3 ms·

I must be missing something here. I used to work on a voice assistant product and everything demoed is pretty bog standard stuff: play music, shop, order food,

I must be missing something here. I used to work on a voice assistant product and everything demoed is pretty bog standard stuff: play music, shop, order food, get Uber rides, ask random queries, recognize images. This also runs into the same core issue as voice assistants, which is that it's way easier to transmit complex thoughts/actions on a nice big visual UI than it is to convert those thoughts/actions into verbal instructions. For example, when people order food from an online menu, most people are not fine with "get me the closest pizza available". They're usually considering complex tradeoffs between lots of factors: alternative restaurants nearby, how visually appealing is pictures of the food, health content, other options on the menu including their prices and content and how well they complement other dishes, etc. Figuring out how to express these preferences via a back-and-forth with an AI is more tedious than just looking at a visual interface and letting your subconscious process all this information into a choice.

dogprez 3y ago
It does have a screen for output. In they demo they showed it displaying a stock graph. As for input, I suspect elucidating your desires verbally is a muscle that is developed, like learning to program or be a writer. The assistants of yore are so error prone and slow people may not have got to that level, LLM might be the difference there.
com2kid 3y ago
> play music I can be driving in my car, say "OK Google, open Spotify" and Google happily replies "OK, opening Spotify on your TV". Lovely. I have a Spotify playlist called "kid's music". "OK Google, play the Spotify playlist Kid's Music", and it'll go and play someone else's public playlist called Kid's Music. Even sending messages barely works. "Ok Google, send a message to <wife's name because I cannot say "my wife" due to how unintelligent Google assistant is> on Facebook Messenger saying ...." "Sorry, I cannot send messages through Facebook Messenger". It can read messages from Facebook Messenger, but not send them, lovely. I had Music playing on my phone, I wanted to know what song it was. "Ok Google, what song is playing", soon as I say that, the music stops and now Google assistant is listening to nothing. Right now I cannot say "OK Google, go to Discord channel <foo> and summarize the day's conversation". > which is that it's way easier to transmit complex thoughts/actions on a nice big visual UI Depends on the task. Some are better on a UI (I want to see pictures of the dishes before I order), some are better with voice or natural language input. Even on my PC, I could see some tasks being easier with an LLM "Close all code editors I haven't touched in a week." "Clean up my browser tabs by closing out all YouTube, reddit, and hacker news tabs. Keep open any tabs involving AI research or LLMs."

dogprez 3y ago

It does have a screen for output. In they demo they showed it displaying a stock graph. As for input, I suspect elucidating your desires verbally is a muscle that is developed, like learning to program or be a writer. The assistants of yore are so error prone and slow people may not have got to that level, LLM might be the difference there.

com2kid 3y ago

> play music I can be driving in my car, say "OK Google, open Spotify" and Google happily replies "OK, opening Spotify on your TV". Lovely. I have a Spotify playlist called "kid's music". "OK Google, play the Spotify playlist Kid's Music", and it'll go and play someone else's public playlist called Kid's Music. Even sending messages barely works. "Ok Google, send a message to <wife's name because I cannot say "my wife" due to how unintelligent Google assistant is> on Facebook Messenger saying ...." "Sorry, I cannot send messages through Facebook Messenger". It can read messages from Facebook Messenger, but not send them, lovely. I had Music playing on my phone, I wanted to know what song it was. "Ok Google, what song is playing", soon as I say that, the music stops and now Google assistant is listening to nothing. Right now I cannot say "OK Google, go to Discord channel <foo> and summarize the day's conversation". > which is that it's way easier to transmit complex thoughts/actions on a nice big visual UI Depends on the task. Some are better on a UI (I want to see pictures of the dishes before I order), some are better with voice or natural language input. Even on my PC, I could see some tasks being easier with an LLM "Close all code editors I haven't touched in a week." "Clean up my browser tabs by closing out all YouTube, reddit, and hacker news tabs. Keep open any tabs involving AI research or LLMs."