, icons, applications and touchscreens because that was how machines needed us to communicate with them.

Artificial intelligence introduces the possibility of reversing that relationship.

Computers can begin adapting themselves to us.

That does not mean the computer is actually disappearing.

Something more consequential is happening.

The computer is escaping from the box.

It is moving into our pockets, onto our bodies, into our ears, our vehicles and our surroundings.

Eventually we may stop thinking about which computer we are using at all.

Computing will simply surround us.

And when that happens, the defining technology question will no longer be how powerful our computers have become.

It will be who controls the intelligence surrounding us — and how much we are prepared to let it know.