9 ms·

Talking to Google and Siri has been positively frustrating this year. On long solo drives, I just want to have a conversation to learn about random things. I've

Talking to Google and Siri has been positively frustrating this year. On long solo drives, I just want to have a conversation to learn about random things. I've been itching to "talk" to chatGPT and learn more (french | music theory | history | math | whatever) all summer. This should hit the spot!

jgalt212 3y ago
I assume you have never heard of podcasts.
- catchnear4321 3y ago
  you can ask podcasts questions? and they answer you?
  - jgalt212 3y ago
    no, but they don't get the answer wrong 20% of the time and give off 100% correctness vibes.
    - catchnear4321 3y ago
      neither does a tuba. why be mad at a hammer if you hit your thumb with it?
    - olddustytrail 3y ago
      No, generally podcasts are far worse than that...
- subw00f 3y ago
  I'm sure one can talk to their podcasts, but I would be worried if they ever answered me back.
ChatGTP 3y ago
I still don't understand how you can talk to something that doesn't provide factual information and just take it at face value? The other day I asked it about the place I live and it made up nonsense, I was trying to get it to help me with an essay and it was just wrong, it was telling me things about this region that weren't real. Do we just drive through a town, ask for a made up history about it and just be satisfied with whatever is provided?
- skepticATX 3y ago
  What LLMs have made me realize more than anything is that we just don't care that much the information we receive being completely factual. I have tried to use it many times to learn a topic, and my experience has been that it is either frustratingly vague or incorrect. It's not a tool that I can completely add to my workflow until it is reliable, but I seem to be the odd one out.
  - bamboozled 3y ago
    > What LLMs have made me realize more than anything is that we just don't care that much the information we receive being completely factual. I find this highly concerning but I feel similar. Even "smart people" I work with seem to have gulped down the LLM cool aid because it's convenient and it's "cool". Sometimes I honestly think: "just surrender to it all, believe in all the machine tells you unquestionably, forget the fact checking, it feels good to be ignorant... it will be fine...". I just can't do it though.
    - steve_adams_86 3y ago
      I just verify the information I need. I find it useful as a sort of search engine for solutions. Like, how could I use generators as hierarchical state machines? Are there other approaches that would work? What are some issues with these solutions? Etc. By the end I have enough information to begin searching the web for comparisons, other solutions, and so on. The benefit is that I got a quick look at various solutions and quickly satisfied a curiosity, and decided if I’m interested in the concept or not. Without AI, I might just leave the idea alone or spend too much time figuring it out. Or perhaps never quite figure out the terms of what I’m trying to discover, as it’s good at connecting dots when you have an idea with some missing pieces. I wouldn’t use it for a conversation about things as others are describing. I need a way to verify its output at any time. I find that idea bizarre. Just chatting with a hallucinating machine. Yet I still find it useful as a sort of “idea machine”.
rubslopes 3y ago
I've replaced my voice google assistant searches with the voice feature of the Bing app. It's a night and day difference. Bing voice is what I always expected from an AI companion of the future, it is just lacking commands -- setting tasks, home automation, etc.
- 3c0 3y ago
  precisely this. once someone figures out how to get something like GPT integrated with actual products like smart home devices and the same access levels as siri/google assistant, it will be the true voice assistant experience everyone has wanted.
  - throeaaysn 3y ago
    [dead]
  - com2kid 3y ago
    My prediction on this is eventually the LLMs will just write and execute scripts directly to control things. Imagine if iOS had something like apple script and all apps exposed and documented endpoints. LLMs would be able to trivially solve problems that the best voice assistants today cannot handle. Then again none of the current assistants can handle all that much. "Send Alex P a meeting invite tomorrow for a playdate at the Zoo, he's from out of town so include the Zoo's full address in the invite". "Find the next mutual free slot on the team's calendar and send out an invite for a zoom meeting at that time". These are all things that voice assistants should have been doing a decade ago, but I presume they'd have required too much one off investment. Give an LLM proper API access and train it on some example code, and these problems are easy for it to solve. Heck I bet if you do enough specialized training you could get one of the tiny simple LLMs to do it.
    - throwuwu 3y ago
      OpenInterpreter
- wccrawford 3y ago
bilsbie 3y ago
It’s funny. Driving buddy has been my number one use case for a while now. Still can’t quite make it work. I feel like I could learn a lot if I could have random conversations with GPT. + bonus if someone else in the car got excited when I see cows. Don’t care if it’s an AI.
- jibe 3y ago
  Try Pi AI. They have an app that can be voice/audio driven. Works well for the driving buddy scenario. https://pi.ai/talk https://pi.ai/talk
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  you could have a simulation of learning a lot by chatting with GPT, why you would take it as truth without an equal portion of salt is beyond me
chankstein38 3y ago
I've wanted a ChatGPT Pod equivalent to a Google Home pod for a while! I have been intending to build it at some point. I am with you, talking to Google sucks. "Hey Google, why do ____ happen?" "I'm sorry, I don't know anything about that" But you're GOOGLE! Google it! What the heck lol So yeah, ChatGPT being able to hear what I say and give me info about it would be great! My holdup has been wakewords.
- kkielhofner 3y ago
  We have hardware and wake words: https://heywillow.io/ https://heywillow.io/ Our REST endpoint can talk to whatever you want and we’ll have native ChatGPT soon.
  - chankstein38 3y ago
    Ooooo looking, thanks for the recommendation!
ecshafer 3y ago
Voice assistants have always been a half complete product. They were shown off as a cool feature, then they were never integrated so they were useful. The two biggest features I want are for the voice assistants to read something for me, and to do something on google/Apple Maps hand free. Neither of these ever work. “Siri/ ok google add the next gas station on the route” or “take me to the Chinese restaurant in Hoboken” seem like very obvious features for a voice assistant with a map program. The other is why can I tell Siri to bring up the Wikipedia page for George Washington but I can’t have Siri read it to me? I am in the car, they know that, they just say “I can’t show you that while you’re driving”. The response should be “do you want me to read it to you?”
- Gunnerhead 3y ago
  In the current world: Me: “OK Google, take me to the Chinese restaurant in Hoboken” Google Assistant: “Calling Jessica Hobkin”.
  - dieselgate 3y ago
    This reminds me of ordering at a drive through with a human at times: "I'd like an iced tea" "An icee?" "No an iced tea" "Hi-C?"
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    You forgot the third brand name. The pattern for current world's voice assistants is: ${brand 1}, ${action} ${brand 2} ${joiner} ${brand 3}. So, "OK Google, take me to Chinese restaurant in Hoboken using Google Maps". Which is why I refuse to use this technology until the world gets its shit together.
- jefftk 3y ago
  > ok google add the next gas station on the route I say "ok google, add a stop for gas" a lot, and it works well for me.
  - throeaaysn 3y ago
    [dead]
archon 3y ago
Agreed. After using ChatGPT at all Siri is absolutely frustrating. Example from a couple days ago: Me, in the shower so not able to type: "Hey Siri, add 1.5 inch brad nails to my latest shopping list note." Siri: "Sorry, I can't help with that." ... Really, Siri? You can't do something as simple as add a line to a note in the first-party Apple Notes app?
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  appending to a text file, what do you think this is - unix?
- callalex 3y ago
  That’s extra frustrating because Siri absolutely had that functionality at some point in the past, and may even still have it if you say the right incantation. Those incantations change in unpredictable and unknowable ways though.

jgalt212 3y ago

I assume you have never heard of podcasts.

catchnear4321 3y ago
you can ask podcasts questions? and they answer you?
- jgalt212 3y ago
  no, but they don't get the answer wrong 20% of the time and give off 100% correctness vibes.
  - catchnear4321 3y ago
    neither does a tuba. why be mad at a hammer if you hit your thumb with it?
  - olddustytrail 3y ago
    No, generally podcasts are far worse than that...
subw00f 3y ago
I'm sure one can talk to their podcasts, but I would be worried if they ever answered me back.

ChatGTP 3y ago

I still don't understand how you can talk to something that doesn't provide factual information and just take it at face value? The other day I asked it about the place I live and it made up nonsense, I was trying to get it to help me with an essay and it was just wrong, it was telling me things about this region that weren't real. Do we just drive through a town, ask for a made up history about it and just be satisfied with whatever is provided?

skepticATX 3y ago
What LLMs have made me realize more than anything is that we just don't care that much the information we receive being completely factual. I have tried to use it many times to learn a topic, and my experience has been that it is either frustratingly vague or incorrect. It's not a tool that I can completely add to my workflow until it is reliable, but I seem to be the odd one out.
- bamboozled 3y ago
  > What LLMs have made me realize more than anything is that we just don't care that much the information we receive being completely factual. I find this highly concerning but I feel similar. Even "smart people" I work with seem to have gulped down the LLM cool aid because it's convenient and it's "cool". Sometimes I honestly think: "just surrender to it all, believe in all the machine tells you unquestionably, forget the fact checking, it feels good to be ignorant... it will be fine...". I just can't do it though.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    I just verify the information I need. I find it useful as a sort of search engine for solutions. Like, how could I use generators as hierarchical state machines? Are there other approaches that would work? What are some issues with these solutions? Etc. By the end I have enough information to begin searching the web for comparisons, other solutions, and so on. The benefit is that I got a quick look at various solutions and quickly satisfied a curiosity, and decided if I’m interested in the concept or not. Without AI, I might just leave the idea alone or spend too much time figuring it out. Or perhaps never quite figure out the terms of what I’m trying to discover, as it’s good at connecting dots when you have an idea with some missing pieces. I wouldn’t use it for a conversation about things as others are describing. I need a way to verify its output at any time. I find that idea bizarre. Just chatting with a hallucinating machine. Yet I still find it useful as a sort of “idea machine”.

rubslopes 3y ago

I've replaced my voice google assistant searches with the voice feature of the Bing app. It's a night and day difference. Bing voice is what I always expected from an AI companion of the future, it is just lacking commands -- setting tasks, home automation, etc.

3c0 3y ago
precisely this. once someone figures out how to get something like GPT integrated with actual products like smart home devices and the same access levels as siri/google assistant, it will be the true voice assistant experience everyone has wanted.
- throeaaysn 3y ago
  [dead]
- com2kid 3y ago
  My prediction on this is eventually the LLMs will just write and execute scripts directly to control things. Imagine if iOS had something like apple script and all apps exposed and documented endpoints. LLMs would be able to trivially solve problems that the best voice assistants today cannot handle. Then again none of the current assistants can handle all that much. "Send Alex P a meeting invite tomorrow for a playdate at the Zoo, he's from out of town so include the Zoo's full address in the invite". "Find the next mutual free slot on the team's calendar and send out an invite for a zoom meeting at that time". These are all things that voice assistants should have been doing a decade ago, but I presume they'd have required too much one off investment. Give an LLM proper API access and train it on some example code, and these problems are easy for it to solve. Heck I bet if you do enough specialized training you could get one of the tiny simple LLMs to do it.
  - throwuwu 3y ago
    OpenInterpreter
wccrawford 3y ago

bilsbie 3y ago

It’s funny. Driving buddy has been my number one use case for a while now. Still can’t quite make it work. I feel like I could learn a lot if I could have random conversations with GPT. + bonus if someone else in the car got excited when I see cows. Don’t care if it’s an AI.

jibe 3y ago
Try Pi AI. They have an app that can be voice/audio driven. Works well for the driving buddy scenario. https://pi.ai/talk https://pi.ai/talk
jazzyjackson 3y ago
you could have a simulation of learning a lot by chatting with GPT, why you would take it as truth without an equal portion of salt is beyond me

chankstein38 3y ago

I've wanted a ChatGPT Pod equivalent to a Google Home pod for a while! I have been intending to build it at some point. I am with you, talking to Google sucks. "Hey Google, why do ____ happen?" "I'm sorry, I don't know anything about that" But you're GOOGLE! Google it! What the heck lol So yeah, ChatGPT being able to hear what I say and give me info about it would be great! My holdup has been wakewords.

kkielhofner 3y ago
We have hardware and wake words: https://heywillow.io/ https://heywillow.io/ Our REST endpoint can talk to whatever you want and we’ll have native ChatGPT soon.
- chankstein38 3y ago
  Ooooo looking, thanks for the recommendation!

ecshafer 3y ago

Voice assistants have always been a half complete product. They were shown off as a cool feature, then they were never integrated so they were useful. The two biggest features I want are for the voice assistants to read something for me, and to do something on google/Apple Maps hand free. Neither of these ever work. “Siri/ ok google add the next gas station on the route” or “take me to the Chinese restaurant in Hoboken” seem like very obvious features for a voice assistant with a map program. The other is why can I tell Siri to bring up the Wikipedia page for George Washington but I can’t have Siri read it to me? I am in the car, they know that, they just say “I can’t show you that while you’re driving”. The response should be “do you want me to read it to you?”

Gunnerhead 3y ago
In the current world: Me: “OK Google, take me to the Chinese restaurant in Hoboken” Google Assistant: “Calling Jessica Hobkin”.
- dieselgate 3y ago
  This reminds me of ordering at a drive through with a human at times: "I'd like an iced tea" "An icee?" "No an iced tea" "Hi-C?"
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  You forgot the third brand name. The pattern for current world's voice assistants is: ${brand 1}, ${action} ${brand 2} ${joiner} ${brand 3}. So, "OK Google, take me to Chinese restaurant in Hoboken using Google Maps". Which is why I refuse to use this technology until the world gets its shit together.
jefftk 3y ago
> ok google add the next gas station on the route I say "ok google, add a stop for gas" a lot, and it works well for me.
- throeaaysn 3y ago
  [dead]

archon 3y ago

Agreed. After using ChatGPT at all Siri is absolutely frustrating. Example from a couple days ago: Me, in the shower so not able to type: "Hey Siri, add 1.5 inch brad nails to my latest shopping list note." Siri: "Sorry, I can't help with that." ... Really, Siri? You can't do something as simple as add a line to a note in the first-party Apple Notes app?

jazzyjackson 3y ago
appending to a text file, what do you think this is - unix?
callalex 3y ago
That’s extra frustrating because Siri absolutely had that functionality at some point in the past, and may even still have it if you say the right incantation. Those incantations change in unpredictable and unknowable ways though.