5 ms·

The first thing you realise when you start playing with LLMs and want to build a product around it is that you might not need a UI anymore but a text interface

The first thing you realise when you start playing with LLMs and want to build a product around it is that you might not need a UI anymore but a text interface might be at the same time easier to build and much more intuitive. In this case the messengers have a big opportunity to become the next big platform. Telegram seems to be the one with the best apis. This shift might even make it possible to create a new messenger app with some LLM app as killer feature. In a way ChatGPT could have been that messenger app.

FridgeSeal 4y ago
Pity that _using_ telegram is a frustrating, spam filled messaging experience. Nothing nets me as much annoying automated spam as simply having an account there. More frustratingly, disabling messages from unknown contacts doesn’t appear to be a feature.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  I wonder why your account is attacked by spam so often. Conversely, I've never had any account get so little spam as my Telegram account. My email gets literally dozens of spam mails per day. Telegram, I'd say less than once per month. Exactly yesterday I thought that I got a spam message, it turns out that the sender is a SpaceX fan and a real interesting human, not the crypto-pushing bot that I had suspected at first when I read the greeting "hi".
  - stavros 4y ago
    > Conversely, I've never had any account get so little spam as my Telegram account. I don't get that much spam in Telegram either, but this must be an exaggeration. My WhatsApp and Signal accounts get completely zero spam.
    - ohgodplsno 4y ago
      My five year old Telegram account has received exactly zero spam messages in my entire time there. Being a country that actually punishes companies for selling your phone number and personal information without your consent makes everything more pleasant.
      - stavros 4y ago
        I mostly get them from people finding me from my group chats, really. I don't think Telegram shows my number to people (or has it), so I don't tend to get spam that way.
    - dotancohen 4y ago
      I don't have a Whatsapp account. But I agree about Signal, I cannot recall ever seeing spam there.
  - mmis1000 4y ago
    If you setup username, you are going to get a lot of spam messages. I guess. Username in telegram is a public identifier that allow anyone to grant the permission to message you. The other ways to grant this permission are 1. Add contact with phone number (can be disabled in privacy setting) 2. Have a message/forward message somewhere you can see, and the original sender is you. (Identity forward of forwarded message can be disabled in privacy setting) 3. Be in the same group with the target (chat admin can disable member listing) Notice, this is a one time setup. A account only need to grant this once, and then he can message you at anytime.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  There are privacy settings, you know? Did you set every option to 'Nobody' or 'My contacts only'?
  - plonq 4y ago
    I’m not the other person, but there’s no privacy setting for normal messages, in the iOS version at least. So it’s impossible to block messages from randoms.
    - justsomehnguy 4y ago
      Yes, because most people actually want to be reached by people who are yet not in the contacts. The only way to do so is to have a username or phone number of recipient. Usernames are searchable if they are "Public Usernames". Phone number could be hidden from anyone. I don't see how someone can contact somebody on the messenger yet without an ability to.. actually send a message. Sure, there could be an option to block everyone not in the contact list and use some other medium to relay the contact request[0] but most of the time this is useless for messenger. But of course I have my POV skewed, because I prefer to use services defensively from the start so I had almost no unsolicited messages on Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram. [0] Hey, if you interested in $TOPIC contact me on Telegram, @username! But first send a couple of avian carriers with your phone number and username so I could add you to contacts first!
- herbst 4y ago
  > More frustratingly, disabling messages from unknown contacts doesn’t appear to be a feature. On the android client you find this option under privacy. Pretty sure it never hasn't been there
  - slig 4y ago
    You cannot disable message from unknown contacts, their messages goes to a "archived" folder, but they're still there.
Version467 4y ago
This was my immediate thought when they released chatgpt plugins. They had this little demo where it generated a recipe, pulled the calories from wolfram alpha and then generated a one click to order link for doordash. It's no stretch of the imagination that this will replace many, if not most app ui's. For the time being there's still some programs that are much better off with a dedicated interface, but the future where the starting point for most day-to-day computer interactions is a unified natural language text input is very near. It's striking to me how close this matches the depiction in the movie "Her". Messenger apps like telegram do have an opportunity here, but I think the most likely way for this to play out is that apple and google will eventually make their assistants the front and center way of interacting with your phone and their won't be much that messenger apps can do about it, even if they are substantially faster at implementing this.
- bottom999mottob 4y ago
  101% chance Apple puts Siri's brother Shrini in iMessage as a default option. I'm calling it now Now Google... put em in Gmail and Calendar webapps as a sidebar integration and a big-ass button on mobile
- giovannibonetti 4y ago
  > Messenger apps like telegram do have an opportunity here, but I think the most likely way for this to play out is that apple and google will eventually make their assistants the front and center way of interacting with your phone Wasn't the Allo app supposed to do that?
  - eitland 4y ago
    Made by Google the company who threw away an existing social network (Reader) to build a social network (Google+) that they threw away as soon as many enough had figured it out and started loving it. (I'm still looking for a replacement for Google+.)
- omeid2 4y ago
  Will natural language be a predominate form of interface in the near future? Absolutely yes. But will it replace majority of interface? I am doubtful. The reason for my doubt is that if you look around yourself; you will see a variety of amazing human computer and human machine interfaces, because no single interface has been universally suitable and more importantly the most or even reasonably efficient for all use cases. There is little reason to believe human language is an exception. Switches, buttons, knobs, joysticks, motion sensors, and an array of other interfaces will persist until brain-computer interface is ubiquitous.
xkfiebfifbek 4y ago
sound logic. google circles should have taken on Facebook too. but no matter how good the api is if you must install something worse to talk to your friends. IM applications are the new socialnetworks, and as such will be decided by network effect, everything else will be a consequence. so, the best solution is the one that can be shoehorned into the whatever api quality the top IM application offers, which is not telegram
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
Haha, I just pictured iPhone users if one day all the colorful icons disappeared and they were presented with a white on black text prompt instead) Not gonna happen.

FridgeSeal 4y ago

Pity that _using_ telegram is a frustrating, spam filled messaging experience. Nothing nets me as much annoying automated spam as simply having an account there. More frustratingly, disabling messages from unknown contacts doesn’t appear to be a feature.

dotancohen 4y ago
I wonder why your account is attacked by spam so often. Conversely, I've never had any account get so little spam as my Telegram account. My email gets literally dozens of spam mails per day. Telegram, I'd say less than once per month. Exactly yesterday I thought that I got a spam message, it turns out that the sender is a SpaceX fan and a real interesting human, not the crypto-pushing bot that I had suspected at first when I read the greeting "hi".
- stavros 4y ago
  > Conversely, I've never had any account get so little spam as my Telegram account. I don't get that much spam in Telegram either, but this must be an exaggeration. My WhatsApp and Signal accounts get completely zero spam.
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    My five year old Telegram account has received exactly zero spam messages in my entire time there. Being a country that actually punishes companies for selling your phone number and personal information without your consent makes everything more pleasant.
    - stavros 4y ago
      I mostly get them from people finding me from my group chats, really. I don't think Telegram shows my number to people (or has it), so I don't tend to get spam that way.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    I don't have a Whatsapp account. But I agree about Signal, I cannot recall ever seeing spam there.
- mmis1000 4y ago
  If you setup username, you are going to get a lot of spam messages. I guess. Username in telegram is a public identifier that allow anyone to grant the permission to message you. The other ways to grant this permission are 1. Add contact with phone number (can be disabled in privacy setting) 2. Have a message/forward message somewhere you can see, and the original sender is you. (Identity forward of forwarded message can be disabled in privacy setting) 3. Be in the same group with the target (chat admin can disable member listing) Notice, this is a one time setup. A account only need to grant this once, and then he can message you at anytime.
justsomehnguy 4y ago
There are privacy settings, you know? Did you set every option to 'Nobody' or 'My contacts only'?
- plonq 4y ago
  I’m not the other person, but there’s no privacy setting for normal messages, in the iOS version at least. So it’s impossible to block messages from randoms.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    Yes, because most people actually want to be reached by people who are yet not in the contacts. The only way to do so is to have a username or phone number of recipient. Usernames are searchable if they are "Public Usernames". Phone number could be hidden from anyone. I don't see how someone can contact somebody on the messenger yet without an ability to.. actually send a message. Sure, there could be an option to block everyone not in the contact list and use some other medium to relay the contact request[0] but most of the time this is useless for messenger. But of course I have my POV skewed, because I prefer to use services defensively from the start so I had almost no unsolicited messages on Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram. [0] Hey, if you interested in $TOPIC contact me on Telegram, @username! But first send a couple of avian carriers with your phone number and username so I could add you to contacts first!
herbst 4y ago
> More frustratingly, disabling messages from unknown contacts doesn’t appear to be a feature. On the android client you find this option under privacy. Pretty sure it never hasn't been there
- slig 4y ago
  You cannot disable message from unknown contacts, their messages goes to a "archived" folder, but they're still there.

Version467 4y ago

This was my immediate thought when they released chatgpt plugins. They had this little demo where it generated a recipe, pulled the calories from wolfram alpha and then generated a one click to order link for doordash. It's no stretch of the imagination that this will replace many, if not most app ui's. For the time being there's still some programs that are much better off with a dedicated interface, but the future where the starting point for most day-to-day computer interactions is a unified natural language text input is very near. It's striking to me how close this matches the depiction in the movie "Her". Messenger apps like telegram do have an opportunity here, but I think the most likely way for this to play out is that apple and google will eventually make their assistants the front and center way of interacting with your phone and their won't be much that messenger apps can do about it, even if they are substantially faster at implementing this.

bottom999mottob 4y ago
101% chance Apple puts Siri's brother Shrini in iMessage as a default option. I'm calling it now Now Google... put em in Gmail and Calendar webapps as a sidebar integration and a big-ass button on mobile
giovannibonetti 4y ago
> Messenger apps like telegram do have an opportunity here, but I think the most likely way for this to play out is that apple and google will eventually make their assistants the front and center way of interacting with your phone Wasn't the Allo app supposed to do that?
- eitland 4y ago
  Made by Google the company who threw away an existing social network (Reader) to build a social network (Google+) that they threw away as soon as many enough had figured it out and started loving it. (I'm still looking for a replacement for Google+.)
omeid2 4y ago
Will natural language be a predominate form of interface in the near future? Absolutely yes. But will it replace majority of interface? I am doubtful. The reason for my doubt is that if you look around yourself; you will see a variety of amazing human computer and human machine interfaces, because no single interface has been universally suitable and more importantly the most or even reasonably efficient for all use cases. There is little reason to believe human language is an exception. Switches, buttons, knobs, joysticks, motion sensors, and an array of other interfaces will persist until brain-computer interface is ubiquitous.

xkfiebfifbek 4y ago

sound logic. google circles should have taken on Facebook too. but no matter how good the api is if you must install something worse to talk to your friends. IM applications are the new socialnetworks, and as such will be decided by network effect, everything else will be a consequence. so, the best solution is the one that can be shoehorned into the whatever api quality the top IM application offers, which is not telegram

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

Haha, I just pictured iPhone users if one day all the colorful icons disappeared and they were presented with a white on black text prompt instead) Not gonna happen.