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> Humans are more partial to talking than writing. Amazon, Google, and Apple have sunk literally billions of dollars into this idea only to find out that, no,
by deanCommie 2y ago
> Humans are more partial to talking than writing.
Amazon, Google, and Apple have sunk literally billions of dollars into this idea only to find out that, no, we aren't.
We are with other humans, yes. When socialization is part of the conversation. When I'm talking to my local barista I'm not just ordering a coffee, I'm also maintaining a relationship with someone in my community.
But when it comes to work, writing >>> talking. Writing is clarity of ideas. Talking is cult of personality.
And when it comes to inputs/outputs, typing is more precise and more efficient.
Don't get me wrong, this is an incredibly revolutionary piece of technology, but I don't think the benefits of talking you're describing (timing, subtext, inexplicit knowledge) are achievable here either (for now), since even that requires HOURS of interaction over days/weeks/months of experiences for humans to achieve with each other.
- throwthrowuknow 2y agoWriting is only superior to conversation when weighed against discussions with more than 3 people. A quick call with one or two other people always results in more progress being made as long as everyone involved wants to get it done. Messaging back and forth takes much more time and often leads to misunderstandings.
- sroussey 2y agoIt depends… For example, I mentioned something to my contractor and the short thing he said back and his tone had me assume he understood. Oh, he absolutely did not. And, with him at least, that doesn’t happen when in writing.
- thehappypm 2y agoI think Alexa and Google Assistant simply are too low-intelligence to really consider it “talking” and not just voice commanding
- jdietrich 2y agoI use voice assistants and find them quite useful, but I've had to learn the interface and memorise the correct trigger phrases. If GPT-4o works half as well in practice as it does in the demos, then it's categorically a different thing.
- deanCommie 2y agoAnd so are ChatGPT and Gemini even the newest launched versions.
- enraged_camel 2y ago>> When I'm talking to my local barista I'm not just ordering a coffee, I'm also maintaining a relationship with someone in my community. >>> But when it comes to work, writing >>> talking. Writing is clarity of ideas. Talking is cult of personality. A lot of people think of their colleagues as part of a professional community as well, though.
- cal85 2y agoI don't think they've sunk $1 into that idea. They've sunk billions into a different idea: that people enjoy using their vocal cords more than their hands to compose messages to send to each other. That is not a spoken conversation, it's just correspondence with voice input/output options.