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> ... the new voice (and video) mode is the best computer interface I’ve ever used. This is a huge threat to Apple. Who wants to use apps to send messages, che

> ... the new voice (and video) mode is the best computer interface I’ve ever used. This is a huge threat to Apple. Who wants to use apps to send messages, check the weather, stock price, set reminders and so on, when you have a human-like assistant conversing with you, and can do all that and more? "Apps" are now a quaint tech from the 2000s.

baal80spam 2y ago
Quite possibly this is one of the reasons why Apple reportedly partners (or already did?) with OAI.
- breadwinner 2y ago
  Is that going to save them? If Apple helps establish voice as the new UI, then at some point Open AI can eject the middleman (Apple) and serve end users directly.
  - throwaway11460 2y ago
    Apple can stay an exceptional hardware company. OpenAI won't be building Watch, iPhone and iPad any time soon.
    - breadwinner 2y ago
      It is possible that computers as we know them are going away. Nobody wants to use a computer, an iPhone or an iPad. People use them because that's how you get things done — unless you're a billionaire and have a personal assistant. But soon everyone will have their own personal assistant, just like billionaires do today. Then there will be no need for an iPhone, iPad or iMac.
      - throwaway11460 2y ago
        I can't take a photo and look at it with a personal assistant - or watch a movie, play a game, read a book, draw a painting, compose music, learn for school, or look at a map. We will use them differently, take them out of pocket much less, but the devices are going to stay. The Watch is a very obvious one imho - it's a fashion item, tracks your health and it's always handy when you need to look at it or talk to it. iPhone might be mostly replaced by the Watch but still some people really like to take photos or dislike wearing watches. And the iPad is hard to replace as a multimedia and gaming device. You might be right about the Mac - which is why I didn't talk about it.
        breadwinner 2y ago
        You are pointing to two general areas where completely eliminating labor through use of AI personal assistants is not a goal: Education and entertainment. I agree. In the case of education, some labor is necessary in order to learn, and in the case of entertainment, the "labor" (of killing the bad guys or whatever) is the fun part, so there is no need to avoid the labor.
redleggedfrog 2y ago
Maybe because you're in an office and don't want everyone talking? Or maybe you're on the bus and don't want everyone overhearing what you're doing? Or, for that matter, think about if you had to say out loud everything you do on a computer. Heck, a three hour meeting makes me hoarse. Sam Altman is a person to doesn't actually do anything that would be considered actual work by people who do actual work (like me), so of course he is going to find a natural language interface the best he's ever used, because it mimics what he does every day, which is to tell other people to go do actual work. Also, he has a stake in promoting his products, so what everything comes out of his mouth is dead on arrival as far as meaningful content, relevance, and veracity.
- breadwinner 2y ago
  If an actual human being, highly educated and super smart, offered to work as your personal assistant for free, would you reject him/her just because you don't want "everyone overhearing" your conversation with him/her? I don't think so.
  - redleggedfrog 2y ago
    LOL! I have, and would, do exactly that to avoid the slippery slope of falling into "management."
  - matthewmacleod 2y ago
    I find it hard to think of many offers I would reject faster.
- madarco 2y ago
  Whisper, the STT model created by OpenAI can understand you whispering. You can try it with the ChatGPT mobile app to see it yourself
woeirua 2y ago
Except, as we've already seen with GPT4, it just cannot reliably act as an agent right now. The StS would be a nice improvement over Siri, but it won't be able to do most basic tasks reliably anytime soon.
r00fus 2y ago
It's just another way to get those things being done. Some people will love it, others will use Also I won't trust ChatGPT to manage my money, be a remote control, be my MFA tool, play games or anything else that requires constant hands-on manipulation or authorization/etc. Apps are here to stay - did you ditch your steering wheel when Tesla announced full self driving?
mft_ 2y ago
Heh, maybe they should buy OpenAI instead of spending $110Bn on buying back their stock... In reality, I think we're quite a few generations away from being able to go without a screen (as the Humane Pin has demonstrated) - and I'm sure Apple will be ready with a better AI Pin when the time comes. For the time being, this sits very nicely on an iPhone.
- jimbokun 2y ago
  > In reality, I think we're quite a few generations away from being able to ... I feel like every time I see one of these claims about AI now, whatever's being predicted becomes reality a few weeks later.
  - mft_ 2y ago
    I agree that the pace of change makes such predictions risky, but as these assistants become more capable, and are able to perform more complex tasks on your behalf, I think the need to check their plans becomes more important - at least for a period. For example, if you ask your AI assistant to book airport parking, flights, transfers, activities, and a hotel for a holiday, it'll be a long while (if ever?) before you trust it so much to let it pay for those things without a sense-check first. And visual checks will be a magnitude faster than it reading everything out to you. Edit: and just to be clear, by 'generations' I was meaning tech generations (i.e. of phones, or GPTs) not humans!
chr-s 2y ago
Their own video showing this interface is awkward as hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MirzFk_DSiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MirzFk_DSiI Speech is not an optimal interface (in most cases). The AI just rambles along and there's so much time wasted waiting for it to get to the point.
nonameiguess 2y ago
Me? Right now, checking the weather is two thumb presses, one to unlock the phone and one to click the weather app tile. I could add a widget to the home screen and make that one click. It's probably possible to make the lock screen show weather and then it's zero clicks. And I can do it just as easily and just as well in an extremely loud place when the phone is unlikely to hear me, when I have a sore throat and don't want to talk, when I'm awake at 4 AM laying in bed and my wife is next to me and I don't want to make any noise (which, incidentally, is to me far and away why autoplay videos are the rudest thing to ever hit the web).
- breadwinner 2y ago
  When Graphical User Interfaces first became popular, there were certainly things that were easier to get done using the old way (the command line). But when the majority shifted to GUIs, it was no longer profitable to maintain the old way. Today, unless you are a developer, most things are done using GUI interfaces. The same thing will happen to "Apps" vs. "AI Personal Assistants".

baal80spam 2y ago

Quite possibly this is one of the reasons why Apple reportedly partners (or already did?) with OAI.

breadwinner 2y ago
Is that going to save them? If Apple helps establish voice as the new UI, then at some point Open AI can eject the middleman (Apple) and serve end users directly.
- throwaway11460 2y ago
  Apple can stay an exceptional hardware company. OpenAI won't be building Watch, iPhone and iPad any time soon.
  - breadwinner 2y ago
    It is possible that computers as we know them are going away. Nobody wants to use a computer, an iPhone or an iPad. People use them because that's how you get things done — unless you're a billionaire and have a personal assistant. But soon everyone will have their own personal assistant, just like billionaires do today. Then there will be no need for an iPhone, iPad or iMac.
    - throwaway11460 2y ago
      I can't take a photo and look at it with a personal assistant - or watch a movie, play a game, read a book, draw a painting, compose music, learn for school, or look at a map. We will use them differently, take them out of pocket much less, but the devices are going to stay. The Watch is a very obvious one imho - it's a fashion item, tracks your health and it's always handy when you need to look at it or talk to it. iPhone might be mostly replaced by the Watch but still some people really like to take photos or dislike wearing watches. And the iPad is hard to replace as a multimedia and gaming device. You might be right about the Mac - which is why I didn't talk about it.
      - breadwinner 2y ago
        You are pointing to two general areas where completely eliminating labor through use of AI personal assistants is not a goal: Education and entertainment. I agree. In the case of education, some labor is necessary in order to learn, and in the case of entertainment, the "labor" (of killing the bad guys or whatever) is the fun part, so there is no need to avoid the labor.

redleggedfrog 2y ago

Maybe because you're in an office and don't want everyone talking? Or maybe you're on the bus and don't want everyone overhearing what you're doing? Or, for that matter, think about if you had to say out loud everything you do on a computer. Heck, a three hour meeting makes me hoarse. Sam Altman is a person to doesn't actually do anything that would be considered actual work by people who do actual work (like me), so of course he is going to find a natural language interface the best he's ever used, because it mimics what he does every day, which is to tell other people to go do actual work. Also, he has a stake in promoting his products, so what everything comes out of his mouth is dead on arrival as far as meaningful content, relevance, and veracity.

breadwinner 2y ago
If an actual human being, highly educated and super smart, offered to work as your personal assistant for free, would you reject him/her just because you don't want "everyone overhearing" your conversation with him/her? I don't think so.
- redleggedfrog 2y ago
  LOL! I have, and would, do exactly that to avoid the slippery slope of falling into "management."
- matthewmacleod 2y ago
  I find it hard to think of many offers I would reject faster.
madarco 2y ago
Whisper, the STT model created by OpenAI can understand you whispering. You can try it with the ChatGPT mobile app to see it yourself

woeirua 2y ago

Except, as we've already seen with GPT4, it just cannot reliably act as an agent right now. The StS would be a nice improvement over Siri, but it won't be able to do most basic tasks reliably anytime soon.

r00fus 2y ago

It's just another way to get those things being done. Some people will love it, others will use Also I won't trust ChatGPT to manage my money, be a remote control, be my MFA tool, play games or anything else that requires constant hands-on manipulation or authorization/etc. Apps are here to stay - did you ditch your steering wheel when Tesla announced full self driving?

mft_ 2y ago

Heh, maybe they should buy OpenAI instead of spending $110Bn on buying back their stock... In reality, I think we're quite a few generations away from being able to go without a screen (as the Humane Pin has demonstrated) - and I'm sure Apple will be ready with a better AI Pin when the time comes. For the time being, this sits very nicely on an iPhone.

jimbokun 2y ago
> In reality, I think we're quite a few generations away from being able to ... I feel like every time I see one of these claims about AI now, whatever's being predicted becomes reality a few weeks later.
- mft_ 2y ago
  I agree that the pace of change makes such predictions risky, but as these assistants become more capable, and are able to perform more complex tasks on your behalf, I think the need to check their plans becomes more important - at least for a period. For example, if you ask your AI assistant to book airport parking, flights, transfers, activities, and a hotel for a holiday, it'll be a long while (if ever?) before you trust it so much to let it pay for those things without a sense-check first. And visual checks will be a magnitude faster than it reading everything out to you. Edit: and just to be clear, by 'generations' I was meaning tech generations (i.e. of phones, or GPTs) not humans!

chr-s 2y ago

Their own video showing this interface is awkward as hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MirzFk_DSiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MirzFk_DSiI Speech is not an optimal interface (in most cases). The AI just rambles along and there's so much time wasted waiting for it to get to the point.

nonameiguess 2y ago

Me? Right now, checking the weather is two thumb presses, one to unlock the phone and one to click the weather app tile. I could add a widget to the home screen and make that one click. It's probably possible to make the lock screen show weather and then it's zero clicks. And I can do it just as easily and just as well in an extremely loud place when the phone is unlikely to hear me, when I have a sore throat and don't want to talk, when I'm awake at 4 AM laying in bed and my wife is next to me and I don't want to make any noise (which, incidentally, is to me far and away why autoplay videos are the rudest thing to ever hit the web).

breadwinner 2y ago
When Graphical User Interfaces first became popular, there were certainly things that were easier to get done using the old way (the command line). But when the majority shifted to GUIs, it was no longer profitable to maintain the old way. Today, unless you are a developer, most things are done using GUI interfaces. The same thing will happen to "Apps" vs. "AI Personal Assistants".