6 ms·

> It's going to be seamlessly integrated into every-day software. I...kinda don't want this? UIs have already changed in so many different fits, starts, waves,

by titzer 4y ago

> It's going to be seamlessly integrated into every-day software. I...kinda don't want this? UIs have already changed in so many different fits, starts, waves, and cycles. I used to have skills. But I have no skills now. Nothing works like it used to. Yeah they were tricky to use but I cannot imagine that a murky AI interface is going to be any easier to use, and certainly impossible to master. Even if it is easier to use, I am not sure I want that either. I don't know where the buttons are. I don't know what I can do and what I can't. And it won't stay the same, dodging my feckless attempts to commit to memory how it works and get better at it...?

amelius 4y ago
An AI interface in Office brings back memories of Clippy.
- taneq 4y ago
  We may not have seen the last of Clippy yet… https://gwern.net/fiction/clippy https://gwern.net/fiction/clippy
- Izkata 4y ago
  Now imagine Clippy on a car touchscreen.
  - speedgoose 4y ago
    NIO sells cars with a tiny cute robot that moves on the dashboard, named NOMI. A lot of people hate it as it’s closer to Google assistant than GPT4 and it makes mechanical noise when it rotates but I don’t think it’s a terrible idea. Anthropomorphism, the attribution of human traits to things, is common with cars. I would like my car to run a LLM instead of being so stupid at understanding my voice commands.
- jimmySixDOF 4y ago
  XR will solve the AI UI problem https://twitter.com/jasminezroberts/status/1605611451674025989?t=d3aeSAHcY5CcRvQNlgo0mg&s=19 https://twitter.com/jasminezroberts/status/16056114516740259...
jjoonathan 4y ago
It was a sad day when I realized I was systematically overinvesting in skills on churning technology and that my investments would never amortize. Suddenly my parents' stubborn unwillingness to bother learning anything technological made complete sense and I had to adjust my own patience threshold sharply downwards.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  There are some software tools where the investment pays back, and has been over decades. Microsoft Office (in part because it's not reinventing itself, but rather accrues new features; in part because everyone else copies its UI patterns). Photoshop. Emacs. With modern software, I find it that there isn't much to learn at all - in the past decade, seems to only be removing features and interaction modes, never adding anything new. Still, I don't regret having learned so much all those years ago. It gives me an idea what the software could do. What it was supposed to do. This means I often think of multi-step solutions for problems most people around me can't solve unless there's a dedicated SaaS for it. As frustrating as it often is to not be able to do something you could 10 years ago, sometimes I discover that some of the more advanced features still remain in modern toy-like software.
  - eternalban 4y ago
    Office UI was reinvented at least one time. I remember when that god awful ribbon showed up. "In 2003, I was given the chance to lead the redesign of the most well-known suite of productivity software in the world: Microsoft Office. "Every day, over a billion people depended on apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, so it was a daunting task. This was the first redesign in the history of Office, and the work that we did ended up shaping the standard productivity experience for the next two decades." ... https://jensenharris.com/home/office https://jensenharris.com/home/office https://jensenharris.com/home/ribbon https://jensenharris.com/home/ribbon
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      That's not what I mean. The ribbon, whatever you think of it, only moved some functionality around. It didn't actually change the way old functionality worked. All the things you knew how to do, you could still do - you only had to learn their new placement.
duderific 4y ago
If it is seamlessly integrated, the AI won't even surface in a UI. You will just be presented with different options in the UI, which theoretically would be more precisely curated by the AI that you don't even see.
- CuriouslyC 4y ago
  That runs counter to some very well established UI principles. People get confused when their interface changes except as a result of direct interaction. Open up a menu in response to a click, yes; reorganize menus to "optimize" them based on what a model predicts a person is going to do, no. The killer is being able to tell a program what you want it to do, then not having to fuddle with buttons or menus at all (unless you want to tweak things).
  - ukuina 4y ago
    While I agree in principle, AI-infusion in UIs does not need to break convention. For example, AI suggestions could subtly highlight menu options that would be most useful in an auto-detected workflow. We could also create a persistent area on the UI for the AI to "speak up".
bombolo 4y ago
shell is the same
zztop44 4y ago
I once volunteered with a older woman. She’d been a computer programmer in the 70s, using punch cards and, later, Pascal. Then she had kids and stopped working for a while and the technology moved on without her. Now she’s like any other old person, doesn’t know how to use a computer and gets flustered when eg: trying to switch from the browser back to Word. Her kids and grandkids clown on her for being hopeless with computers. I asked her what it was she found difficult about modern computers compared to what she worked with 50 years ago. She said it’s the multitasking. The computers she had worked with just did one thing at once.
- yantrams 4y ago
  Interesting story. Thanks for sharing this. I have a somewhat similar story with my failure to transition from paltformers / sidescrollers to 3D games. I just couldn't do it.
  - jamiek88 4y ago
    Me too! My brain just won’t let me immerse. It was when sonic went 3D that it all began for me. Wait…he’s running away from me?
    - rightbyte 4y ago
      Sonic 3d was a bad game. Did you play Super Mario 64?
- dekhn 4y ago
  I worked with somebody who developed MULTICS but struggled constantly to do even the most basic tasks on a Mac even after using Macs for a decade. It was painful to watch them slowly move a mouse across the screen to the apple, take about ten seconds to click it, and then get confused about how to see system info.
- titzer 4y ago
  Indeed. I like the fact that my stove has only the knobs and buttons on it (other than a 7-segment LED display). I am master of my stove because I am pretty sure I have explored the complete state space of it by now.

by titzer 4y ago

amelius 4y ago

An AI interface in Office brings back memories of Clippy.

taneq 4y ago
We may not have seen the last of Clippy yet… https://gwern.net/fiction/clippy https://gwern.net/fiction/clippy
Izkata 4y ago
Now imagine Clippy on a car touchscreen.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  NIO sells cars with a tiny cute robot that moves on the dashboard, named NOMI. A lot of people hate it as it’s closer to Google assistant than GPT4 and it makes mechanical noise when it rotates but I don’t think it’s a terrible idea. Anthropomorphism, the attribution of human traits to things, is common with cars. I would like my car to run a LLM instead of being so stupid at understanding my voice commands.
jimmySixDOF 4y ago
XR will solve the AI UI problem https://twitter.com/jasminezroberts/status/1605611451674025989?t=d3aeSAHcY5CcRvQNlgo0mg&s=19 https://twitter.com/jasminezroberts/status/16056114516740259...

jjoonathan 4y ago

It was a sad day when I realized I was systematically overinvesting in skills on churning technology and that my investments would never amortize. Suddenly my parents' stubborn unwillingness to bother learning anything technological made complete sense and I had to adjust my own patience threshold sharply downwards.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
There are some software tools where the investment pays back, and has been over decades. Microsoft Office (in part because it's not reinventing itself, but rather accrues new features; in part because everyone else copies its UI patterns). Photoshop. Emacs. With modern software, I find it that there isn't much to learn at all - in the past decade, seems to only be removing features and interaction modes, never adding anything new. Still, I don't regret having learned so much all those years ago. It gives me an idea what the software could do. What it was supposed to do. This means I often think of multi-step solutions for problems most people around me can't solve unless there's a dedicated SaaS for it. As frustrating as it often is to not be able to do something you could 10 years ago, sometimes I discover that some of the more advanced features still remain in modern toy-like software.
- eternalban 4y ago
  Office UI was reinvented at least one time. I remember when that god awful ribbon showed up. "In 2003, I was given the chance to lead the redesign of the most well-known suite of productivity software in the world: Microsoft Office. "Every day, over a billion people depended on apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, so it was a daunting task. This was the first redesign in the history of Office, and the work that we did ended up shaping the standard productivity experience for the next two decades." ... https://jensenharris.com/home/office https://jensenharris.com/home/office https://jensenharris.com/home/ribbon https://jensenharris.com/home/ribbon
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    That's not what I mean. The ribbon, whatever you think of it, only moved some functionality around. It didn't actually change the way old functionality worked. All the things you knew how to do, you could still do - you only had to learn their new placement.

duderific 4y ago

If it is seamlessly integrated, the AI won't even surface in a UI. You will just be presented with different options in the UI, which theoretically would be more precisely curated by the AI that you don't even see.

CuriouslyC 4y ago
That runs counter to some very well established UI principles. People get confused when their interface changes except as a result of direct interaction. Open up a menu in response to a click, yes; reorganize menus to "optimize" them based on what a model predicts a person is going to do, no. The killer is being able to tell a program what you want it to do, then not having to fuddle with buttons or menus at all (unless you want to tweak things).
- ukuina 4y ago
  While I agree in principle, AI-infusion in UIs does not need to break convention. For example, AI suggestions could subtly highlight menu options that would be most useful in an auto-detected workflow. We could also create a persistent area on the UI for the AI to "speak up".

bombolo 4y ago

shell is the same

zztop44 4y ago

I once volunteered with a older woman. She’d been a computer programmer in the 70s, using punch cards and, later, Pascal. Then she had kids and stopped working for a while and the technology moved on without her. Now she’s like any other old person, doesn’t know how to use a computer and gets flustered when eg: trying to switch from the browser back to Word. Her kids and grandkids clown on her for being hopeless with computers. I asked her what it was she found difficult about modern computers compared to what she worked with 50 years ago. She said it’s the multitasking. The computers she had worked with just did one thing at once.

yantrams 4y ago
Interesting story. Thanks for sharing this. I have a somewhat similar story with my failure to transition from paltformers / sidescrollers to 3D games. I just couldn't do it.
- jamiek88 4y ago
  Me too! My brain just won’t let me immerse. It was when sonic went 3D that it all began for me. Wait…he’s running away from me?
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    Sonic 3d was a bad game. Did you play Super Mario 64?
dekhn 4y ago
I worked with somebody who developed MULTICS but struggled constantly to do even the most basic tasks on a Mac even after using Macs for a decade. It was painful to watch them slowly move a mouse across the screen to the apple, take about ten seconds to click it, and then get confused about how to see system info.
titzer 4y ago
Indeed. I like the fact that my stove has only the knobs and buttons on it (other than a 7-segment LED display). I am master of my stove because I am pretty sure I have explored the complete state space of it by now.