4 ms·

You've correctly identified the problem x.ai really solves: I want a secretary but I'm not that important. The ridiculous thing is that doodle.com already solv

You've correctly identified the problem x.ai really solves: I want a secretary but I'm not that important. The ridiculous thing is that doodle.com already solved this problem in a much less sexy way - just click the time you want. Problem solved in 10 seconds (vs minutes with this dumb bot).

jessaustin 11y ago
Wow, your comment plus TFA's description of the working conditions for the "Heroes" (perhaps the most Orwellian nomenclature I've seen this month): I'm suddenly reminded of an SF short story I must have read decades ago (the title and author of which escape me) in which tourists visiting Vietnam have "fun" in a demented "Vietnam War" theme park, where they get to gun down screaming robot peasants. Inevitably, a gruesome discovery is made... it suffices to say, Benjanun Sriduangkaew would not approve. In the future, will "I thought it was a computer program behind the interface" be something like "I was just following orders"?
exolymph 11y ago
This is my beef with chatbots in general -- it is the rare conversational interface that has any advantage over a GUI beyond its novelty.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  I generally like command line-esque chatbots. Then again I also like the command line and usually prefer it over a GUI. (I also think that emacs is the best UI ever so I'm perhaps not representative of the typical user.) The problem with x.ai is that it attempts to replicate the annoying experience of dealing with someone's idiot secretary, not that it's text.
- dunkelheit 11y ago
  Isn't it ironic that chatbots are touted as a more natural, conversational interface when they are basically CLIs? Back in the day GUI adoption over CLI was driven by conviction that desktop, drag and drop and point and click are more natural metaphors.
  - burtmacklin 11y ago
    As usual, what's old is new again. Makes sense given that user interfaces and "styles" of software are just like styles in anything else (ie: fashion) -- they come and go and come back again. Fast forward another 3 - 7 years and users will be wondering at the marvels of a chatbot where one can simply click on the picture of the action they'd like it to perform! Perhaps entire menus of actions will be presented, in horizontal or vertical strips inside the chat interface... these actions will of course be represented by hieroglyphs expertly designed to convey just what they do and no more, to as cross-cultural an audience as possible. Maybe we'll call them icons or something.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      Fast forward another 3 - 7 years and users will be wondering at the marvels of a chatbot where one can simply click on the picture of the action they'd like it to perform! You mean like the current functionality of WeChat, Telegram, Kik and FacebookM?
- tdaltonc 11y ago
  I agree completely, but I can't wrap my head around why chat is so big in China despite this. Any ideas?
  - exolymph 11y ago
    This blog post by a developer at WeChat gets into how they're not really chatbots per se: http://dangrover.com/blog/2016/04/20/bots-wont-replace-apps.html http://dangrover.com/blog/2016/04/20/bots-wont-replace-apps....

jessaustin 11y ago

Wow, your comment plus TFA's description of the working conditions for the "Heroes" (perhaps the most Orwellian nomenclature I've seen this month): I'm suddenly reminded of an SF short story I must have read decades ago (the title and author of which escape me) in which tourists visiting Vietnam have "fun" in a demented "Vietnam War" theme park, where they get to gun down screaming robot peasants. Inevitably, a gruesome discovery is made... it suffices to say, Benjanun Sriduangkaew would not approve. In the future, will "I thought it was a computer program behind the interface" be something like "I was just following orders"?

exolymph 11y ago

This is my beef with chatbots in general -- it is the rare conversational interface that has any advantage over a GUI beyond its novelty.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
I generally like command line-esque chatbots. Then again I also like the command line and usually prefer it over a GUI. (I also think that emacs is the best UI ever so I'm perhaps not representative of the typical user.) The problem with x.ai is that it attempts to replicate the annoying experience of dealing with someone's idiot secretary, not that it's text.
dunkelheit 11y ago
Isn't it ironic that chatbots are touted as a more natural, conversational interface when they are basically CLIs? Back in the day GUI adoption over CLI was driven by conviction that desktop, drag and drop and point and click are more natural metaphors.
- burtmacklin 11y ago
  As usual, what's old is new again. Makes sense given that user interfaces and "styles" of software are just like styles in anything else (ie: fashion) -- they come and go and come back again. Fast forward another 3 - 7 years and users will be wondering at the marvels of a chatbot where one can simply click on the picture of the action they'd like it to perform! Perhaps entire menus of actions will be presented, in horizontal or vertical strips inside the chat interface... these actions will of course be represented by hieroglyphs expertly designed to convey just what they do and no more, to as cross-cultural an audience as possible. Maybe we'll call them icons or something.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Fast forward another 3 - 7 years and users will be wondering at the marvels of a chatbot where one can simply click on the picture of the action they'd like it to perform! You mean like the current functionality of WeChat, Telegram, Kik and FacebookM?
tdaltonc 11y ago
I agree completely, but I can't wrap my head around why chat is so big in China despite this. Any ideas?
- exolymph 11y ago
  This blog post by a developer at WeChat gets into how they're not really chatbots per se: http://dangrover.com/blog/2016/04/20/bots-wont-replace-apps.html http://dangrover.com/blog/2016/04/20/bots-wont-replace-apps....