4 ms·

Total click bait title. The entire premise is based on the assumption that these agents will actually do the correct task every time. No one. And I mean NO ONE

Total click bait title. The entire premise is based on the assumption that these agents will actually do the correct task every time. No one. And I mean NO ONE is going to delegate anything like travel or purchasing items to an AI. They just get it wrong too much.

hipadev23 2y ago
Much of the same commentary was confidently asserted during the 90’s about online shopping, stock trading, and dating.
- localghost3000 2y ago
  I think that’s a fair point although I think this is a very different animal. When it comes to money, or really any kind of action that has consequences, you want the assurance of a deterministic outcome. That is simply not possible with this technology. Maybe it will be but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that so far.
  - Nathanba 2y ago
    People even let the cars drive on their own and they take their hands off the wheel. Letting an AI do a purchase is far less risky. People are fine with things like this as long as it appears to work reliably enough.
    - localghost3000 2y ago
      Again. Different animal. That’s highly regulated and in limited markets. You also need to pay close attention so you can grab the wheel when it gets things wrong. And it does. A lot. The underlying tech is not the same either.
      - Nathanba 2y ago
        Yes, it's even easier in this market with no regulations and less risk so browser and software automation via AI will happen far faster.
        localghost3000 2y ago
        I'm having a hard time figuring out if you're saying that like it's a good thing. The tech will definitely get rolled out. It will cause real harm and cost real money because of that lack of regulation you speak of. I am certainly not going to trust it with anything of consequence.
  - hipadev23 2y ago
    Credit card companies will simply add another bullet point to their zero liability protection offerings: "You are not liable for unintended purchases made by Agentic AI systems". OpenAI will subsidize banks to offer that safety-net for users of Operator. If Chase says you're 100% not on the hook for purchase mistakes made by OpenAI's Operator -- are you going to take the risk (as you pointed out, it's financial, it matters to people) with Perplexity Pro or Siri?
  - mercer 2y ago
    It doesn't have to be deterministic. Anyone who wants assurances would simply get a full plan of actions to take, and could edit the individual tasks before confirming their execution. Just like with a real assistant, one could set very clear boundaries as to how much the assistant could spend, on what, etc., or even specify that more money can be spent in, say, a particular period and with a few extra passes (using different models?) just to make sure. It does really feel like the same animal, because to the degree that I remember the discussions, a lot of it was about a perception of some kind of dichotomy (control or not, being able to 'touch' the product or not, etc.) that really doesn't need to exist.
    - localghost3000 2y ago
      > It doesn't have to be deterministic There are cases where this could be true. I could see, say, asking it to do some research for you or something. Or maybe grab some restaurant recommendations. Really anything that brings you options that you can then make a decision on. If I do end up using this tech, thats how I would feel comfortable using it. When it comes to things like making purchases and such on your behalf, thats where I disagree. Even with boundaries it's just not deterministic enough for most peoples risk appetite IMO. And when I say "most people" I am not talking about HN folks. And just to be clear, I do use this technology. I just am very aware that its not this magic bullet that the AI bros want us to believe it is. I used it this morning in fact to help me write up some code I felt too lazy to deal with. It very quickly and efficiently wrote what I asked. I was pleasantly surprised and _almost_ missed the very bad bug that it dropped right into the middle of it all. I'm not giving my credit card to that lol.
      - mercer 2y ago
        I do agree with that. What I'm seeing (and building for myself) really boils down to 'for anything I am remotely uncomfortable trusting the AIs with, I trust them enough to conveniently present me the action or actions they want to take, and I trust myself enough to build a UI that doesn't make it too easy for me to lazily or accidentally click yes on a hallucinated 5000 dollar expense. The fact that such an AI, with sufficient development, even given what we have now, could present everything on a silver platter up to the execution of the /exact/ commands, and this alone is incredibly useful and can save a lot of time/expense/effort. The crucial bit is that with, say, a human personal assistant, even if they say they will do exactly what you tell them to do, it's still ultimately inexact. But with an AI, it's trivial to 'decorate' a structured 'command object' (as json, xml, whatever) and from that moment let the deterministic system take over. If anything, we sometimes want an actual human to /not/ deterministically execute /exactly/ what we tell them to, because perhaps they might know we were angry, drunk, or they just heard something on the news that should invalidate our request. Either way, my point is that this distinction between 'doing research' and 'doing a thing' is not so dichotomous. In practice, I suspect all but the most autonomously-minded people, and especially non-IT folk, given enough sense of control over the confirmation of potentially 'fuzzy' actions, are happy with an AI doing a ton of stuff for them.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  A travel agent is the go to chatbot example for the past 20 years
- AliAbdoli 2y ago
  They were right about dating
  - hipadev23 2y ago
    No? A majority of couples today first meet via online dating.
    - AliAbdoli 2y ago
      I would argue nearly 100% of those couples would have found someone off the apps and would have had a much happier dating experience if they didn't exist. Just because they work that doesn't make them a good experience. Show me one dating app with good reviews.
- namaria 2y ago
  Sure look at the great net positive that has been Amazon, meme stocks and the current online dating apps.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
schoen 2y ago
How does the current system pay for bookings like this? And where does it get the customer's contact information to provide to the tour operator? Does the customer fill it all in when signing up for the Operator service? (That seems like a lot of trust to me!)
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Many people already have their credit card(s) stored on their phone and computer. I don't think they'll have any problem giving the details to a big company like OpenAI. But I wonder if OpenAI wants to do that, because when real money gets involved, a whole lot of responsibility to the customer for any purchase comes with it.
OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago
I would totally delegate an AI to find and purchase my flight tickets. Just let me see the final confirmation and you're good to go. Cursor already reads my private keys and writes code that goes straight to prod. I've stopped validating GPT 4o output for data analysis. Sure, things go wrong from time to time, but the convenience is unmatched.
- thinkyfish 2y ago
  And then when you find out they didn't give you the best deal, you got the sponsored pick? And you didn't even get to comparison shop? The AI tax is coming for your choices, one purchase at a time.
dylan604 2y ago
> No one. And I mean NO ONE is going to delegate anything like travel or purchasing items to an AI. That's a bold statement. There are people that get in the backseat or passenger seat while their FSD is driving. There are plenty of other examples of how humans do things because they are reckless or ignorant or any other adjective you want to use
- nunez 2y ago
  FSD will not engage if the drivers seat is empty or buckled. It also freaks out when it thinks that a cheating device is present.
  - localghost3000 2y ago
    I seem to recall reading that a lot of the self driving taxis have remote operators standing by ready to take over as well?
- localghost3000 2y ago
  I think the failure of Amazon Alexa is a better reference point here. The goal with that device was to buy stuff through it. No one did because no one trusted it to do the right thing. We just ask it to tell us the weather or play a song.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    better or just another, but at least when Alexa plays the wrong song it doesn't really have a chance to kill you or others like FSD failures
threecheese 2y ago
If the net cost is lower, it will happen. It is unlikely that you (or I) will have much of a say in the matter (besides individual decisions) and it will begin to replace parts of the system we don’t have influence over. Insurability, hiring decisions, risk based costing, customer support, and (looking like potentially) government agency interactions. I’ve just had an interaction with an insurer who used an ML based system to judge insurability (risk) and make recommendations (requirements) to me for immediate action or policy termination. Fascinating, and totally doable with today’s technology, but it makes me very uneasy. Anyway, it’s cheaper than hiring an inspector and it gave me some batshit recommendations- including removal of invasive plant material (vines on a trellis, looks great in July) and removing extensive roof debris (leaves, we live in a forest). My recourse is an extremely annoying call center hell, or get on the roof. Guess what I did. And I’m not getting a discount.
kohee 2y ago
Agree. Adding: LLM models we have today will never produce 100% accurate things. Therefore, they will never be more than a simple tool to use in our daily basis. To delegate our money/critical-wise tasks to an AI (and other things people dream of), first cientists must find a way different technology we have today. Spoiler: If it ever happens, it's not something we, normal people, will have the pleasure to be fiddling with firsthand. The country capable of discover and develop it first will dominate everything.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  We are very far from that. I'll think about it when OpenAI have the best Chat app. Nowadays many indie developers create better interfaces in a weekend. What AI are the web engineers there using?
swatcoder 2y ago
I hope you're right! But that assumption is precisely a goal of OpenAI and Anthropic, and it's useful to continue that train of thought to see the bigger picture of where things will go if they get what they want. The article did a very astute job of that.
adamredwoods 2y ago
From OpenAI: >> Takeover mode: Operator asks the user to take over when inputting sensitive information into the browser, such as login credentials or payment information. When in takeover mode, Operator does not collect or screenshot information entered by the user.

hipadev23 2y ago

Much of the same commentary was confidently asserted during the 90’s about online shopping, stock trading, and dating.

localghost3000 2y ago
I think that’s a fair point although I think this is a very different animal. When it comes to money, or really any kind of action that has consequences, you want the assurance of a deterministic outcome. That is simply not possible with this technology. Maybe it will be but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that so far.
- Nathanba 2y ago
  People even let the cars drive on their own and they take their hands off the wheel. Letting an AI do a purchase is far less risky. People are fine with things like this as long as it appears to work reliably enough.
  - localghost3000 2y ago
    Again. Different animal. That’s highly regulated and in limited markets. You also need to pay close attention so you can grab the wheel when it gets things wrong. And it does. A lot. The underlying tech is not the same either.
    - Nathanba 2y ago
      Yes, it's even easier in this market with no regulations and less risk so browser and software automation via AI will happen far faster.
      - localghost3000 2y ago
        I'm having a hard time figuring out if you're saying that like it's a good thing. The tech will definitely get rolled out. It will cause real harm and cost real money because of that lack of regulation you speak of. I am certainly not going to trust it with anything of consequence.
- hipadev23 2y ago
  Credit card companies will simply add another bullet point to their zero liability protection offerings: "You are not liable for unintended purchases made by Agentic AI systems". OpenAI will subsidize banks to offer that safety-net for users of Operator. If Chase says you're 100% not on the hook for purchase mistakes made by OpenAI's Operator -- are you going to take the risk (as you pointed out, it's financial, it matters to people) with Perplexity Pro or Siri?
- mercer 2y ago
  It doesn't have to be deterministic. Anyone who wants assurances would simply get a full plan of actions to take, and could edit the individual tasks before confirming their execution. Just like with a real assistant, one could set very clear boundaries as to how much the assistant could spend, on what, etc., or even specify that more money can be spent in, say, a particular period and with a few extra passes (using different models?) just to make sure. It does really feel like the same animal, because to the degree that I remember the discussions, a lot of it was about a perception of some kind of dichotomy (control or not, being able to 'touch' the product or not, etc.) that really doesn't need to exist.
  - localghost3000 2y ago
    > It doesn't have to be deterministic There are cases where this could be true. I could see, say, asking it to do some research for you or something. Or maybe grab some restaurant recommendations. Really anything that brings you options that you can then make a decision on. If I do end up using this tech, thats how I would feel comfortable using it. When it comes to things like making purchases and such on your behalf, thats where I disagree. Even with boundaries it's just not deterministic enough for most peoples risk appetite IMO. And when I say "most people" I am not talking about HN folks. And just to be clear, I do use this technology. I just am very aware that its not this magic bullet that the AI bros want us to believe it is. I used it this morning in fact to help me write up some code I felt too lazy to deal with. It very quickly and efficiently wrote what I asked. I was pleasantly surprised and _almost_ missed the very bad bug that it dropped right into the middle of it all. I'm not giving my credit card to that lol.
    - mercer 2y ago
      I do agree with that. What I'm seeing (and building for myself) really boils down to 'for anything I am remotely uncomfortable trusting the AIs with, I trust them enough to conveniently present me the action or actions they want to take, and I trust myself enough to build a UI that doesn't make it too easy for me to lazily or accidentally click yes on a hallucinated 5000 dollar expense. The fact that such an AI, with sufficient development, even given what we have now, could present everything on a silver platter up to the execution of the /exact/ commands, and this alone is incredibly useful and can save a lot of time/expense/effort. The crucial bit is that with, say, a human personal assistant, even if they say they will do exactly what you tell them to do, it's still ultimately inexact. But with an AI, it's trivial to 'decorate' a structured 'command object' (as json, xml, whatever) and from that moment let the deterministic system take over. If anything, we sometimes want an actual human to /not/ deterministically execute /exactly/ what we tell them to, because perhaps they might know we were angry, drunk, or they just heard something on the news that should invalidate our request. Either way, my point is that this distinction between 'doing research' and 'doing a thing' is not so dichotomous. In practice, I suspect all but the most autonomously-minded people, and especially non-IT folk, given enough sense of control over the confirmation of potentially 'fuzzy' actions, are happy with an AI doing a ton of stuff for them.
meiraleal 2y ago
A travel agent is the go to chatbot example for the past 20 years
AliAbdoli 2y ago
They were right about dating
- hipadev23 2y ago
  No? A majority of couples today first meet via online dating.
  - AliAbdoli 2y ago
    I would argue nearly 100% of those couples would have found someone off the apps and would have had a much happier dating experience if they didn't exist. Just because they work that doesn't make them a good experience. Show me one dating app with good reviews.
namaria 2y ago
Sure look at the great net positive that has been Amazon, meme stocks and the current online dating apps.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

schoen 2y ago

How does the current system pay for bookings like this? And where does it get the customer's contact information to provide to the tour operator? Does the customer fill it all in when signing up for the Operator service? (That seems like a lot of trust to me!)

carlosjobim 2y ago
Many people already have their credit card(s) stored on their phone and computer. I don't think they'll have any problem giving the details to a big company like OpenAI. But I wonder if OpenAI wants to do that, because when real money gets involved, a whole lot of responsibility to the customer for any purchase comes with it.

OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago

I would totally delegate an AI to find and purchase my flight tickets. Just let me see the final confirmation and you're good to go. Cursor already reads my private keys and writes code that goes straight to prod. I've stopped validating GPT 4o output for data analysis. Sure, things go wrong from time to time, but the convenience is unmatched.

thinkyfish 2y ago
And then when you find out they didn't give you the best deal, you got the sponsored pick? And you didn't even get to comparison shop? The AI tax is coming for your choices, one purchase at a time.

dylan604 2y ago

> No one. And I mean NO ONE is going to delegate anything like travel or purchasing items to an AI. That's a bold statement. There are people that get in the backseat or passenger seat while their FSD is driving. There are plenty of other examples of how humans do things because they are reckless or ignorant or any other adjective you want to use

nunez 2y ago
FSD will not engage if the drivers seat is empty or buckled. It also freaks out when it thinks that a cheating device is present.
- localghost3000 2y ago
  I seem to recall reading that a lot of the self driving taxis have remote operators standing by ready to take over as well?
localghost3000 2y ago
I think the failure of Amazon Alexa is a better reference point here. The goal with that device was to buy stuff through it. No one did because no one trusted it to do the right thing. We just ask it to tell us the weather or play a song.
- dylan604 2y ago
  better or just another, but at least when Alexa plays the wrong song it doesn't really have a chance to kill you or others like FSD failures

threecheese 2y ago

If the net cost is lower, it will happen. It is unlikely that you (or I) will have much of a say in the matter (besides individual decisions) and it will begin to replace parts of the system we don’t have influence over. Insurability, hiring decisions, risk based costing, customer support, and (looking like potentially) government agency interactions. I’ve just had an interaction with an insurer who used an ML based system to judge insurability (risk) and make recommendations (requirements) to me for immediate action or policy termination. Fascinating, and totally doable with today’s technology, but it makes me very uneasy. Anyway, it’s cheaper than hiring an inspector and it gave me some batshit recommendations- including removal of invasive plant material (vines on a trellis, looks great in July) and removing extensive roof debris (leaves, we live in a forest). My recourse is an extremely annoying call center hell, or get on the roof. Guess what I did. And I’m not getting a discount.

kohee 2y ago

Agree. Adding: LLM models we have today will never produce 100% accurate things. Therefore, they will never be more than a simple tool to use in our daily basis. To delegate our money/critical-wise tasks to an AI (and other things people dream of), first cientists must find a way different technology we have today. Spoiler: If it ever happens, it's not something we, normal people, will have the pleasure to be fiddling with firsthand. The country capable of discover and develop it first will dominate everything.

meiraleal 2y ago
We are very far from that. I'll think about it when OpenAI have the best Chat app. Nowadays many indie developers create better interfaces in a weekend. What AI are the web engineers there using?

swatcoder 2y ago

I hope you're right! But that assumption is precisely a goal of OpenAI and Anthropic, and it's useful to continue that train of thought to see the bigger picture of where things will go if they get what they want. The article did a very astute job of that.

adamredwoods 2y ago

From OpenAI: >> Takeover mode: Operator asks the user to take over when inputting sensitive information into the browser, such as login credentials or payment information. When in takeover mode, Operator does not collect or screenshot information entered by the user.