6 ms·

Nobody actually wants half the useless tools companies are coming up with because most of the solutions are not really novel. They are just wrapping an LLM. It

Nobody actually wants half the useless tools companies are coming up with because most of the solutions are not really novel. They are just wrapping an LLM. It's kinda like what I realized with the meta Ray-Bans: I can have these things on my face, they can tell me the answer to virtually any question in 10 seconds or less. But I, as a human, rarely have questions to ask. When you walk in to your local grocery store - you generally know what you want and where to find it. A ton of companies are just gluing LLM text boxes into apps and then scratching their heads when people don't use them. Why? Because the customer wasn't the user - it was their boss and shareholders. It was all done to make someone else think 'woah, they are following the trend!'. The core issue with generative AI is that it all works best when focused in a narrow sense. There is like one or two really clever uses I've seen - disappointingly, one of them was Jira. The internal jargon dictionary tool was legitimately impressive. Will it make any more money? Probably not.

thewebguyd 1y ago
> There is like one or two really clever uses I've seen - disappointingly, one of them was Jira. The internal jargon dictionary tool was legitimately impressive. Will it make any more money? Probably not. Sounds like Microsoft 365 Copilot at my org. Sucks at nearly everything, but it actually makes a fantastic search engine for emails, teams convos, sharepoint docs, etc. Much better that Microsoft's own global search stuff. Outside of coding, that's the only other real world use case I've found for LLMs - "get me all the emails, chats, and documents related to this upcoming meeting" and it's pretty good at that. Though I'm not sure we should be killing the earth for better search, there are probably other, better ways to do it.
- ljf 1y ago
  Agreed - 95% of the questions I ask Copilot, I could answer myself by searching emails, Teams messages and files - BUT Copilot does a far far better job than me, and quicker. I went from barely using it, to using it daily. I wouldn't say it is a massive speed boost for me, but I'd miss it if it was taken away. Then the other 5% is the 'extra; it does for me, and gets me details I wouldn't have even known where to find. But it is just fancy search for me so far - but fancy search I see as valuable.
- tasty_freeze 1y ago
  My favorite copilot use is when I join a MS Teams meeting a few minutes late I can ask copilot: what have I missed? It does a fantastic job of summarizing who said what.
  - player1234 1y ago
    Isn't there another problem with an employee coming routinely late to meetings, so much that the employee could use a service to bandaid this behavior, asking for a friend
- kyledrake 1y ago
  > Though I'm not sure we should be killing the earth for better search Are we, though? What I have read so far suggests the carbon footprint of training models like gpt4 was "a couple weeks of flights from SFO to NYC" https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-bad-for https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-b... They also seem to be coming down in power usage substantially, at least for inference. There's pretty good models that can run on laptops now, and I still very much think we're in the model T phase of this technology so I expect further efficiency refinements. It also seems like they have recently hit a "cap" on the increase in intelligence models are getting for more raw power. The trendline right now makes me wonder if we'll be talking about "dark datacenters" in the future the same way we talked about dark fiber after the dot com bubble.
Culonavirus 1y ago
> Because the customer wasn't the user - it was their boss and shareholders. It's kinda funny that some online shops are now bragging how great their customer support is because they DON'T use LLM bots xD
- belter 1y ago
  Dealing with real humans in the future will be the ultimate VIP treatment.
  - throwanem 1y ago
    It already is.
addaon 1y ago
> But I, as a human, rarely have questions to ask. Wow. This just does not match my personal experience. I do an hour or so walk around the reservoir near my house 4-5 times a week, letting my mind wander freely -- and I find that I stop on average at least five or ten times to take notes about questions to learn the answers to later, and occasionally decide that it's worth it to break pace to start learning the answer right then and there.
- svara 1y ago
  I think not having those instant answers available is a big part of why your mind wanders in that setting.
  - addaon 1y ago
    I have the answers available (I have a phone and good connection), I just am tactical about when to pursue the answer in realtime and when not. If it feels like it's going to open up a wider field of questioning -- or if it feels like I'll learn that this vein is fully mined and goes nowhere -- I'll spend a few minutes searching; otherwise, defer.
  - mikepurvis 1y ago
    I was going to say the same. It's probably so much healthier to make note of questions for later research than to stop right then and there and either a) fall down a Wikipedia rabbit hole or b) have an AI strapped to your face perform an info-dump.
    - throwanem 1y ago
      Not everyone wants an imagination. This is good for those who don't.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- reactordev 1y ago
sidewndr46 1y ago
I've tried to express a similar sentiment to people in the past - that 443rd redesign of the UI for JIRA that moves a button from one side to another. It isn't actually for you. You aren't the user of the software. The user of the software is the product manager (or equivalent role). They need to justify their current role or their next promotion.
- hn_acc1 1y ago
  Sadly, it takes away from my productivity when I was already used to the position of the button previously. I do understand that sometimes things need to be redesigned. But crowing like you landed on the moon because your new phone icons now have "rounded edges with shading" or somesuch fuckery that will just slow down the rendering.. gets old and annoying really fast.
tempodox 1y ago
> … disappointingly, one of them was Jira. I think this highlights an interesting point: Sensible use cases are unsexy. But the pushers want stuff, however unrealistic, that lends itself to breathless hype that can be blown out of proportion.
raincole 1y ago
> I, as a human, rarely have questions to ask This is an eye-opening sentence. It's quite hard to imagine how to live one's daily life with "few questions to ask." Perhaps this is a neurodivergent thing?
- zoeysmithe 1y ago
  I'm autistic and I probably ask many more questions than most people. I would also argue that ND people seem to be the heavier AI users, at least in my experience. Its a bit like the stereotypical 'wikipedia deep dive' but 10x.
- R_D_Olivaw 1y ago
  Oh what a blissful environment the mind that is not full of constant questions begging to be answered and explored must be. I'll just be over here, floating (often treading water) in a raging river of "what ifs ...", "I wonder ifs..." And, "Hmmms?"
- dwb 1y ago
  Don’t try and diagnose people like this please. Even if you’re qualified, and I doubt you are, it’s very insensitive.
- throwawaylaptop 1y ago
  I always ponder how many people have a refrigerator in their home their entire life, and what percentage of them don't know how it works. I've asked several gfs, and they don't have even a hint of how it works. Guy friends do a bit better but not as well as you'd think. So yes, people live their entire lives not asking obvious questions.
  - hitarpetar 1y ago
    some of us have other things to do
    - throwawaylaptop 1y ago
      Obviously we have infinite things to do. But we also waste a shocking about of time on random leisure and braindead nonsense. The interesting part to me is that we obviously do 'must do' and 'should do' and even 'want to do' things before we utterly waste time. I'm just shocked that "learn how this important object in my home works" is not somewhere on either of those 3 lists.
iib 1y ago
I think those kind of glasses may be really useful for blind people. I have seen similar glasses targeted at blind people, that at least in theory, seemed to me like a good idea. I recall the glasses also can write on the screen inside the lens, which makes me think they may be good for deaf people as well. It's just that these use-cases seem uncool, and big companies seem to have to be cool in order to keep either their status or their profits. But I have a feeling the technology may be really useful for some really vulnerable people.
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  Yes, there are people working on image recognition glasses for blind people. Nobody seems to have been successful yet, and I think the focus on applying LLMs instead of dumb UI and mixed dumb and ML image processing is a large reason why.
- agloe_dreams 1y ago
  Oh I do still enjoy the glasses, they are actually rather incredible, even though they do not have a screen. That said - These actually do have a Be My Eyes integration - It is incredibly impressive.
com2kid 1y ago
I use my Meta glasses heavily on vacation, and then occasionally else where. The latest Llama isn't as smart as OpenAI, so after a few wrong answers I gave up on day to day queries. That said, the scenarios they are good at they are really good at. I was traveling in Europe and the glasses where translating engravings on castle walls, translating and summarizing historical plaques, and just generally letting me know what was going on around me.
palmfacehn 1y ago
>Because the customer wasn't the user - it was their boss and shareholders. It was all done to make someone else think 'woah, they are following the trend!'. I'm seeing this again and again. Customers as users seems like the last concern, if it is a concern at all. Adherence to the narrative du jour, fundraising from investors and hyping the useless product up to dump on retail are the primary concerns. Vaporware or a useless, unlaunched product are advantageous here. Actual users might report how underwhelming or useless it is. Sky high development costs are touted as wins.
WD-42 1y ago
I just finished implementing a chatbot in a box for a clients sass. What problem does it solve? None that I can tell, other than now the sass “has ai”. I still have access to the OpenAI dashboard. I can confirm nobody is actually using it.
- brobdingnagians 1y ago
  We recently got a customer support request asking if we were going to "implement AI" on our website and then saying we could use it in our marketing if we did. No suggestion as to why they would find it useful, or what feature could be augmented with it. It's crazy that the hype is so high that random non-tech users suggest adding AI for marketing.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  Now the sass can sass you
- lumost 1y ago
  Embedded AIs are pretty dumb as a product in my opinion. Why would the customer pay you instead of their existing model vendor of choice? Why do they have to learn your chatbox - when it's probably using a crappier model and lacks the context of their preferred vendor. I really don't want to pay for 5 different AI subscriptions, I want one subscription that works with all my other services (which I already pay for).
duxup 1y ago
Yeah I'm in charge of trying some AI experiments with my company and I look around the landscape for a little inspiration ... is everything just a wrapper on chatgpt or whatever? I can do that too but it's also not very useful and I'm just shipping data off to some AI company too. Don't know if I want to feed client data elsewhere like that.
aaronbaugher 1y ago
> Because the customer wasn't the user - it was their boss and shareholders. I'm starting to get asked, "Could AI help you do such-and-such faster?" At first I tried to explain why the answer is no, because such-and-such doesn't lend itself to what AI is good at. But I'm starting to realize I'm going to have to tell them I am using it and maybe give them an example once in a while, because they're hearing too much about its wonderfulness to believe there's something it can't help with. They're going to think I'm just being stubborn even though I tell them I'm not opposed to using AI where it makes sense. If that means the job actually takes a little longer to add in the part where I use AI to speed it up, they'll be happier.
stevenally 1y ago
"Because the customer wasn't the user - it was their boss and shareholders". Previous management fads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_fad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_fad Obviously in the right contexts, these methods provided value. But they became widely misapplied, causing a lot of harm. And the Wikipedia list is far from exhaustive.
dyauspitr 1y ago
> But I, as a human, rarely have questions to ask. I realistically have between 10-100 questions I ask per day about things not immediately related to work. Double that if you include work based questions.

thewebguyd 1y ago

> There is like one or two really clever uses I've seen - disappointingly, one of them was Jira. The internal jargon dictionary tool was legitimately impressive. Will it make any more money? Probably not. Sounds like Microsoft 365 Copilot at my org. Sucks at nearly everything, but it actually makes a fantastic search engine for emails, teams convos, sharepoint docs, etc. Much better that Microsoft's own global search stuff. Outside of coding, that's the only other real world use case I've found for LLMs - "get me all the emails, chats, and documents related to this upcoming meeting" and it's pretty good at that. Though I'm not sure we should be killing the earth for better search, there are probably other, better ways to do it.

ljf 1y ago
Agreed - 95% of the questions I ask Copilot, I could answer myself by searching emails, Teams messages and files - BUT Copilot does a far far better job than me, and quicker. I went from barely using it, to using it daily. I wouldn't say it is a massive speed boost for me, but I'd miss it if it was taken away. Then the other 5% is the 'extra; it does for me, and gets me details I wouldn't have even known where to find. But it is just fancy search for me so far - but fancy search I see as valuable.
tasty_freeze 1y ago
My favorite copilot use is when I join a MS Teams meeting a few minutes late I can ask copilot: what have I missed? It does a fantastic job of summarizing who said what.
- player1234 1y ago
  Isn't there another problem with an employee coming routinely late to meetings, so much that the employee could use a service to bandaid this behavior, asking for a friend
kyledrake 1y ago
> Though I'm not sure we should be killing the earth for better search Are we, though? What I have read so far suggests the carbon footprint of training models like gpt4 was "a couple weeks of flights from SFO to NYC" https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-bad-for https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-b... They also seem to be coming down in power usage substantially, at least for inference. There's pretty good models that can run on laptops now, and I still very much think we're in the model T phase of this technology so I expect further efficiency refinements. It also seems like they have recently hit a "cap" on the increase in intelligence models are getting for more raw power. The trendline right now makes me wonder if we'll be talking about "dark datacenters" in the future the same way we talked about dark fiber after the dot com bubble.

Culonavirus 1y ago

> Because the customer wasn't the user - it was their boss and shareholders. It's kinda funny that some online shops are now bragging how great their customer support is because they DON'T use LLM bots xD

belter 1y ago
Dealing with real humans in the future will be the ultimate VIP treatment.
- throwanem 1y ago
  It already is.

addaon 1y ago

> But I, as a human, rarely have questions to ask. Wow. This just does not match my personal experience. I do an hour or so walk around the reservoir near my house 4-5 times a week, letting my mind wander freely -- and I find that I stop on average at least five or ten times to take notes about questions to learn the answers to later, and occasionally decide that it's worth it to break pace to start learning the answer right then and there.

svara 1y ago
I think not having those instant answers available is a big part of why your mind wanders in that setting.
- addaon 1y ago
  I have the answers available (I have a phone and good connection), I just am tactical about when to pursue the answer in realtime and when not. If it feels like it's going to open up a wider field of questioning -- or if it feels like I'll learn that this vein is fully mined and goes nowhere -- I'll spend a few minutes searching; otherwise, defer.
- mikepurvis 1y ago
  I was going to say the same. It's probably so much healthier to make note of questions for later research than to stop right then and there and either a) fall down a Wikipedia rabbit hole or b) have an AI strapped to your face perform an info-dump.
  - throwanem 1y ago
    Not everyone wants an imagination. This is good for those who don't.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
reactordev 1y ago

sidewndr46 1y ago

I've tried to express a similar sentiment to people in the past - that 443rd redesign of the UI for JIRA that moves a button from one side to another. It isn't actually for you. You aren't the user of the software. The user of the software is the product manager (or equivalent role). They need to justify their current role or their next promotion.

hn_acc1 1y ago
Sadly, it takes away from my productivity when I was already used to the position of the button previously. I do understand that sometimes things need to be redesigned. But crowing like you landed on the moon because your new phone icons now have "rounded edges with shading" or somesuch fuckery that will just slow down the rendering.. gets old and annoying really fast.

tempodox 1y ago

> … disappointingly, one of them was Jira. I think this highlights an interesting point: Sensible use cases are unsexy. But the pushers want stuff, however unrealistic, that lends itself to breathless hype that can be blown out of proportion.

raincole 1y ago

> I, as a human, rarely have questions to ask This is an eye-opening sentence. It's quite hard to imagine how to live one's daily life with "few questions to ask." Perhaps this is a neurodivergent thing?

zoeysmithe 1y ago
I'm autistic and I probably ask many more questions than most people. I would also argue that ND people seem to be the heavier AI users, at least in my experience. Its a bit like the stereotypical 'wikipedia deep dive' but 10x.
R_D_Olivaw 1y ago
Oh what a blissful environment the mind that is not full of constant questions begging to be answered and explored must be. I'll just be over here, floating (often treading water) in a raging river of "what ifs ...", "I wonder ifs..." And, "Hmmms?"
dwb 1y ago
Don’t try and diagnose people like this please. Even if you’re qualified, and I doubt you are, it’s very insensitive.
throwawaylaptop 1y ago
I always ponder how many people have a refrigerator in their home their entire life, and what percentage of them don't know how it works. I've asked several gfs, and they don't have even a hint of how it works. Guy friends do a bit better but not as well as you'd think. So yes, people live their entire lives not asking obvious questions.
- hitarpetar 1y ago
  some of us have other things to do
  - throwawaylaptop 1y ago
    Obviously we have infinite things to do. But we also waste a shocking about of time on random leisure and braindead nonsense. The interesting part to me is that we obviously do 'must do' and 'should do' and even 'want to do' things before we utterly waste time. I'm just shocked that "learn how this important object in my home works" is not somewhere on either of those 3 lists.

iib 1y ago

I think those kind of glasses may be really useful for blind people. I have seen similar glasses targeted at blind people, that at least in theory, seemed to me like a good idea. I recall the glasses also can write on the screen inside the lens, which makes me think they may be good for deaf people as well. It's just that these use-cases seem uncool, and big companies seem to have to be cool in order to keep either their status or their profits. But I have a feeling the technology may be really useful for some really vulnerable people.

marcosdumay 1y ago
Yes, there are people working on image recognition glasses for blind people. Nobody seems to have been successful yet, and I think the focus on applying LLMs instead of dumb UI and mixed dumb and ML image processing is a large reason why.
agloe_dreams 1y ago
Oh I do still enjoy the glasses, they are actually rather incredible, even though they do not have a screen. That said - These actually do have a Be My Eyes integration - It is incredibly impressive.

com2kid 1y ago

I use my Meta glasses heavily on vacation, and then occasionally else where. The latest Llama isn't as smart as OpenAI, so after a few wrong answers I gave up on day to day queries. That said, the scenarios they are good at they are really good at. I was traveling in Europe and the glasses where translating engravings on castle walls, translating and summarizing historical plaques, and just generally letting me know what was going on around me.

palmfacehn 1y ago

>Because the customer wasn't the user - it was their boss and shareholders. It was all done to make someone else think 'woah, they are following the trend!'. I'm seeing this again and again. Customers as users seems like the last concern, if it is a concern at all. Adherence to the narrative du jour, fundraising from investors and hyping the useless product up to dump on retail are the primary concerns. Vaporware or a useless, unlaunched product are advantageous here. Actual users might report how underwhelming or useless it is. Sky high development costs are touted as wins.

WD-42 1y ago

I just finished implementing a chatbot in a box for a clients sass. What problem does it solve? None that I can tell, other than now the sass “has ai”. I still have access to the OpenAI dashboard. I can confirm nobody is actually using it.

brobdingnagians 1y ago
We recently got a customer support request asking if we were going to "implement AI" on our website and then saying we could use it in our marketing if we did. No suggestion as to why they would find it useful, or what feature could be augmented with it. It's crazy that the hype is so high that random non-tech users suggest adding AI for marketing.
BobaFloutist 1y ago
Now the sass can sass you
lumost 1y ago
Embedded AIs are pretty dumb as a product in my opinion. Why would the customer pay you instead of their existing model vendor of choice? Why do they have to learn your chatbox - when it's probably using a crappier model and lacks the context of their preferred vendor. I really don't want to pay for 5 different AI subscriptions, I want one subscription that works with all my other services (which I already pay for).

duxup 1y ago

Yeah I'm in charge of trying some AI experiments with my company and I look around the landscape for a little inspiration ... is everything just a wrapper on chatgpt or whatever? I can do that too but it's also not very useful and I'm just shipping data off to some AI company too. Don't know if I want to feed client data elsewhere like that.

aaronbaugher 1y ago

> Because the customer wasn't the user - it was their boss and shareholders. I'm starting to get asked, "Could AI help you do such-and-such faster?" At first I tried to explain why the answer is no, because such-and-such doesn't lend itself to what AI is good at. But I'm starting to realize I'm going to have to tell them I am using it and maybe give them an example once in a while, because they're hearing too much about its wonderfulness to believe there's something it can't help with. They're going to think I'm just being stubborn even though I tell them I'm not opposed to using AI where it makes sense. If that means the job actually takes a little longer to add in the part where I use AI to speed it up, they'll be happier.

stevenally 1y ago

"Because the customer wasn't the user - it was their boss and shareholders". Previous management fads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_fad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_fad Obviously in the right contexts, these methods provided value. But they became widely misapplied, causing a lot of harm. And the Wikipedia list is far from exhaustive.

dyauspitr 1y ago

> But I, as a human, rarely have questions to ask. I realistically have between 10-100 questions I ask per day about things not immediately related to work. Double that if you include work based questions.