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Natural language can be incredibly imprecise though. I expect the ideal UI for AI will meet somewhere in the middle with something that combines the best of pro

by kobeya 9y ago

Natural language can be incredibly imprecise though. I expect the ideal UI for AI will meet somewhere in the middle with something that combines the best of programming languages with the specificity and ease of use of natural language -- think "strongly typed natural language". I'd rather my command type-error than the machine go off and do what I say, not what I meant.

ethbro 9y ago
Step 1 was recognizing speech to text accurately. Step 2 is AI that is globally context- and subtext-aware. I expect Step 3 to be AI that is personally situation-, context-, and subtext-aware (IoT & personal info storage-enabled). And I think that's drastically going to improve accuracy. I can see some standardization of input (in the same way that GUIs evolved), but I think it will probably take the form of grammar structure & error behavior more than strongly typing questions.
- dkersten 9y ago
  That will solve the AI understanding you, but still won't make me more precise and clear in my instructions. Yes, the AI can hopefully infer the rest, but even then, I can currently type faster than I can speak. Will the AI be able to infer enough of what I want that I can say substantially less and have the AI still get it right? At that stage, why not go all the way and remove me from the equation completely?
  - ethbro 9y ago
    On the typing angle, I'd argue the HN vs mass market point. Typing is still a skill we aren't born with. As much as it's now assumed in 1st world core demographics, there are a huge number of people for whom it isn't faster. And if you've ever watched a grandparent try and use Windows, there are a lot of other metaphors they miss too. I'm not saying NL recognition is going to be easy, but I am saying that getting there will be far more valuable than maybe the HN crowd assumes from self-reflection.
    - dkersten 9y ago
      It depends on the use case. If its a typical Google Home-style "turn on the lights", "look up this thing", "do my accounts" then I agree (although the AI may need to do a lot of prompting since people (at least me) often don't know what we really want). For less casual uses, I'm not sure. I guess there's a spectrum.
      - ethbro 9y ago
        That's a good point on the prompting, and something I don't believe a lot of current systems do? E.g. "Do X" "Would you like me to X1 or X2?" I'd guess the complexity usually isn't there as (afaik) current systems tend to be single action endpoint rather than knowledge parsing the request.
        dkersten 9y ago
        Yeah I think you're right that current systems don't have the complexity yet. It's either simple tasks (turn on the lights, play music), search (find X for me) or menus. As complexity of tasks increases, I think it'll become more important.

by kobeya 9y ago

ethbro 9y ago

Step 1 was recognizing speech to text accurately. Step 2 is AI that is globally context- and subtext-aware. I expect Step 3 to be AI that is personally situation-, context-, and subtext-aware (IoT & personal info storage-enabled). And I think that's drastically going to improve accuracy. I can see some standardization of input (in the same way that GUIs evolved), but I think it will probably take the form of grammar structure & error behavior more than strongly typing questions.

dkersten 9y ago
That will solve the AI understanding you, but still won't make me more precise and clear in my instructions. Yes, the AI can hopefully infer the rest, but even then, I can currently type faster than I can speak. Will the AI be able to infer enough of what I want that I can say substantially less and have the AI still get it right? At that stage, why not go all the way and remove me from the equation completely?
- ethbro 9y ago
  On the typing angle, I'd argue the HN vs mass market point. Typing is still a skill we aren't born with. As much as it's now assumed in 1st world core demographics, there are a huge number of people for whom it isn't faster. And if you've ever watched a grandparent try and use Windows, there are a lot of other metaphors they miss too. I'm not saying NL recognition is going to be easy, but I am saying that getting there will be far more valuable than maybe the HN crowd assumes from self-reflection.
  - dkersten 9y ago
    It depends on the use case. If its a typical Google Home-style "turn on the lights", "look up this thing", "do my accounts" then I agree (although the AI may need to do a lot of prompting since people (at least me) often don't know what we really want). For less casual uses, I'm not sure. I guess there's a spectrum.
    - ethbro 9y ago
      That's a good point on the prompting, and something I don't believe a lot of current systems do? E.g. "Do X" "Would you like me to X1 or X2?" I'd guess the complexity usually isn't there as (afaik) current systems tend to be single action endpoint rather than knowledge parsing the request.
      - dkersten 9y ago
        Yeah I think you're right that current systems don't have the complexity yet. It's either simple tasks (turn on the lights, play music), search (find X for me) or menus. As complexity of tasks increases, I think it'll become more important.