11 ms·

Sure, there are a few edge-case failures and mistakes here and there, but I can't help but be in awe. AWE. Let me state the obvious, in case anyone here isn't

• apexalpha 3y ago
  Correct, this will be the successor to the GUI.
  • tmalsburg2 3y ago
    I doubt it. It’s too damn costly computationally.
    • Difwif 3y ago
      This is the same reply to GUIs will never take off but decades later and on to the next successor.
• thelittleone 3y ago
  Agree and the next big step may well be human computer interface. Speech is starting point for input. At some point output will change also and if think it out longer term perhaps a future where instead of reading information we install knowledge, including the stored memory of actual experience. If I want to do pottery, I could think this, download the experience and then be competent at it.
  • unsupp0rted 3y ago
    Even more impressive would be if I don't want to know pottery anymore, and I can delete that knowledge to make room for something else.
  • BoxOfRain 3y ago
    The idea of giving the adtech industry direct access to my brain is genuinely horrifying, not to mention Aldous Huxley would have some reasonable objections to everything being this easy all of a sudden.
  • jprete 3y ago
    This would be nice if I didn't believe that it would be enshittified before it ever got off the ground. E.g.: * There will be a monthly fee for the interface; you owe the monthly fee as long as you have it, so you need surgery to stop paying * When you download knowledge, it's a rental, and in addition to per-hour rental fees and the network connection fee, you will owe 30% on the value of whatever you create * The TOS will govern your behavior continuously, since you're always using the interface * Your behavior will always be monitored because it's totally justified to spy on you all the time just because you borrowed pottery knowledge * If you're found to be in violation of any part of the TOS at any time, they will erase all of the knowledge they've added to your brain, as well as any derived knowledge you gained through the use of their knowledge * Because this product isn't actually considered essential, you will have no legal remedies if they turn it off, even if you are not actually in violation of the TOS
• verve_rat 3y ago
  They will be the best input mode to play flight sims? I am being a little facetious, but you made a bold claim.
  • jonplackett 3y ago
    I mean, autopilot is a thing. You would just instruct it what to do and it will make a flight plan and do it. It’s gonna take the fun out of the experience a little bit though!
    • bamboozled 3y ago
      Welcome to the future ?
  • cs702 3y ago
    You're right, for actually playing the sim, you'll likely need a game controller or something like that. I edited my comment. But keep in mind that during the sim, you'll be able to ask the computer what you want the plane to do, and the computer will magically make it happen on your display.
    • Miraste 3y ago
      No one would want that in a flight sim unless real planes start working that way, which we should all hope they don't.
• layer8 3y ago
  I don’t know, I hate the idea of having to hold a natural-language conversation with a computer in order to make use of its functionality. It feels like being one of those Futurama heads in a jar that can’t do anything by themselves.
  • morkalork 3y ago
    UIs being dumbed down for average users was already annoying. Apparently the process won't stop until the illiterate are included too.
    • sureglymop 3y ago
      But what is bad about that? Why shouldn't they be included?
      • CamperBob2 3y ago
        It's a race to the bottom. You build an idiot-proof UI, Mother Nature builds a better idiot.
        • at_a_remove 3y ago
          This agrees with my experience. When I have begun to automate complex manual systems (nibbling from each end, typically), I note when I watch people use the finished product (at each step) that they simply find some other facet of the job to pay less attention to. The eventual error rate just returns to what it was before.
    • edgyquant 3y ago
      Ideally it won’t stop until computers are something we rarely think about. For me I love the CLI but having to use a mouse is a drag and causes serious wrist pain at this point in my life. Typing on a keyboard and clicking with a mouse are not the end all, be all of interacting with information systems.
    • yamazakiwi 3y ago
• nonameiguess 3y ago
  I'm glad you made that change because the interface can't really solve every single thing. Most of what I do on my phone is read eBooks. AI can't inject the knowledge directly into my brain. Text on the screen is as good as it will get for the foreseeable future. Most of what I want to do in my home is cook, clean, sleep, and have sex with my wife. Software can't do any of those things for me. Most of what I want to do in a car is get where I'm going, which software control can arguably make somewhat easier, but the driving isn't really the pain point. The distance and traffic conditions are the pain points. AI can't change external reality, at least not yet.
  • dr_dshiv 3y ago
    Also, keep in mind that Robots may be scifi level in 2 years. Like, able to cook and clean with hands! Crazy, but I think we will see it happen so fast: https://www.tri.global/news/toyota-research-institute-unveils-breakthrough-teaching-robots-new-behaviors https://www.tri.global/news/toyota-research-institute-unveil...
    • dns_snek 3y ago
      I'm not sure if we watched the same video, but I saw a robot fumble though a few mechanical motions with dexterity and speed of a toddler to achieve a few isolated, best-case tasks where all the hard parts were taken care of by a human. Cool demo, I suppose, but nobody is going to buy this as anything other than a toy.
      • dr_dshiv 3y ago
        2 years. The point of the video is that robots are on the LLM train.
  • dinosaurdynasty 3y ago
    I'm hopeful that AI cars make renting one cheap enough that I can just rent an AI car the 0-2 times/week I need one instead of owning a car and all the time and stress on maintenance that entails.
• RandomLensman 3y ago
  Only for things where a high rate for sizeable errors (maybe >1% or >0.1%) is tolerable.
• satvikpendem 3y ago
  Unless there is a neural interface, keyboards, digital stylii, etc are still a superior UI to letting an AI guess at what you're thinking.
• ryandr 3y ago
  Things are changing quickly
• hypertele-Xii 3y ago
  So you won't be able to do anything without Internet connection to the AI mainframe? No thanks.
  • postalrat 3y ago
    Only the stuff you don't know how to do yourself.
    • HappySweeney 3y ago
      ... like operate my phone without a UI?
  • op00to 3y ago
    Until the AI mainframe runs on your $device
    • hypertele-Xii 3y ago
      GPT-3 requires 700 gigabytes of GPU RAM. I'm looking at my cheapest computer components retailer listing a 48 gigabyte GPU at $5k. So to run the previous generation of GPT would cost me about $70k right now. When do you think I can expect to run GPT-4 on my consumer $device? :)
      • apexalpha 3y ago
        You are now where the GUI was in in 1986 or so.
        • chx 3y ago
          and you think corporate will wait near forty years for tech to catch up? no, they will, indeed force you to be always online, leading to absolute and total surveillance where you voluntarily add dozens of mics and cameras to every home. if you thought telescreens a'la 1984 is bad, just wait.
• naveen99 3y ago
  Generally agree. Just to play devils advocate: If you want something done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself. Employees are sort of a universal UI. But you will always know more about what you want done than your agent, whether it’s human or computer. That’s even before considering the principal agent problem.
  • Closi 3y ago
    Just to play double-devils advocate: If you want something done right, other times you will have to get someone else to do it. You know what you want, but you might not have the skills to do it. I can't represent myself well in court, do a good job of plumbing or cut my own hair, so I would ask for experts to do that for me. Plus if someone is capable, it's often quicker to delegate than do, and if you are delegating to someone with more time to do the task they can often do a better job. Delegating unambiguously is a skill in itself, as instructing AIs will be.
    • dmazzoni 3y ago
      ALso, AIs will get much better at delegating. Currently ChatGPT doesn't know it's bad at math, so it can convert a story problem into an equation better than a human but then mess up the arithmetic or forget a step in the straightforward part. But if you specifically give ChatGPT access to Mathematica and an appropriate prompt, it can leverage a good math engine to get the right answer nearly every time. Before long, I don't think that extra step will be necessary. It will know its limits and have dozens of other services that it can delegate to.
• mbil 3y ago
  I agree. I think apps that would initially benefit from LLM-powered conversational interfaces are those that have the following traits: - constrained context - part of a hands-free workflow A couple use-cases I have been pondering are driving assistant and cooking assistant. People are already used to using their phone or car's nav system to give them directions to an unfamiliar place. But even with such a system it's useful to have a human navigator in the car with you to answer various questions: - What's my next turn again? - How long till we get there? - Are there any rest stops near here? - What was that restaurant we just passed? - Is there another route with less traffic? These questions are all answerable with context that can be provided by the mapping app: - List of upcoming directions - Overall route planning - Surrounding place data - Traffic data and alternate route information It's possible to pull over to the side of the road, take off your distance glasses, put on your reading glasses, and zoom/pan the map to try to answer these questions yourself. But if the map application can just expose its API to the language interface layer, then a user can get the answers without taking their eyes off the road. The information is contextual and constrained based on a current task. In some cases it might be more desirable to whip out your phone and interact with the map to look up the answers on a screen, but often it won't be worth stopping the car, and so the conversational interface is better. Cooking assistant is a similar case: you are busy stirring something and checking on the oven -- you don't want to wipe the flour off your hands to pick up your phone and ask how many teaspoons of sugar you need. Again: contextual and constrained info based on a current task, and your hands and eyes -- the instruments of traditional UIs -- are otherwise occupied. Today, our software interfaces generally have one of two kinds of entity on the other end: humans, or other software. In the near future there will be another type of entity: language models. We need to start thinking of how our APIs will change when they're interacting with an LLM -- e.g. they'll need to be discoverable and self-describing; error states will need to be standardized or explicit with instructions on how to correct; they'll need to be fast enough to fit in a conversational interface; etc. It's arguable that such traits are part of good API design today, but in the future they may be required for the API to function in a landscape of virtual agents.
  • RandomLensman 3y ago
    In the cooking example, you either need the AI to have full awareness of the step you are at or you need to describe the step you are at, which could be cumbersome ("I did ..., how much sugar do I need now"). I venture, having the recipe projected in front of you would be much faster.
• m3kw9 3y ago
  Gpt4 was awesome, this looks like it does not disappoint based on the progress we expect of OpenAI.
• sottol 3y ago
  Everyone is going to wfh then or employers are going to splurge on a private office for everyone? Or is work basically going to be like a call center when everyone RTOs? How does this work on public transit?
• crazygringo 3y ago
  > they will become a superior user interface to almost every thing you want to do No they won't. They're actually a pretty terrible user interface from a design perspective. Primarily because they provide zero affordances, but also because of speed. UX is about providing an intuitive understanding of available capabilities at a glance, and allowing you to do things with a single tap that then reflect the new state back to you (confirming the option was selected, confirming the process is now starting). Where AI is absolutely going to shine is as a helpful assistant in learning/using those interfaces, much as people currently go to Google to ask, "how do I do a hanging indent in Microsoft Word for my Works Cited page"? For one-off things you do infrequently, that's a godsend, don't get me wrong. But it's not going to replace UI, it's going to assist. And the 99% of your tasks that are repetitive habit will continue to be through traditional UI, because it's so much more efficient. (Not to mention that a lot of the time most people are not in an environment where it's polite or possible to be using a voice interface at all.)
  • bratbag 3y ago
    If something is a repetitive habit that you can do almost without thinking, there is a good chance an AI could infer that entire chain. I think what's more likely is that an AI based interface will end up being superior after it has had a chance to observe your personal preferences and approach on a conventional UI. So both will still be needed, with an AI helping at the low end and high end of experience and the middle being a training zone as it learns you.
    • crazygringo 3y ago
      I think I wasn't clear enough -- these habits I'm talking about are things like "press cold water button, press start" or "press warm water button, press start" or "tap 'News' app grouping, tap 'NY Times' icon". There's nothing to infer. The sequence is already short. There are no benefits from AI here. But you raise a good point, which is that there are occasionally things like 15-step processes that people repeat a bunch of times, that the AI can observe and then take over. So basically useful in programming macros/shortcuts as well. But that still requires the original UI -- it doesn't replace it.
• have_faith 3y ago
  I personally can't wait for brands to start specifically advertising "doesn't use AI" as a selling point because everyone got burned by their AI controlled toaster, literally and figuratively. For anything designated an "appliance" I want it to be fixable by someone locally, or it's just throwing money away.
  • kaibee 3y ago
    > For anything designated an "appliance" I want it to be fixable by someone locally This is already pretty much gone thanks to manufacturers making it extremely difficult to fix things. No AI required.
    • 303uru 3y ago
      It's not gone, but is much more expensive up front. For example, everyone I know has a range or stovetop/oven with a circuit board or two in it, few if any replaceable parts, etc... That's basically the standard if you're in the 30" range that costs $1-2k market. Meanwhile, my 60" Bluestar has no circuit board, it has four mechanical electronic switches for the oven lights and convection. Everything else is brass valves, standard easily replaceable parts and so on. A few weeks back a convection fan went out and I replaced it in 5 minutes with a screwdriver. But, this range starts at $18k. So yes, I see a market for bespoke non-AI.
  • elforce002 3y ago
    "AI" will create a new business model for sure: "Talk to a real person", "100% human made", etc. This would be the new counter-culture.
    • vsareto 3y ago
      That's a new flavor of customer service jobs which will still suck and be paid terribly
      • elforce002 3y ago
        At least you'll be able to complain to someone, hehe.
• bulbosaur123 3y ago
  > We live in interesting times. We live in end of times.
• bamboozled 3y ago
  Ever wanted to see a photo or video or something before you purchased it ? Glance at a long term weather forecast ?
• throw1234651234 3y ago
  Zero awe. This week so far it can't find an import of a type in Next.js and it can't get the user object from a session. Next.js is one of the most popular FE frameworks in the world. It lied about both, repeatedly giving wrong answers. Here is my previous experience https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34648167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34648167 with it not being able to do basic tasks. It's all fun and games until the mistakes start having a cost. Other examples: I resorted to using it to order lists for me or adding quotes and commas to them for SQL inserts and such. Nope - when I look at the row count, it somehow drops values at random.
  • gwd 3y ago
    Just to clarify, you're using GPT-4? Or GPT-3.5 (the free ChatGPT one)? My experience with GPT-4 has been completely different from what you describe. Example: https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2567734 https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2567734
    • jiggawatts 3y ago
      He's using Copilot, which is based on GPT 3.0, making it ridiculously outdated. Generally feedback along these lines doesn't work. People who are worried about their job security will cling to the worst AI output quality they can find like a life-preserver, and simply will not listen to advice like yours. Nobody goes the extra mile to embrace an existential threat.
      • atleastoptimal 3y ago
        It's sad. People's entire sense of worth is attached to their jobs. They will lie to themselves and others about the ineffectiveness of AI to feel better. Even if it trips up on some minor thing there's no reason that progress will just stop and that the SOTA version 2-3 years from now won't be leagues better. Compare what we have now to 2-3 years ago, and now the investment solely in training, ignoring the algorithmic and architectural advances, is 10x greater. There really is no going back.
• sir_brickalot 3y ago
  If AI or LLMs or similar would be everywhere... how much more renewable energy do we have to produce, for very little to no gain in so many cases? Madness!
• Nfthero 3y ago
  Absolutely! Never seen something like this and the new results from openai tells us again that we are not close to any reasonable plateau.
• mediaman 3y ago
  Roughly half of people in most developed countries are not functionally articulate: meaning, they can read functionally, but struggle to articulate what they want with the written word. LLM-based chatbots can be extremely attractive to the top 30% literacy users in the developed world. They are not a good universal UI. You still need to provide pathways for the user to follow to get done what they need without forcing them to articulate their requirement. This is why so many people sit in front of a ChatGPT-like service and say, "what would I use this for?" and never use it again.
  • brrrrrm 3y ago
    Audio to text solves written word articulation, right? Besides this post is about vision, which also solves it.
    • RealityVoid 3y ago
      No, it does not. It's still the same words, in a different medium. If you are unable to write, you'll probably be unable to speak your ideas.
      • furyofantares 3y ago
        That sounds super false to me, at least given how articulate kids can be before they can read, and how literate they can be before they can write. If it's really true that half of the population can't functionally express themselves verbally then I'd sure like to know that. Or maybe I've misinterpreted something claimed here, because I'm struggling to find these claims plausible.
        • RealityVoid 3y ago
          I mean to say that if you can write and are unable to express your ideas, you probably won't be able to do so verbally either. In the case of kids, of course, that's true, but just because they can't write. But if you can (and most people can) just having the option of voice input won't help. I refrain to take a stance about how much of the population is unable to articulate thoughts in writing, (it's probably not great though) but it's probably going to be comparable with how many can't express themselves verbally as well. I'm talking here about more complex ideas of course. I'm sure average communication is functional.
• bytefactory 3y ago
  I share your awe. I feel like a kid in a candy store with all these incredible AI breakthroughs coming out these days! There's a place for cynicism and pessimism, but the kid in me who loves technology for its own sake is just absolutely on cloud 9.
• p1esk 3y ago
  If the rate of improvement continues at the current pace - which is GPT 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 in the last five years - we are just one or two improvements away from a full blown AGI/superintelligence/singularity/etc. At that point, a superior user interface is probably the least interesting (or scary) thing that would happen. I personally doubt GPT-5 will be as much of an improvement over GPT-4 as GPT-4 was over GPT-3, but that's fine, I can wait until GPT-6 or 7.
  • DrJaws 3y ago
    chat-gpt at the end is a language model, not an real AI, it have limits and are huge
    • p1esk 3y ago
      real AI Thanks for the laugh, I needed that.
    • gnaritas99 3y ago
      [dead]
    • blovescoffee 3y ago
      What do you even mean by real AI? Some of the top AI researchers in the world work on chat gpt
  • moffkalast 3y ago
    It does make one wonder how it'll all play out in the coming decades. One way or another humans will eventually be unemployable for most of currently existing jobs. Throughout history, the ruling elite had always relied on the rest of the population to make their food, do their work, and fight in their wars. This is the first time ever that they will no longer have any need for anyone else. Maybe climate change will conveniently do the culling for them... Of course there's always that option that we end up in a post scarcity space utopia where machine produced wealth is distributed to all, but only deluded idealists can possibly still think that'll ever be a real option as we slink further into techno feudalism with every passing day.
• chx 3y ago
  > few edge-case failures and mistakes Like identifying traffic lights in 4th and 5th squares in the second and third row both when there are only four squares?
  • SoftTalker 3y ago
    I often fail at those too. If a square contains a small corner of a thing, but is mostly not the thing, do I check it or not?
    • chx 3y ago
      read the problem again please. it's not that it misidentified what's in the squares, it "miscounted" the number of squares -- because it doesn't count, it's just a plausible sentence generator.
      • SoftTalker 3y ago
        Proving that CAPTCHAs are a poor test for "are you human" as we both failed.
        • chx 3y ago
          my point still has nothing to do with captchas...
• starfallg 3y ago
  Would you rather do something yourself with an accessible user interface or API, or open a ticket to ask somebody to do it for you? Sometimes communicating with an intelligent agent is harder than doing things yourself with a good structured user interface where you can communicate your intent clearly. Until we have mind reading AI that is.
• giancarlostoro 3y ago
  I think at this point the cost factor needs to be near zero for this to explode the way we want. People think I'm "moving the goal post" when I say you literally will see it explode once it all runs off a cell phone, offline, without internet. Because nobody will want to pay money to use an AI UI when the non-AI UI was free.
• phs318u 3y ago
  I am currently working in the higher education space and previously in banking. I agree with you. We are already workshopping where it makes sense to provide this type of interface on top of headless core systems. In the examples we've considered, this will drive a reduction in head count in some areas. I'd also suggest that one of the early "killer apps" for this may be as an "IVR co-pilot" for actual humans on the phone with customers for their tricky issues.
• cambaceres 3y ago
  I read this comment in the worst of moments, because I am a frontend freelancer that all of a sudden can't find a gig plus I just bought an expensive flat for my family of three kids. Can someone please relieve my anxiety?