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I got access to the Browsing plugin yesterday. I should have chosen Wolfram instead becasue the browsing plugin is fairly useless currently. In most cases it b

I got access to the Browsing plugin yesterday. I should have chosen Wolfram instead becasue the browsing plugin is fairly useless currently. In most cases it basically takes your question, summarizes it into one (1) search query, clicks on the top result from that query, summarizes the text of the page and regurgitates it back to you. Or, if robots.txt blocks it, then it just gives up. And it works quite slowly, so the whole process takes much longer than doing it yourself. It doesn't seem to apply any intelligent search techniques. It will happily summarize SEO spam from the top result instead of e.g. searching reddit for commentary from real people. In my limited testing it never did multiple queries or tried to combine information from multiple sources. And if you trip its overactive nanny filters it will scold you instead of doing the query that a search engine would have done for you with no questions asked. But the biggest problem with it is that it's not using a real browser and can't interact with pages or use your logged in accounts. If it could go on Amazon and sort through the results, read the reviews and do some queries to find the best product based on my stated preferences, and then buy it for me, that could potentially save me time. But it can't do anything like that. Even the part that it could do would take a prolonged back and forth chat conversation that would take longer than just doing it myself.

runnerup 4y ago
I chose plug-ins and would kill for access to code interpreter instead. The only interesting plug-in right now is wolfram and it’s not that useful. I think the application you’re outlining would be done in plugins rather than browsing. Which is probably why you wish you had plugins access.
- modeless 4y ago
  I agree the code interpreter is probably the coolest one. But honestly the whole plugin system seems like an unnecessary crutch to me. Wolfram Alpha has a website. Instacart has a website. It should just use the website like a human would. Figure that out and you unlock the whole web, giving you way more capability than a hundred thousand plugins ever could. And it seems feasible to do within a year or two. That's what I'm hoping the browsing plugin will become. Or maybe adept.ai will be the first. The plugin system may simply be a workaround for legal issues. Sites may prohibit bots in their ToS or robots.txt or whatever, but if they make a plugin then they're explicitly granting legal permission for OpenAI to use their stuff. But "legal permission grant" doesn't really make me excited about plugins. I like the idea that AIs could use the same UIs humans do with the same capabilities, instead of some opaque APIs that humans can't use directly. If the AI plugin APIs have less capability than the human UIs then the AIs will be hamstrung. On the other hand if the AI plugin APIs have more capability than the human UIs then humans will be forced to go through the AIs to get stuff done. Like today when you have to call a company's phone support to fix a problem with your account that can't be fixed through their public website, and you have to walk some clueless support rep through the process of using their own internal tools to fix your problem. I don't like either of those futures. This may actually be a competitive advantage for open source AI competitors vs. the big corporations. AIs from corporations have to abide by ToS and robots.txt or whatever and will be limited in capability as a result. An open source AI running on your own computer can bypass all that, pretending to be a real human and bypassing any legal or technical restrictions people try to apply to "bots". The Napster of AI.
withinboredom 4y ago
The Bing version does multiple searches, FWIW. I couldn’t remember the lawsuit about roadmaps and search results were coming up empty, so I just asked Bing Bot. Bam, got an answer in a few seconds with citations.
feoren 4y ago
> If it could go on Amazon and sort through the results, read the reviews and do some queries to find the best product based on my stated preferences, and then buy it for me, that could potentially save me time. If it could do that, it would be immediately gamed to prefer over-priced knockoff garbage, to the extent that all online shopping would become a shitshow to everyone within a few years. Think about how badly SEO has ruined the internet; ChatBot Optimization will be much worse.
- modeless 4y ago
  > it would be immediately gamed to prefer over-priced knockoff garbage, to the extent that all online shopping would become a shitshow to everyone within a few years Have you used Amazon lately? This is the world we live in already today. Human shoppers are being gamed instead of AI shoppers but the outcome is the same. Online shopping is a shitshow. There will be an arms race between people building the AIs and people gaming the AIs. And it's not yet clear who will win long term. Anyone who claims to know is talking out of their ass. But within my lifetime it will be harder to fool AIs than it is to fool humans.

runnerup 4y ago

I chose plug-ins and would kill for access to code interpreter instead. The only interesting plug-in right now is wolfram and it’s not that useful. I think the application you’re outlining would be done in plugins rather than browsing. Which is probably why you wish you had plugins access.

modeless 4y ago
I agree the code interpreter is probably the coolest one. But honestly the whole plugin system seems like an unnecessary crutch to me. Wolfram Alpha has a website. Instacart has a website. It should just use the website like a human would. Figure that out and you unlock the whole web, giving you way more capability than a hundred thousand plugins ever could. And it seems feasible to do within a year or two. That's what I'm hoping the browsing plugin will become. Or maybe adept.ai will be the first. The plugin system may simply be a workaround for legal issues. Sites may prohibit bots in their ToS or robots.txt or whatever, but if they make a plugin then they're explicitly granting legal permission for OpenAI to use their stuff. But "legal permission grant" doesn't really make me excited about plugins. I like the idea that AIs could use the same UIs humans do with the same capabilities, instead of some opaque APIs that humans can't use directly. If the AI plugin APIs have less capability than the human UIs then the AIs will be hamstrung. On the other hand if the AI plugin APIs have more capability than the human UIs then humans will be forced to go through the AIs to get stuff done. Like today when you have to call a company's phone support to fix a problem with your account that can't be fixed through their public website, and you have to walk some clueless support rep through the process of using their own internal tools to fix your problem. I don't like either of those futures. This may actually be a competitive advantage for open source AI competitors vs. the big corporations. AIs from corporations have to abide by ToS and robots.txt or whatever and will be limited in capability as a result. An open source AI running on your own computer can bypass all that, pretending to be a real human and bypassing any legal or technical restrictions people try to apply to "bots". The Napster of AI.

withinboredom 4y ago

The Bing version does multiple searches, FWIW. I couldn’t remember the lawsuit about roadmaps and search results were coming up empty, so I just asked Bing Bot. Bam, got an answer in a few seconds with citations.

feoren 4y ago

> If it could go on Amazon and sort through the results, read the reviews and do some queries to find the best product based on my stated preferences, and then buy it for me, that could potentially save me time. If it could do that, it would be immediately gamed to prefer over-priced knockoff garbage, to the extent that all online shopping would become a shitshow to everyone within a few years. Think about how badly SEO has ruined the internet; ChatBot Optimization will be much worse.

modeless 4y ago
> it would be immediately gamed to prefer over-priced knockoff garbage, to the extent that all online shopping would become a shitshow to everyone within a few years Have you used Amazon lately? This is the world we live in already today. Human shoppers are being gamed instead of AI shoppers but the outcome is the same. Online shopping is a shitshow. There will be an arms race between people building the AIs and people gaming the AIs. And it's not yet clear who will win long term. Anyone who claims to know is talking out of their ass. But within my lifetime it will be harder to fool AIs than it is to fool humans.