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>For example, if you ask ChatGPT’s Agent to book a travel, it’ll open Chromium on Linux in an Azure container, search the query, visit different websites, navig

>For example, if you ask ChatGPT’s Agent to book a travel, it’ll open Chromium on Linux in an Azure container, search the query, visit different websites, navigate each page and book a flight ticket using your saved credentials. An AI Agent tries to mimic a human, and it can perform tasks on your behalf while you sit back and relax. Big tech has repeatedly shown that they are not good stewards of end users' privacy and agency. You'd have to have been born yesterday to believe they'd build AI systems that truly serve the user's best interests like this.

krackers 11mo ago
I think it's hilariously tone deaf that travel booking and shopping are the two examples of "agentic" AI that keep popping up.
- isodev 11mo ago
  The main reason I shop online is the joy of hitting that Buy button every now and then for something I want. I don’t want some dumb bot doing that for me (and getting the wrong thing 2/3 of the times) The real chore is having to go to the store to get groceries, doing laundry, pairing socks etc … but solving any of that would require more than just bullshit LLM capabilities.
  - ronsor 11mo ago
    > get groceries Isn't that what grocery delivery apps are for, if you really don't want to go to the store. > doing laundry, pairing socks etc … but solving any of that would require more than just bullshit LLM capabilities. Yes, it's a shame robotics (hardware) is harder than software, but that's not really the fault of AI model developers.
    - isodev 11mo ago
      You kind of missed the point of my comment but ok > not really the fault of AI model developers It’s their fault for pushing all this crap in all the things and misleading their investors that there is actually “intelligence” in what we now call AI. > grocery delivery apps are for These are not popular here and for a good reason - you need to enjoy your food and it starts by picking the right ingredients yourself. “someone packs a bag for me and delivers it to my door” is just moving the problem somewhere else, not actual innovation.
      - abracadaniel 11mo ago
        They always mess up a few things, make brain dead substitutions, or get low quality produce. I had bags show up smelling strongly of cigarettes. All for a premium price, an app that takes a surprising amount of time finding things on, and the complete loss of discoverability.
        duskdozer 11mo ago
        My experience with other shopping sites makes me suspect that with all the ads, tracking, captchas, etc bogging things down, it might be faster to just go to the store yourself.
        1718627440 11mo ago
        Can you refuse to pay, since you didn't got what you ordered?
    - smallstepforman 11mo ago
      Actually, for Robotics hardware is a solved problem. Software is struggling to keep up.
      - anticrymactic 11mo ago
        > Actually, for Robotics hardware is a solved problem. I understand the sentiment but this couldn't be further from the truth. There are no robotic hand models that get close to the fidelity of humans (or even other primates). The technology just doesn't exist yet, motors are a terrible muscle replacement. Even completely without software, a puppeteered hand model would be revolutionary.
  - anon_cow1111 11mo ago
    Every time I hit a "buy" button it brings nothing but horrible anxiety over what future bullshit I'll have to deal with, either because the product will be garbage or the seller will be garbage. And that's after doing an hour of more research for every god damn thing. Getting groceries is practically relaxing at this point
  - Libidinalecon 11mo ago
    Groceries are hysterical to me. The ultimate first world problem. It is just too much to go to the store, put what you want to eat in the cart, pay and walk out. It stresses me out too much and takes time away from wasting time on my phone.
- Jcampuzano2 11mo ago
  Because for the average person there isn't really that much they get out of todays agentic ai. This is all project managers can think of that applies to the average layperson. It's just shitware being added to everything at very few people's benefit just so they can score some points on the stock market AI hype leaderboard.
- Terr_ 11mo ago
  I think there are two factors: 1. "Help customers buy crap" is one of the vaguely plausible use-cases which excite investors who see the ads, even if it isn't so exciting for actual customers. 2. The ideas seem sourced from some brain-trust of idle-rich, rather than from the average US consumer. Regardless of how the characters in the ads are presented, all of them are somehow able to prefer saving 60 seconds even if it means maybe losing $60 on a dumb purchase or a non-refundable reservation at the wrong restaurant, etc.
  - thewebguyd 11mo ago
    > The ideas seem sourced from some brain-trust of idle-rich , rather than from the average US consumer I think it says more about the economy currently. The "average US consumer" is the wealthy right now. Just 10% of the population, the highest earners, drive nearly 50% of consumption currently and that number is growing. That is the new average US consumer, hence the ads and use cases targeting a more well-off demographic. Everyone else has been left behind.
    - Terr_ 11mo ago
      Adding context: The upper 10% for household income across the US is about $160k/yr. Limiting the scope to people living in high cost-of-living cities (probably smaller than their ideal customer field) that might be $300-400k/yr.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 11mo ago
      I think my marketing professor said something interesting about it a decade or so ago. Basically, in the US we are moving towards heavy bifurcation. You can cater to the well-off or not well-off. The class was full of kids, who did not seem to understand the implications of what he was already saying then ( not that it technically is that mindblowing, the signs are there.. ).
- testartr 11mo ago
  searching for a flight and booking it is legitimately one of the most painful online things that exists. it's like the booking industry is feeding on suffering
  - BikiniPrince 11mo ago
    It’s intentionally obfuscated because the product developers don’t want to share profits with brokers. They also do not want to compete on in the open because that too lowers odors Otherwise, we would have a system where it would be insanely easy to monitor and alert for price breaks. Hidden cities is probably the best example of how it could work and easily presents the price charts over time. Yet they too were cut off from some providers.
- BoredPositron 11mo ago
  Probably high priority because the dev and literally everyone else is sick of microsofts selfservice platform for travel.
- rsynnott 11mo ago
  The industry has decided that 'agentic' stuff is The Future, and has bet the farm on it. However, actual useful applications are, ah, thin on the ground to say the least. Accordingly, industry obsesses over the few use cases which have shown up, even if they are not necessarily use cases that anyone particularly _wants_.
- kenjackson 11mo ago
  Travel booking is time consuming and frustrating. In doing it now and hate it. If some YC company wants to fix this I’d be hugely appreciative.
- Anamon 11mo ago
  It's like the "store your recipes" to sell home computers 45 years ago. Not the problem we need solved. Or the "write code more quickly" for LLMs. NOT the problem we need solved.
binsquare 11mo ago
I think in this case, Microsoft has shown they don't respect the user when they force shutdown for system updates. This has happened during my time working retail and the mom and pops are helpless when this happens. I would never trust Microsoft to bake ai agents in..
- tbrownaw 11mo ago
  > shown they don't respect the user when they force shutdown for system updates Are you familiar with the prior state of things that explicitly motivated this change?
  - malfist 11mo ago
    Why does that matter? I should be allowed to explicitly chose the risks I want to take. Not microsoft. Especially not for microsoft to decide, no matter what I'm doing, or what I have open and unsaved on my computer, now is the time they think my risk is too great and tuesday has passed, so reboot reboot reboot.
    - rocqua 11mo ago
      The automatic reboot has made the world a better place, because too many people were incredibly bad at making this risk tradeoff. It might still be bad thing for taking away agency. But it was also a massive improvement to society.
      - malfist 11mo ago
        That's quiet a bit of stretch to equate forced update reboots to massive societal benefits
        rocqua 11mo ago
        The point was about security updates. Without forced upgrades the whole ransomware thing would have been so much worse as just a singular example.
wiredpancake 11mo ago
[dead]
tjpnz 11mo ago
I wouldn't trust a big tech AI agent to act in my own best interest. How do I know I'm getting the best deal and that they're not clipping the ticket? Given so many of these companies are really ad-tech/surveillance businesses, how do I know that they're not communicating information about me to the travel site which might affect the price?
- AlexandrB 11mo ago
  > How do I know I'm getting the best deal and that they're not clipping the ticket? You should actually expect the exact opposite. There's more money in getting large companies to pay you to redirect customers to more expensive products than in consumers paying for this kind of service. Honey[1] should server as a stark reminder here. [1] https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/software/honey-scandal-explained https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/software/honey-scandal-e... > According to Megalag and other content creators, Honey's core promise isn't true. PayPal and Honey say they'll run through a series of coupon codes to find the best deals. However, the firm is accused of using inferior codes to ensure the retailer gets more money from the sale while promising the user that the best code was used. > Megalag tested this in his video and found instances where better codes were readily available online, but Honey chose to use a code with a lower discount, claiming it was the best deal.
  - tjpnz 11mo ago
    What happened to Pt2 of his video?
userbinator 11mo ago
Ironically, Microsoft's slogan in the 90s was "where do you want to go today?" These days, it's more like "where do we want to make you go today?"
- cherrycherry98 11mo ago
  How I yearn for when their marketing had everyday people touting how "Windows 7 was my idea!" Every Windows release since then has felt like they are hostile to user input.
philipwhiuk 11mo ago
You'll end up with car insurance, a hotel reservation you don't want and pay extra for the middle seat (Assuming it even gets the right airport/country).
sensanaty 11mo ago
Sidenote, why is it always booking a plane ticket that they hype up? It's like the only 2 things any of the marketing can think of is booking plane tickets and replying to emails
- Gerardo1 11mo ago
  because the people driving these products are disconnected and deeply unbalanced people
- yabones 11mo ago
  It's funny, because it's also one of the most "gotcha-filled" things you can do. Click the wrong box, and they'll stick you in a seat with no leg room or make you pay extra for a carry-on bag. I have very little confidence that an AI would be able to make the "correct" choice on an airline ticket consistently without making a rather impactful mistake.
  - wkat4242 11mo ago
    It will work for a while and then the airlines will game their systems against AI agents just like they currently do against consumers. It's just a temporary solution. A real solution would be for laws to force them to not do this. But airlines are often very intertwined with the state and a prestige thing for a country.
tonyedgecombe 11mo ago
>Big tech has repeatedly shown that they are not good stewards of end users' privacy and agency. I can understand Google or Facebook being bad because their whole business model is based around selling your attention and agency. Microsoft shouldn't be as bad because they are selling a product but in many ways they appear worse.

krackers 11mo ago

I think it's hilariously tone deaf that travel booking and shopping are the two examples of "agentic" AI that keep popping up.

isodev 11mo ago
The main reason I shop online is the joy of hitting that Buy button every now and then for something I want. I don’t want some dumb bot doing that for me (and getting the wrong thing 2/3 of the times) The real chore is having to go to the store to get groceries, doing laundry, pairing socks etc … but solving any of that would require more than just bullshit LLM capabilities.
- ronsor 11mo ago
  > get groceries Isn't that what grocery delivery apps are for, if you really don't want to go to the store. > doing laundry, pairing socks etc … but solving any of that would require more than just bullshit LLM capabilities. Yes, it's a shame robotics (hardware) is harder than software, but that's not really the fault of AI model developers.
  - isodev 11mo ago
    You kind of missed the point of my comment but ok > not really the fault of AI model developers It’s their fault for pushing all this crap in all the things and misleading their investors that there is actually “intelligence” in what we now call AI. > grocery delivery apps are for These are not popular here and for a good reason - you need to enjoy your food and it starts by picking the right ingredients yourself. “someone packs a bag for me and delivers it to my door” is just moving the problem somewhere else, not actual innovation.
    - abracadaniel 11mo ago
      They always mess up a few things, make brain dead substitutions, or get low quality produce. I had bags show up smelling strongly of cigarettes. All for a premium price, an app that takes a surprising amount of time finding things on, and the complete loss of discoverability.
      - duskdozer 11mo ago
        My experience with other shopping sites makes me suspect that with all the ads, tracking, captchas, etc bogging things down, it might be faster to just go to the store yourself.
      - 1718627440 11mo ago
        Can you refuse to pay, since you didn't got what you ordered?
  - smallstepforman 11mo ago
    Actually, for Robotics hardware is a solved problem. Software is struggling to keep up.
    - anticrymactic 11mo ago
      > Actually, for Robotics hardware is a solved problem. I understand the sentiment but this couldn't be further from the truth. There are no robotic hand models that get close to the fidelity of humans (or even other primates). The technology just doesn't exist yet, motors are a terrible muscle replacement. Even completely without software, a puppeteered hand model would be revolutionary.
- anon_cow1111 11mo ago
  Every time I hit a "buy" button it brings nothing but horrible anxiety over what future bullshit I'll have to deal with, either because the product will be garbage or the seller will be garbage. And that's after doing an hour of more research for every god damn thing. Getting groceries is practically relaxing at this point
- Libidinalecon 11mo ago
  Groceries are hysterical to me. The ultimate first world problem. It is just too much to go to the store, put what you want to eat in the cart, pay and walk out. It stresses me out too much and takes time away from wasting time on my phone.
Jcampuzano2 11mo ago
Because for the average person there isn't really that much they get out of todays agentic ai. This is all project managers can think of that applies to the average layperson. It's just shitware being added to everything at very few people's benefit just so they can score some points on the stock market AI hype leaderboard.
Terr_ 11mo ago
I think there are two factors: 1. "Help customers buy crap" is one of the vaguely plausible use-cases which excite investors who see the ads, even if it isn't so exciting for actual customers. 2. The ideas seem sourced from some brain-trust of idle-rich, rather than from the average US consumer. Regardless of how the characters in the ads are presented, all of them are somehow able to prefer saving 60 seconds even if it means maybe losing $60 on a dumb purchase or a non-refundable reservation at the wrong restaurant, etc.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
  > The ideas seem sourced from some brain-trust of idle-rich , rather than from the average US consumer I think it says more about the economy currently. The "average US consumer" is the wealthy right now. Just 10% of the population, the highest earners, drive nearly 50% of consumption currently and that number is growing. That is the new average US consumer, hence the ads and use cases targeting a more well-off demographic. Everyone else has been left behind.
  - Terr_ 11mo ago
    Adding context: The upper 10% for household income across the US is about $160k/yr. Limiting the scope to people living in high cost-of-living cities (probably smaller than their ideal customer field) that might be $300-400k/yr.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 11mo ago
    I think my marketing professor said something interesting about it a decade or so ago. Basically, in the US we are moving towards heavy bifurcation. You can cater to the well-off or not well-off. The class was full of kids, who did not seem to understand the implications of what he was already saying then ( not that it technically is that mindblowing, the signs are there.. ).
testartr 11mo ago
searching for a flight and booking it is legitimately one of the most painful online things that exists. it's like the booking industry is feeding on suffering
- BikiniPrince 11mo ago
  It’s intentionally obfuscated because the product developers don’t want to share profits with brokers. They also do not want to compete on in the open because that too lowers odors Otherwise, we would have a system where it would be insanely easy to monitor and alert for price breaks. Hidden cities is probably the best example of how it could work and easily presents the price charts over time. Yet they too were cut off from some providers.
BoredPositron 11mo ago
Probably high priority because the dev and literally everyone else is sick of microsofts selfservice platform for travel.
rsynnott 11mo ago
The industry has decided that 'agentic' stuff is The Future, and has bet the farm on it. However, actual useful applications are, ah, thin on the ground to say the least. Accordingly, industry obsesses over the few use cases which have shown up, even if they are not necessarily use cases that anyone particularly _wants_.
kenjackson 11mo ago
Travel booking is time consuming and frustrating. In doing it now and hate it. If some YC company wants to fix this I’d be hugely appreciative.
Anamon 11mo ago
It's like the "store your recipes" to sell home computers 45 years ago. Not the problem we need solved. Or the "write code more quickly" for LLMs. NOT the problem we need solved.

binsquare 11mo ago

I think in this case, Microsoft has shown they don't respect the user when they force shutdown for system updates. This has happened during my time working retail and the mom and pops are helpless when this happens. I would never trust Microsoft to bake ai agents in..

tbrownaw 11mo ago
> shown they don't respect the user when they force shutdown for system updates Are you familiar with the prior state of things that explicitly motivated this change?
- malfist 11mo ago
  Why does that matter? I should be allowed to explicitly chose the risks I want to take. Not microsoft. Especially not for microsoft to decide, no matter what I'm doing, or what I have open and unsaved on my computer, now is the time they think my risk is too great and tuesday has passed, so reboot reboot reboot.
  - rocqua 11mo ago
    The automatic reboot has made the world a better place, because too many people were incredibly bad at making this risk tradeoff. It might still be bad thing for taking away agency. But it was also a massive improvement to society.
    - malfist 11mo ago
      That's quiet a bit of stretch to equate forced update reboots to massive societal benefits
      - rocqua 11mo ago
        The point was about security updates. Without forced upgrades the whole ransomware thing would have been so much worse as just a singular example.

wiredpancake 11mo ago

[dead]

tjpnz 11mo ago

I wouldn't trust a big tech AI agent to act in my own best interest. How do I know I'm getting the best deal and that they're not clipping the ticket? Given so many of these companies are really ad-tech/surveillance businesses, how do I know that they're not communicating information about me to the travel site which might affect the price?

AlexandrB 11mo ago
> How do I know I'm getting the best deal and that they're not clipping the ticket? You should actually expect the exact opposite. There's more money in getting large companies to pay you to redirect customers to more expensive products than in consumers paying for this kind of service. Honey[1] should server as a stark reminder here. [1] https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/software/honey-scandal-explained https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/software/honey-scandal-e... > According to Megalag and other content creators, Honey's core promise isn't true. PayPal and Honey say they'll run through a series of coupon codes to find the best deals. However, the firm is accused of using inferior codes to ensure the retailer gets more money from the sale while promising the user that the best code was used. > Megalag tested this in his video and found instances where better codes were readily available online, but Honey chose to use a code with a lower discount, claiming it was the best deal.
- tjpnz 11mo ago
  What happened to Pt2 of his video?

userbinator 11mo ago

Ironically, Microsoft's slogan in the 90s was "where do you want to go today?" These days, it's more like "where do we want to make you go today?"

cherrycherry98 11mo ago
How I yearn for when their marketing had everyday people touting how "Windows 7 was my idea!" Every Windows release since then has felt like they are hostile to user input.

philipwhiuk 11mo ago

You'll end up with car insurance, a hotel reservation you don't want and pay extra for the middle seat (Assuming it even gets the right airport/country).

sensanaty 11mo ago

Sidenote, why is it always booking a plane ticket that they hype up? It's like the only 2 things any of the marketing can think of is booking plane tickets and replying to emails

Gerardo1 11mo ago
because the people driving these products are disconnected and deeply unbalanced people
yabones 11mo ago
It's funny, because it's also one of the most "gotcha-filled" things you can do. Click the wrong box, and they'll stick you in a seat with no leg room or make you pay extra for a carry-on bag. I have very little confidence that an AI would be able to make the "correct" choice on an airline ticket consistently without making a rather impactful mistake.
- wkat4242 11mo ago
  It will work for a while and then the airlines will game their systems against AI agents just like they currently do against consumers. It's just a temporary solution. A real solution would be for laws to force them to not do this. But airlines are often very intertwined with the state and a prestige thing for a country.

tonyedgecombe 11mo ago

>Big tech has repeatedly shown that they are not good stewards of end users' privacy and agency. I can understand Google or Facebook being bad because their whole business model is based around selling your attention and agency. Microsoft shouldn't be as bad because they are selling a product but in many ways they appear worse.