Will our relationship with words become fundamentally different when we are all able to see them floating in the air between us? AI and XR glasses will help us visualize and organize even our casual conversations, if that is what we want.
At that point the relationship between words and objects might change, because we will be able to see and add visual labels to the things around us. That is something we will do without needing to give it even a moment’s thought.
Acts of visualization which now require preparation and staging, will take on some of the qualities of spoken language. Creating visual representations of your ideas can then be fluid, immediate, in the moment.
Children will grow up in a world thus transformed. Will their idea of language be different from ours in some fundamental way?