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> ChatGPT is a like a virus that now threatens its life. Perhaps something needs to be disrupted. The Internet is nothing like what it was 20 years ago, It tur

> ChatGPT is a like a virus that now threatens its life. Perhaps something needs to be disrupted. The Internet is nothing like what it was 20 years ago, It turned into a bunch of social media walled gardens and SEO spam. ChatGPT is like fresh air because it can actually answer questions in a no-nonsense way without users having to scroll through 5-6 spam websites, paywalls, and crappy user interfaces to get an answer to a simple question. The only thing that's being threatened is companies like Google who are responsible for the current state of the web.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Agents like this under the control of users would be pretty great. Man, would companies ever hate if we could use the kinds of tools they use against us, against them. No more shopping for the best price: "ChatGPT, what's the lowest price on a new X, brand Y, model Z? And give me the URL to the product page." No more burning our human time talking to companies' robots: "ChatGPT, get through this shitty phone tree and let me know when you have a person". A true digital assistant. Couple with crowd-sourced data (receipt scanning, junk-mail grocery flier scanning, or the AR goggles that are probably not that far off) and you could even do stuff like have it plot optimal IRL grocery shopping for you (lowest total price on this list of goods, value my time at $X/hr, and factor in cost of transportation... and also ChatGPT assembled the list for me in the first place, because I had it create this week's dinner menu) ChatGPT as a service that can be used to mislead us to trick us out of our money on the behalf of megacorps, like the entire rest of the Web has become? To "promote" things to us against our interests? Meh. Call me when it's mine and will obey me and will never lie to me or serve someone else's priorities over mine, and I'll be interested.
- wadd1e 4y ago
  I wish this sort of thing was realistically possible; I think history has taught us that we cannot have nice things one too many times to pretend like this time is any different. Whoever owns ChatGPT/equivalent product in the future would probably end up doing something or the other to ruin this idea. "GhatGPT, what's the cheapest restaurant in this area?" has way too much advertisement potential to be left alone.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Right, ChatGPT without complete loyalty to the user runs into the same problem as auto-restocking schemes from Amazon and such: I can't trust that it's not fucking me, so I have to check manually anyway, at least from time to time. At that point, I may as well just go buy the thing I need when I need it, myself. If, when I ask ChatGPT (or its future, improved successor) to explain the benefits and drawbacks of the best products in some category, at three price points, I have to worry that placement on that list can be bought... then the whole thing's pointless as a tool for "consumers". Just another avenue for tricking us out of our money, and we're already very well served in that department, don't need any more of that, thanks.
timmytokyo 4y ago
You seem to think ChatGPT will somehow be immune to the same forces that lead to the "enshittification" of Internet services like search, social media and e-commerce. Like ChatGPT, these services were a real boon to their users. Then, once they got enough users on board and had to start making a buck, their incentives changed and the users became a secondary concern. The same will happen to things like ChatGPT. See the Cory Doctorow article coining the term "enshittification" for a more elaborate explanation [0]. [0] https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
CodeMage 4y ago
> ChatGPT is like fresh air because it can actually answer questions Can it, though? The whole point of the article is that ChatGPT "makes shit up".

yamtaddle 4y ago

Agents like this under the control of users would be pretty great. Man, would companies ever hate if we could use the kinds of tools they use against us, against them. No more shopping for the best price: "ChatGPT, what's the lowest price on a new X, brand Y, model Z? And give me the URL to the product page." No more burning our human time talking to companies' robots: "ChatGPT, get through this shitty phone tree and let me know when you have a person". A true digital assistant. Couple with crowd-sourced data (receipt scanning, junk-mail grocery flier scanning, or the AR goggles that are probably not that far off) and you could even do stuff like have it plot optimal IRL grocery shopping for you (lowest total price on this list of goods, value my time at $X/hr, and factor in cost of transportation... and also ChatGPT assembled the list for me in the first place, because I had it create this week's dinner menu) ChatGPT as a service that can be used to mislead us to trick us out of our money on the behalf of megacorps, like the entire rest of the Web has become? To "promote" things to us against our interests? Meh. Call me when it's mine and will obey me and will never lie to me or serve someone else's priorities over mine, and I'll be interested.

wadd1e 4y ago
I wish this sort of thing was realistically possible; I think history has taught us that we cannot have nice things one too many times to pretend like this time is any different. Whoever owns ChatGPT/equivalent product in the future would probably end up doing something or the other to ruin this idea. "GhatGPT, what's the cheapest restaurant in this area?" has way too much advertisement potential to be left alone.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Right, ChatGPT without complete loyalty to the user runs into the same problem as auto-restocking schemes from Amazon and such: I can't trust that it's not fucking me, so I have to check manually anyway, at least from time to time. At that point, I may as well just go buy the thing I need when I need it, myself. If, when I ask ChatGPT (or its future, improved successor) to explain the benefits and drawbacks of the best products in some category, at three price points, I have to worry that placement on that list can be bought... then the whole thing's pointless as a tool for "consumers". Just another avenue for tricking us out of our money, and we're already very well served in that department, don't need any more of that, thanks.

timmytokyo 4y ago

You seem to think ChatGPT will somehow be immune to the same forces that lead to the "enshittification" of Internet services like search, social media and e-commerce. Like ChatGPT, these services were a real boon to their users. Then, once they got enough users on board and had to start making a buck, their incentives changed and the users became a secondary concern. The same will happen to things like ChatGPT. See the Cory Doctorow article coining the term "enshittification" for a more elaborate explanation [0]. [0] https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

CodeMage 4y ago

> ChatGPT is like fresh air because it can actually answer questions Can it, though? The whole point of the article is that ChatGPT "makes shit up".