7 ms·

The great thing about a product like this is that it's so easy to fake it in video. I don't really buy that typing speed is a bottleneck for most people. We ca

The great thing about a product like this is that it's so easy to fake it in video. I don't really buy that typing speed is a bottleneck for most people. We can't actually think all that fast. And I suspect AI is doing a lot of filling in the gaps here. It might have some niche use cases, like being able to use your phone while cycling.

dllthomas 1y ago
Typing speed is very much a bottleneck when I'm washing dishes, at least.
- lennxa 1y ago
  talk then
  - dllthomas 1y ago
    Not ideal, between sound from the washing itself plus whatever else is going on in the house, and I'd rather not add noise that others have to deal with. That said, it's certainly in the mix as competing with other potential solutions.
- prerok 1y ago
  How about when baking? https://xkcd.com/341/ https://xkcd.com/341/
  - dllthomas 1y ago
    Then, too. I cannot compete with Mrs Roberts.
Bjartr 1y ago
Personal anecdote: I do find typing to be a bottleneck in situations where typing speed is valuable (so notes in meetings, not when coding). I can break 100wpm, especially if I accept typos. It's still much, much slower to type than I can think.
- j45 1y ago
  Speech to text can be 130-200 wpm. Also, keybr.com helps speed up typing if you were thinking about it.
- robofanatic 1y ago
  > notes in meetings That’s already solved by AI, if you let AI listen to your meetings.
  - Feathercrown 1y ago
    I haven't found that to be very accurate. I suspect the internal idiosyncrasies of a company are an issue, as the AI doesn't have the necessary context.
    - aeroaero 1y ago
      Seems like it would be much easier to solve that problem than it would be to cross the brain barrier and start interfacing with our thoughts, no? Just provide some context on the company etc
      - littlestymaar 1y ago
        “Sounds like it would” yes, but on practice no off the self solution works remotely well enough. > Just provide some context on the company etc The necessary “context” includes at least the name and pronunciation of the names of all workers of a company with a non English first name, so it's far from trivial.
        comedowntous 1y ago
        > off the self Was that deliberate, or a typo? I am genuinely wondering!
        littlestymaar 1y ago
w00ds 1y ago
It's possible the demo is faked, and I'm skeptical. But I also don't think the speed is really the point of a device like this. Getting out a device, pressing keys or tapping on it, and putting it away again, those attentional costs of using some device... I know something like basic notetaking would feel really different to me if I was able to just do the thing in the demo at high accuracy instead. That's a big if, though - the accuracy would have to be high for it to really be useful, and the video is probably best-case clips.
com2kid 1y ago
Pulling out my phone, unlocking it, opening my notes app, creating a new note, that is a bottleneck. Puling out my phone, unlocking it, remembering what the hotkey is today for starting google/gemini, is a bottle neck. Damned if I can remember what random gesture lets me ask Gemini to take a note today (presumably gemini has notes support now, IIRC the original release didn't). Finding where Google stashes todo items at, also a bottle neck. Of course that entails me getting my phone out and navigating to whatever notes app (for awhile todos/notes were inside a separate Google search app!) they are shoved into. My Palm Pilot from 2000 had more usability than a modern smartphone. This device can solve all of those issues.
- stevage 1y ago
  >This device can solve all of those issues. If you're wearing it at the right moment.
throwawaymaths 1y ago
> while cycling depends on what they are connected to in the back there.
noduerme 1y ago
Plausible deniability is the ticket. I see the killer app here being communication with people in comas. Or corpses.
- jonwinstanley 1y ago
  Or dogs
jimkleiber 1y ago
Most people i think type very slowly on computers and i believe type even more slowly on phones. I've had many many people remark at how fast i type on both of those platforms and it still confuses me, as i think it's so easy for me to overlook how slowly people type.
- az226 1y ago
  You’re also underestimating that some people think really quickly. Way faster than you can type.
  - jimkleiber 1y ago
    I also think i think very quickly and faster than i can type :-D
emsign 1y ago
I fear that if AI filling the gapsis competing with your own thoughts while using it, your lazy brain goes the easy way and accepts the insinuations of themachine as its own. Beating the entire purpose of having a gizmo that writes down "your very own" thoughts. That is if this exists. But if it does, it's not what you think it does for you.
- CrociDB 1y ago
  Yeah, good point. Especially because most of the time our thoughts are a lot more fuzzy than we might think. Having it put words to it will feel like it's "augmenting" or "clarifying" our thoughts, but in reality it might be just controlling it.
  - abirch 1y ago
    I'm wondering if my Alterego usage will justify my ADHD meds.
- garyfirestorm 1y ago
  in conversations people do finish your sentences (sometimes) which i personally find annoying if they especially finish them incorrectly and i have to take a pause and correct them - but it doesn't force me to accept their words as my thoughts...
az226 1y ago
Typing is a big bottleneck. Speak for yourself
pj_mukh 1y ago
I think the idea here is a very different mode of programming. Less prompting, waiting, seeing results, prompting again (where typing is not the bottleneck) But more having a conversation with a really fast coding agent. That should feel like you’re micro-managing an intern as they code really fast, you could start describing the problem and it could start coding and you interject and tell it to do do things differently. There the bottleneck would be typing, especially if you have fast inference. But with voice now you’re coding at the speed of your thoughts. I think doing that would be super cool but awkward if you’re talking out loud in an office, that’s where this device would come in.
oldfuture 1y ago
learn more on: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/alterego/overview/ https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/alterego/overview/ also adding their press release here: https://docsend.com/view/dmda8mqzhcvqrkrk/d/fjr4nnmzf9jnjzgw https://docsend.com/view/dmda8mqzhcvqrkrk/d/fjr4nnmzf9jnjzgw
mickdarling 1y ago
I agree that it's an easy to fake demo and at the same time, if they're going to fake it, why make it seem so slow? As to whether typing speed is a bottleneck for most people, maybe not most people, but definitely some people, and it's a massive bottleneck for me personally. I think better when I'm talking and since I have started using speech to text, it has increased my writing speed and coding speed by at least an order, maybe two orders of magnitude. But you are right, the AI filling in gaps can really cause trouble using speech, goodness knows what it's doing using sub-speech.
- stevage 1y ago
  >I agree that it's an easy to fake demo and at the same time, if they're going to fake it, why make it seem so slow? Honestly I have no idea if it's fake. I wouldn't be surprised if it's both fake and real: the actual video is entirely fake, but a reasonably accurate demonstration of actual capabilities (like a lot of tech demos at live events...)
legacynl 1y ago
> We can't actually think all that fast. One of the major ways you can speed up reading, is that you stop 'vocalizing' each word in your head. It does seem that thinking is much faster than 'thinking aloud' (in your head)

dllthomas 1y ago

Typing speed is very much a bottleneck when I'm washing dishes, at least.

lennxa 1y ago
talk then
- dllthomas 1y ago
  Not ideal, between sound from the washing itself plus whatever else is going on in the house, and I'd rather not add noise that others have to deal with. That said, it's certainly in the mix as competing with other potential solutions.
prerok 1y ago
How about when baking? https://xkcd.com/341/ https://xkcd.com/341/
- dllthomas 1y ago
  Then, too. I cannot compete with Mrs Roberts.

Bjartr 1y ago

Personal anecdote: I do find typing to be a bottleneck in situations where typing speed is valuable (so notes in meetings, not when coding). I can break 100wpm, especially if I accept typos. It's still much, much slower to type than I can think.

j45 1y ago
Speech to text can be 130-200 wpm. Also, keybr.com helps speed up typing if you were thinking about it.
robofanatic 1y ago
> notes in meetings That’s already solved by AI, if you let AI listen to your meetings.
- Feathercrown 1y ago
  I haven't found that to be very accurate. I suspect the internal idiosyncrasies of a company are an issue, as the AI doesn't have the necessary context.
  - aeroaero 1y ago
    Seems like it would be much easier to solve that problem than it would be to cross the brain barrier and start interfacing with our thoughts, no? Just provide some context on the company etc
    - littlestymaar 1y ago
      “Sounds like it would” yes, but on practice no off the self solution works remotely well enough. > Just provide some context on the company etc The necessary “context” includes at least the name and pronunciation of the names of all workers of a company with a non English first name, so it's far from trivial.
      - comedowntous 1y ago
        > off the self Was that deliberate, or a typo? I am genuinely wondering!
        littlestymaar 1y ago

w00ds 1y ago

It's possible the demo is faked, and I'm skeptical. But I also don't think the speed is really the point of a device like this. Getting out a device, pressing keys or tapping on it, and putting it away again, those attentional costs of using some device... I know something like basic notetaking would feel really different to me if I was able to just do the thing in the demo at high accuracy instead. That's a big if, though - the accuracy would have to be high for it to really be useful, and the video is probably best-case clips.

com2kid 1y ago

Pulling out my phone, unlocking it, opening my notes app, creating a new note, that is a bottleneck. Puling out my phone, unlocking it, remembering what the hotkey is today for starting google/gemini, is a bottle neck. Damned if I can remember what random gesture lets me ask Gemini to take a note today (presumably gemini has notes support now, IIRC the original release didn't). Finding where Google stashes todo items at, also a bottle neck. Of course that entails me getting my phone out and navigating to whatever notes app (for awhile todos/notes were inside a separate Google search app!) they are shoved into. My Palm Pilot from 2000 had more usability than a modern smartphone. This device can solve all of those issues.

stevage 1y ago
>This device can solve all of those issues. If you're wearing it at the right moment.

throwawaymaths 1y ago

> while cycling depends on what they are connected to in the back there.

noduerme 1y ago

Plausible deniability is the ticket. I see the killer app here being communication with people in comas. Or corpses.

jonwinstanley 1y ago
Or dogs

jimkleiber 1y ago

Most people i think type very slowly on computers and i believe type even more slowly on phones. I've had many many people remark at how fast i type on both of those platforms and it still confuses me, as i think it's so easy for me to overlook how slowly people type.

az226 1y ago
You’re also underestimating that some people think really quickly. Way faster than you can type.
- jimkleiber 1y ago
  I also think i think very quickly and faster than i can type :-D

emsign 1y ago

I fear that if AI filling the gapsis competing with your own thoughts while using it, your lazy brain goes the easy way and accepts the insinuations of themachine as its own. Beating the entire purpose of having a gizmo that writes down "your very own" thoughts. That is if this exists. But if it does, it's not what you think it does for you.

CrociDB 1y ago
Yeah, good point. Especially because most of the time our thoughts are a lot more fuzzy than we might think. Having it put words to it will feel like it's "augmenting" or "clarifying" our thoughts, but in reality it might be just controlling it.
- abirch 1y ago
  I'm wondering if my Alterego usage will justify my ADHD meds.
garyfirestorm 1y ago
in conversations people do finish your sentences (sometimes) which i personally find annoying if they especially finish them incorrectly and i have to take a pause and correct them - but it doesn't force me to accept their words as my thoughts...

az226 1y ago

Typing is a big bottleneck. Speak for yourself

pj_mukh 1y ago

I think the idea here is a very different mode of programming. Less prompting, waiting, seeing results, prompting again (where typing is not the bottleneck) But more having a conversation with a really fast coding agent. That should feel like you’re micro-managing an intern as they code really fast, you could start describing the problem and it could start coding and you interject and tell it to do do things differently. There the bottleneck would be typing, especially if you have fast inference. But with voice now you’re coding at the speed of your thoughts. I think doing that would be super cool but awkward if you’re talking out loud in an office, that’s where this device would come in.

oldfuture 1y ago

learn more on: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/alterego/overview/ https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/alterego/overview/ also adding their press release here: https://docsend.com/view/dmda8mqzhcvqrkrk/d/fjr4nnmzf9jnjzgw https://docsend.com/view/dmda8mqzhcvqrkrk/d/fjr4nnmzf9jnjzgw

mickdarling 1y ago

I agree that it's an easy to fake demo and at the same time, if they're going to fake it, why make it seem so slow? As to whether typing speed is a bottleneck for most people, maybe not most people, but definitely some people, and it's a massive bottleneck for me personally. I think better when I'm talking and since I have started using speech to text, it has increased my writing speed and coding speed by at least an order, maybe two orders of magnitude. But you are right, the AI filling in gaps can really cause trouble using speech, goodness knows what it's doing using sub-speech.

stevage 1y ago
>I agree that it's an easy to fake demo and at the same time, if they're going to fake it, why make it seem so slow? Honestly I have no idea if it's fake. I wouldn't be surprised if it's both fake and real: the actual video is entirely fake, but a reasonably accurate demonstration of actual capabilities (like a lot of tech demos at live events...)

legacynl 1y ago

> We can't actually think all that fast. One of the major ways you can speed up reading, is that you stop 'vocalizing' each word in your head. It does seem that thinking is much faster than 'thinking aloud' (in your head)