Will the written language render obsolete?

Sometimes you encounter serious opinions by scientists that you just cannot believe. Professor Crossman, director of CompSpeak, believes that the written language will disappear somewhere in 2050. The reason: new VIVO technology. VIVO stands for Voice-in/Voice-out and the ultimate environment would be a world where computers exactly understand what we say and respond also in an oral way.

Most of the worlds population is illiterate, so Crossman sees four major reasons why text would be replaced:

1. Evolutionarily/genetically, humans are driven to speak.


2. Technologically, humans are driven to develop technologies that allow us to access information by speaking.


3. Young people in the electronically-developed countries are, en mass, rejecting text as their technology of choice for accessing information in favour of speech-driven and non-text, visual-driven technologies.


4. The billions of functionally non-literate people worldwide want access to information without having to learn to read and write.
   

At minimum, an interesting theory! I certainly think that visual-driven technologies will increase in importance in the coming period. In some cases, a visual is far more effective than text. And it is true that we can avoid a lot of text if technology can support us better by understanding what we say and respond in voice. But I cannot see text disappear altogether. First of all, many people like to read. Reading and writing organizes your thoughts and I would miss reading from day one if it would disappear. Also, speech is slower than reading and sometimes you want a broader context than just the answer to a question. And reading is a silent activity, imagine a work situation where everybody is talking to computers and get answers all the time. Will VIVO become a reality and can we skip learning to read and write? I don't see it happen...