5 ms·

This has existed for a long time, it's called "RPA" or Robotic Process Automation. The biggest incumbent in this space is UiPath, but there are a host of startu

by aduffy 2y ago

This has existed for a long time, it's called "RPA" or Robotic Process Automation. The biggest incumbent in this space is UiPath, but there are a host of startups and large companies alike that are tackling it. Most of the things that RPA is used for can be easily scripted, e.g. download a form from one website, open up Adobe. There are a lot of startups that are trying to build agentic versions of RPA, I'm glad to see Anthropic is investing in it now too.

monkeydust 2y ago
Exactly. I have been wondering for a while how GenAI might upend RPA providers guess this might be the answer.
- arach 2y ago
  I've been wondering the same and started exploring building a startup around this idea. My analysis led me to the conclusion that if AI gets even just 2 orders of magnitude better over the next two years, this will be "easy" and considered table stakes. Like connecting to the internet, syncing with cloud or using printer drivers I don't think there will be a very big place for standalone next gen RPA pure plays. it makes sense that companies that are trying to deliver value would implement capabilities this. Over time, I expect some conventions/specs will emerge. Either Apple/Google or Anthropic/OpenAI are likely to come up with an implementation that everyone aligns on In other words, I agree
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    > if AI gets even just 2 orders of magnitude better over the next two years You realize this means '100 times better', right?
    - arach 2y ago
      yes, thanks for pointing out the assumption here. I'm not sure how to quantify AI improvements and tbh not really up to speed on quantifiable rate of improvement from 4 to 4o to o1 100 times better seems to me in line with the bet that's justifying $250B per annum in Cap Ex (just among hyperscalers) but curious how you might project a few years out? Having said that, my use of 100x better here applies to 100x more effective at navigating use cases not in training set, for example, as opposed to doing things that are 100x more awesome or doing them 100x more efficiently (though seemingly costs, context window and token per unit of electricity seem to continue to improve quickly)
      - Eisenstein 2y ago
        I would think that such an increase in AI capability would basically be AGI... Just to give a few comparisons, the following things are two orders of magnitude apart: 1. The force felt by a mosquito landing on your arm and getting punched by Mike Tyson in his prime 2. A firecracker exploding and a stick of dynamite exploding 3. The heat from a candle and the heat from a blowtorch 4. The sound from a whisper and the sound from jet engine
tkellogg 2y ago
Honestly, this is going to be huge for healthcare. There's an incredible amount of waste due to incumbent tech making interoperability difficult.
- voidmain0001 2y ago
  Hopefully. I’ve implemented quite a few RPA apps and the struggle is the request/response turn around time for realtime transactions. For batch data extract or input, RPA is great since there’s no expectation of process duration. However, when a client requests data in realtime that can only be retrieved from an app using RPA, the response time is abysmal. Just picture it - Start the app, log into the app if it requires authentication (hope that the authentication's MFA is email based rather than token based, and then access the mailbox using an in-place configuration with MS Graph/Google Workspace/etc), navigate to the app’s view that has the data or worse, bring up a search interface since the exact data isn’t known and try and find the requested data. So brittle...
- girvo 2y ago
  We’ll see. Having worked in this space in the past, the technical challenges are able to overcome today with no new technology: its a business sales and regulation challenge more than a tech one.
  - claytongulick 2y ago
    Sometimes. In my case I have a bunch of nurses that waste a huge amount of time dealing with clerical work and tech hoops, rather than operating at the top of their license. Traditional RPAs are tough when you're dealing with VPNs, 2fa, remote desktop (in multiple ways), a variety of EHRs and scraping clinical documentation from poorly structured clinical notes or PDFs. This technology looks like it could be a game changer for our organization.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      True, 2FA and all these little details that exist now have made this automation quite insanely complicated. It is of course necessary that we have 2FA etc, but there is huge potential in solving this I believe.
CSMastermind 2y ago
RPA has been a huge pain to work with. It's almost always a framework around existing tools like Selenium that you constantly have to fight against to get good results from. I was always left with the feeling that I could build something better myself just handrolling the scripts rather than using their frameworks. Getting Claude integrated into the space is going to be a game changer.
- xxpor 2y ago
  I can see it now, Claude generating expect scripts. 1994 and 2024 will be fully joined.
  - falcor84 2y ago
    The big thing I expect at the next level is in using Claude to first generate UI-based automation based on an end user's instructions, then automatically defining a suite of end-to-end tests, confirming with the user "is this how it should work?", and then finally using this suite to reimplement the flow from first principles. I know we're still a bit far from there, but I don't see a particular hurdle that strikes me as requiring novel research.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      But does it do any better at soliciting the surprise requirements from the user, who after confirming that everything works, two months later reports a production bug because the software isn't correctly performing the different reqirements on the first Tuesday of each quarter that you never knew about.
      - mrbombastic 2y ago
        I once had an executive ask to start an incident because he was showing a client the app and a feature that he wanted that had never been spec’d didn’t exist.
        2y ago
iwontberude 2y ago
UiPath can't figure out how to make a profitable business since 2005 and we are nearing the end of this hype cycle. I am not so sure this will lead anywhere. I am a former investor in UiPath.
- voidmain0001 2y ago
  It didn’t help that UIPath forced a subscription model and “cloud orchestrator” on all users and many of which needed neither. They got greedy. We ditched it.
- zukzuk 2y ago
  Attempts at commercialization in technology seem to often happen twice. First we get the much-hyped failure, and only later we get the actual thing that was promised. So many examples come to mind… RealVideo -> YouTube, Myspace -> Facebook, Laserdisc -> DVD, MP3 players -> iPod… UiPath may end up being the burned pancake, but the underlying problem they’re trying to address is immensely lucrative and possibly solvable (hey if we got the Turing test solved so quickly, I’m willing to believe anything is possible).
  - iwontberude 2y ago
    I love the “burned pancake” euphemism. Totally going to borrow this.
creativenolo 2y ago
I was going to comment about this. Worked at a place that had a “Robotics Department”, wow I thought. Only to find out it was automating arcane software. UI is now much more accessible as API. I hope we don’t start seeing captcha like behaviour in desktop or web software.
- bonoboTP 2y ago
  Wow, that's a grim potential future. I can already see software producers saying that e.g. the default license only allows operation of our CAD designer software by a human operator. If you want to make your bot use it in an automated way you must by the bot license which costs 10x more.
pc86 2y ago
Is "AI SaaS bro discovers not everything has a JSON API" the new "startup bro just reinvented a bus"?
- pxlwdth 2y ago
  Good one.
eitally 2y ago
My impression is that actually solving this classic RPA problem with AI is exactly the raison d'etre of AI21Labs with their task specific models[1]. They don't have the biggest or best general purpose LLM, but they have an excellent model that's been pre-trained on specific types of business data and also made available for developers using simple APIs & "RPA-style" interfaces. [1] https://www.ai21.com/use-cases https://www.ai21.com/use-cases

by aduffy 2y ago

monkeydust 2y ago

Exactly. I have been wondering for a while how GenAI might upend RPA providers guess this might be the answer.

arach 2y ago
I've been wondering the same and started exploring building a startup around this idea. My analysis led me to the conclusion that if AI gets even just 2 orders of magnitude better over the next two years, this will be "easy" and considered table stakes. Like connecting to the internet, syncing with cloud or using printer drivers I don't think there will be a very big place for standalone next gen RPA pure plays. it makes sense that companies that are trying to deliver value would implement capabilities this. Over time, I expect some conventions/specs will emerge. Either Apple/Google or Anthropic/OpenAI are likely to come up with an implementation that everyone aligns on In other words, I agree
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  > if AI gets even just 2 orders of magnitude better over the next two years You realize this means '100 times better', right?
  - arach 2y ago
    yes, thanks for pointing out the assumption here. I'm not sure how to quantify AI improvements and tbh not really up to speed on quantifiable rate of improvement from 4 to 4o to o1 100 times better seems to me in line with the bet that's justifying $250B per annum in Cap Ex (just among hyperscalers) but curious how you might project a few years out? Having said that, my use of 100x better here applies to 100x more effective at navigating use cases not in training set, for example, as opposed to doing things that are 100x more awesome or doing them 100x more efficiently (though seemingly costs, context window and token per unit of electricity seem to continue to improve quickly)
    - Eisenstein 2y ago
      I would think that such an increase in AI capability would basically be AGI... Just to give a few comparisons, the following things are two orders of magnitude apart: 1. The force felt by a mosquito landing on your arm and getting punched by Mike Tyson in his prime 2. A firecracker exploding and a stick of dynamite exploding 3. The heat from a candle and the heat from a blowtorch 4. The sound from a whisper and the sound from jet engine

tkellogg 2y ago

Honestly, this is going to be huge for healthcare. There's an incredible amount of waste due to incumbent tech making interoperability difficult.

voidmain0001 2y ago
Hopefully. I’ve implemented quite a few RPA apps and the struggle is the request/response turn around time for realtime transactions. For batch data extract or input, RPA is great since there’s no expectation of process duration. However, when a client requests data in realtime that can only be retrieved from an app using RPA, the response time is abysmal. Just picture it - Start the app, log into the app if it requires authentication (hope that the authentication's MFA is email based rather than token based, and then access the mailbox using an in-place configuration with MS Graph/Google Workspace/etc), navigate to the app’s view that has the data or worse, bring up a search interface since the exact data isn’t known and try and find the requested data. So brittle...
girvo 2y ago
We’ll see. Having worked in this space in the past, the technical challenges are able to overcome today with no new technology: its a business sales and regulation challenge more than a tech one.
- claytongulick 2y ago
  Sometimes. In my case I have a bunch of nurses that waste a huge amount of time dealing with clerical work and tech hoops, rather than operating at the top of their license. Traditional RPAs are tough when you're dealing with VPNs, 2fa, remote desktop (in multiple ways), a variety of EHRs and scraping clinical documentation from poorly structured clinical notes or PDFs. This technology looks like it could be a game changer for our organization.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    True, 2FA and all these little details that exist now have made this automation quite insanely complicated. It is of course necessary that we have 2FA etc, but there is huge potential in solving this I believe.

CSMastermind 2y ago

RPA has been a huge pain to work with. It's almost always a framework around existing tools like Selenium that you constantly have to fight against to get good results from. I was always left with the feeling that I could build something better myself just handrolling the scripts rather than using their frameworks. Getting Claude integrated into the space is going to be a game changer.

xxpor 2y ago
I can see it now, Claude generating expect scripts. 1994 and 2024 will be fully joined.
- falcor84 2y ago
  The big thing I expect at the next level is in using Claude to first generate UI-based automation based on an end user's instructions, then automatically defining a suite of end-to-end tests, confirming with the user "is this how it should work?", and then finally using this suite to reimplement the flow from first principles. I know we're still a bit far from there, but I don't see a particular hurdle that strikes me as requiring novel research.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    But does it do any better at soliciting the surprise requirements from the user, who after confirming that everything works, two months later reports a production bug because the software isn't correctly performing the different reqirements on the first Tuesday of each quarter that you never knew about.
    - mrbombastic 2y ago
      I once had an executive ask to start an incident because he was showing a client the app and a feature that he wanted that had never been spec’d didn’t exist.
      - 2y ago

iwontberude 2y ago

UiPath can't figure out how to make a profitable business since 2005 and we are nearing the end of this hype cycle. I am not so sure this will lead anywhere. I am a former investor in UiPath.

voidmain0001 2y ago
It didn’t help that UIPath forced a subscription model and “cloud orchestrator” on all users and many of which needed neither. They got greedy. We ditched it.
zukzuk 2y ago
Attempts at commercialization in technology seem to often happen twice. First we get the much-hyped failure, and only later we get the actual thing that was promised. So many examples come to mind… RealVideo -> YouTube, Myspace -> Facebook, Laserdisc -> DVD, MP3 players -> iPod… UiPath may end up being the burned pancake, but the underlying problem they’re trying to address is immensely lucrative and possibly solvable (hey if we got the Turing test solved so quickly, I’m willing to believe anything is possible).
- iwontberude 2y ago
  I love the “burned pancake” euphemism. Totally going to borrow this.

creativenolo 2y ago

I was going to comment about this. Worked at a place that had a “Robotics Department”, wow I thought. Only to find out it was automating arcane software. UI is now much more accessible as API. I hope we don’t start seeing captcha like behaviour in desktop or web software.

bonoboTP 2y ago
Wow, that's a grim potential future. I can already see software producers saying that e.g. the default license only allows operation of our CAD designer software by a human operator. If you want to make your bot use it in an automated way you must by the bot license which costs 10x more.

pc86 2y ago

Is "AI SaaS bro discovers not everything has a JSON API" the new "startup bro just reinvented a bus"?

pxlwdth 2y ago
Good one.

eitally 2y ago

My impression is that actually solving this classic RPA problem with AI is exactly the raison d'etre of AI21Labs with their task specific models[1]. They don't have the biggest or best general purpose LLM, but they have an excellent model that's been pre-trained on specific types of business data and also made available for developers using simple APIs & "RPA-style" interfaces. [1] https://www.ai21.com/use-cases https://www.ai21.com/use-cases