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Regarding the interaction of AI and user experience, I like to use the spell checker as example. Think what it means that a black-box process looks over every

Regarding the interaction of AI and user experience, I like to use the spell checker as example. Think what it means that a black-box process looks over every one of your actions, sometimes deciding to "correct" some of them, more or less silently. Now think what it would be like if you couldn't see the list of alternatives that the AI is considering, and that you couldn't fix the mistakes made by the corrector. Until we get person-like "hard" Artificial Intelligence, the desired model for AI is having a way to inspect all the possible alternate decisions that could be taken, and most important, having the possibility that a human overrides any one of those automated decisions (to the point of safely disabling the whole system in extreme cases).

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Oh yes. Reminds me of a recent observation by Scott Alexander: Dear @apple - your OS has a global spellcheck that autocorrects names of medications to names of different medications, eg "duloxetine" to "fluoxetine", without telling the user. Some clinics inexplicably continue to use MacBooks. Please fix this before someone gets hurt. (https://twitter.com/slatestarcodex/status/944739157988974592 https://twitter.com/slatestarcodex/status/944739157988974592) There's nothing more infuriating than a system that "knows better" and which you can't override (and have the override stick). Today's spellcheckers generally break whenever what you're writing isn't in single language, using common words. Which, for me, means pretty much all the time - since most of my chats and documents I write involve mixed Polish/English with domain-specific vocabulary. And even if we had General-AI-powered spellcheckers, there still would be a need to tell them no - after all, my spelling might be bad, but I might be making an explicit stylistic choice. AI systems need not remove user's agency or control from the process.
- gregknicholson 9y ago
  MacOS is a service provided by Apple, not a tool that you control. AI could be a very useful tool, but it's a very scary service.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Which is why I hate the very concept of Software as a Service.
xg15 9y ago
Incidentally, we wouldn't even tolerate this kind of behavior with humans (or expect it to work). Imagine if you wrote a book and the publisher assigned an editor before publication - an editor who knows nothing about the specifics of your book, who you're not allowed to talk with, who can make arbitrary changes to your book and whose decisions will be final. You'd rightfully be outraged at that situation. Yet if the editor is an even less understanding computer program it seems to be generally accepted.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

Oh yes. Reminds me of a recent observation by Scott Alexander: Dear @apple - your OS has a global spellcheck that autocorrects names of medications to names of different medications, eg "duloxetine" to "fluoxetine", without telling the user. Some clinics inexplicably continue to use MacBooks. Please fix this before someone gets hurt. (https://twitter.com/slatestarcodex/status/944739157988974592 https://twitter.com/slatestarcodex/status/944739157988974592) There's nothing more infuriating than a system that "knows better" and which you can't override (and have the override stick). Today's spellcheckers generally break whenever what you're writing isn't in single language, using common words. Which, for me, means pretty much all the time - since most of my chats and documents I write involve mixed Polish/English with domain-specific vocabulary. And even if we had General-AI-powered spellcheckers, there still would be a need to tell them no - after all, my spelling might be bad, but I might be making an explicit stylistic choice. AI systems need not remove user's agency or control from the process.

gregknicholson 9y ago
MacOS is a service provided by Apple, not a tool that you control. AI could be a very useful tool, but it's a very scary service.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Which is why I hate the very concept of Software as a Service.

xg15 9y ago

Incidentally, we wouldn't even tolerate this kind of behavior with humans (or expect it to work). Imagine if you wrote a book and the publisher assigned an editor before publication - an editor who knows nothing about the specifics of your book, who you're not allowed to talk with, who can make arbitrary changes to your book and whose decisions will be final. You'd rightfully be outraged at that situation. Yet if the editor is an even less understanding computer program it seems to be generally accepted.