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A charitable reading of your post is that current AI, if judged against an average human personal assistant, would make many more "stupid" mistakes than the hum

A charitable reading of your post is that current AI, if judged against an average human personal assistant, would make many more "stupid" mistakes than the human. It would maybe forget less explicit stuff, but it's going to be a long time before AI stops us from going in a meeting having missed a button (or recognize which meetings are important enough to warrant a physical inspection of the participant). Or says, "hey before you commit to that meeting tomorrow, don't forget about this other thing that's maybe more important." Anyone who's ever had a real personal assistant any good at the job would very quickly look at the best AI as the faint shadow of the real thing. And it's going to be that way for a while. Forever? Probably not, but maybe. I'd argue that AI will sooner replace many legal and accounting jobs before it replaces good personal assistants. Just like how we thought chess is more difficult than walking and the exact opposite turned out to be true.

ghaff 9y ago
Even for the relatively constrained case of booking urban travel that's not 90% the same trip over and over, there's a pretty complicated interplay of price, schedule, convenience of location, quality of hotel, participation in loyalty programs, personal time, etc. etc. [ADDED: And just personal preference.] A longtime personal assistant who has your preferences really dialed in can probably come close. But given how much I sometimes end up fussing over even my own travel, it's really hard to see virtual assistants getting there anytime soon.
- Can_Not 9y ago
  > A longtime personal assistant who has your preferences really dialed in can probably come close If they don't come close, they can safely filter out 90% ahead of time and present you a table of the remainder, saving you lots of time. On the other hand, more likely that digital assistant was made by the booking company and is trying to upsell you with high margin items.

ghaff 9y ago

Even for the relatively constrained case of booking urban travel that's not 90% the same trip over and over, there's a pretty complicated interplay of price, schedule, convenience of location, quality of hotel, participation in loyalty programs, personal time, etc. etc. [ADDED: And just personal preference.] A longtime personal assistant who has your preferences really dialed in can probably come close. But given how much I sometimes end up fussing over even my own travel, it's really hard to see virtual assistants getting there anytime soon.

Can_Not 9y ago
> A longtime personal assistant who has your preferences really dialed in can probably come close If they don't come close, they can safely filter out 90% ahead of time and present you a table of the remainder, saving you lots of time. On the other hand, more likely that digital assistant was made by the booking company and is trying to upsell you with high margin items.