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> Ideally the alert would only happen if the comment seemed important but it would readily discard short or nonsensical input. That doesn't sound ideal at all.

> Ideally the alert would only happen if the comment seemed important but it would readily discard short or nonsensical input. That doesn't sound ideal at all. And in fact highlights what's wrong with AI product development nowadays. AI as a tool is wildly popular. Almost everyone in the world uses ChatGPT or knows someone who does. Here's the thing about tools - you use them in a predictable way and they give you a predictable result. I ask a question, I get an answer. The thing doesn't randomly interject when I'm doing other things and I asked it nothing. I swing a hammer, it drives a nail. The hammer doesn't decide that the thing it's swinging at is vaguely thumb-shaped and self-destruct. Too many product managers nowadays want AI to not just be a tool, they want it to be magic. But magic is distracting, and unpredictable, and frequently gets things wrong because it doesn't understand the human's intent. That's why people mostly find AI integrations confusing and aggravating, despite the popularity of AI-as-a-tool.

bluGill 9mo ago
I want magic that works. Sometimes I want a tool to interrupt me! I know my route to work so I'm not going to ask how I should get there today - but 1% of the time there is something wrong with my plan (accident, construction...) and I want the tool to say something. I know I need to turn right to get someplace, but sometimes as a human I'll say left instead: confusing me and the driver where they don't turn right, and AI that realizes who made the mistake would help. The hard part is the AI needs to be correct when it doesn't something unexpected. I don't know if this is a solvable problem, but it is what I want.
- yndoendo 9mo ago
  Magic in real life never works 100% of the time. It is all an illusion were some observers understand the trick and others do not. Those that understand it have the potential to break the magic. Even the magician has the ability to fault the trick. I want reproducibility not magic.
  - bluGill 9mo ago
    It is magic that I can touch a swith on the wall and lights come on. It is magic that I have a warm house despite the outside temperature is near freezing. we have plenty of other magic that works. I want more
    - Telemakhos 9mo ago
      Electricity, light, and heat aren't magic: they're science. Science is something well understood. Something that seems magical is something poorly understood. When I ask AI a question, I don't know whether it will tell me something truthful, mendacious in a verisimilitudinous way, or blatantly wrong, and I can only tell when it's blatantly wrong. That's magic, and I hate magic. I want more science in my life.
    - nottorp 9mo ago
      If your light switch doesn't turn on the lights any more it's probably broken. If your "AI" light switch doesn't turn on the lights, you have to rephrase the prompt.
wredcoll 9mo ago
> The hammer doesn't decide that the thing it's swinging at is vaguely thumb-shaped and self-destruct. Sawstop literally patented this and made millions and seems to have genuinely improved the world. I personally am a big fan of tools that make it hard to mangle my body parts.
- wavemode 9mo ago
  sawstop is not AI
  - wredcoll 9mo ago
    Sure, where's the line? If you want to tell me that llms are inherently non-deterministic, then sure, but from the point of view of a user, a saw stop activating because the wood is wet is really not expected either.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - wavemode 9mo ago
      Mm yeah, I see the point you're making. (Though, of course, there certainly are people who dislike sawstop for that sort of reason, as well.)
    - GuinansEyebrows 9mo ago
      also from the point of view from a user: in this example, while frustrating/possibly costly, a false positive is infinitely preferable to a false negative.
    - ori_b 9mo ago
      Yes, cutting wet wood on the sawstop sucks, but I put up with it. If clicking 'close' on the wrong tab amputated a finger, I'd also put up with it. However, I've closed plenty of tabs accidentally, and all my fingers are still attached.
  - ChoGGi 9mo ago
ericmcer 9mo ago
But... A lot of stuff you rely on now was probably once distracting and unpredictable. There are a ton of subtle UX behaviors a modern computer is doing that you don't notice, but if they all disappeared and you had to use windows 95 for a week you would miss. That is more what I am advocating for, subtle background UX improvements based on an LLMs ability to interpret a users intent. We had limited abilities to look at an applications state and try to determine a users intent, but it is easier to do that with an LLM. Yeah like you point out some users don't want you to try and predict their intent, but if you can do it accurately a high percentage of the time it is "magic".
- mjfisher 9mo ago
  Serious question: what are those things from windows 95/98 I might miss? Rose tinted glasses perhaps, but I remember it as a very straightforward and consistent UI that provided great feedback, was snappy and did everything I needed. Up to and including little hints for power users like underlining shortcut letters for the & key.
  - eterm 9mo ago
    The only one I can think of, literally the only one, is grouped icons. And even that's only because browsers ended up in a weird "windows but tabs but actually tabs are windows" state. So yeah, I'd miss the UX of dragging tabs into their own separate windows. But even that is something that still feels janky in most apps ( windows terminal somehow makes this feel bad, even VS code took a long time to make it feel okay ), and I wouldn't really miss it that much if there were no tabs at all and every tab was forced into a separate window at all times with it's own task bar entry.
    - tliltocatl 9mo ago
      It's not like grouped icons wasn't technically infeasible on win95. And honestly, whatever they are more useful is quite debatable. And personally, I don't even have a task panel anymore. The real stuff not on Win95 that everyone would miss is scalable interfaces/high DPI (not necessary as in HiDPI, just above 640x480). And this one does require A LOT of resources and is still wobbly.

bluGill 9mo ago

I want magic that works. Sometimes I want a tool to interrupt me! I know my route to work so I'm not going to ask how I should get there today - but 1% of the time there is something wrong with my plan (accident, construction...) and I want the tool to say something. I know I need to turn right to get someplace, but sometimes as a human I'll say left instead: confusing me and the driver where they don't turn right, and AI that realizes who made the mistake would help. The hard part is the AI needs to be correct when it doesn't something unexpected. I don't know if this is a solvable problem, but it is what I want.

yndoendo 9mo ago
Magic in real life never works 100% of the time. It is all an illusion were some observers understand the trick and others do not. Those that understand it have the potential to break the magic. Even the magician has the ability to fault the trick. I want reproducibility not magic.
- bluGill 9mo ago
  It is magic that I can touch a swith on the wall and lights come on. It is magic that I have a warm house despite the outside temperature is near freezing. we have plenty of other magic that works. I want more
  - Telemakhos 9mo ago
    Electricity, light, and heat aren't magic: they're science. Science is something well understood. Something that seems magical is something poorly understood. When I ask AI a question, I don't know whether it will tell me something truthful, mendacious in a verisimilitudinous way, or blatantly wrong, and I can only tell when it's blatantly wrong. That's magic, and I hate magic. I want more science in my life.
  - nottorp 9mo ago
    If your light switch doesn't turn on the lights any more it's probably broken. If your "AI" light switch doesn't turn on the lights, you have to rephrase the prompt.

wredcoll 9mo ago

> The hammer doesn't decide that the thing it's swinging at is vaguely thumb-shaped and self-destruct. Sawstop literally patented this and made millions and seems to have genuinely improved the world. I personally am a big fan of tools that make it hard to mangle my body parts.

wavemode 9mo ago
sawstop is not AI
- wredcoll 9mo ago
  Sure, where's the line? If you want to tell me that llms are inherently non-deterministic, then sure, but from the point of view of a user, a saw stop activating because the wood is wet is really not expected either.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - wavemode 9mo ago
    Mm yeah, I see the point you're making. (Though, of course, there certainly are people who dislike sawstop for that sort of reason, as well.)
  - GuinansEyebrows 9mo ago
    also from the point of view from a user: in this example, while frustrating/possibly costly, a false positive is infinitely preferable to a false negative.
  - ori_b 9mo ago
    Yes, cutting wet wood on the sawstop sucks, but I put up with it. If clicking 'close' on the wrong tab amputated a finger, I'd also put up with it. However, I've closed plenty of tabs accidentally, and all my fingers are still attached.
- ChoGGi 9mo ago

ericmcer 9mo ago

But... A lot of stuff you rely on now was probably once distracting and unpredictable. There are a ton of subtle UX behaviors a modern computer is doing that you don't notice, but if they all disappeared and you had to use windows 95 for a week you would miss. That is more what I am advocating for, subtle background UX improvements based on an LLMs ability to interpret a users intent. We had limited abilities to look at an applications state and try to determine a users intent, but it is easier to do that with an LLM. Yeah like you point out some users don't want you to try and predict their intent, but if you can do it accurately a high percentage of the time it is "magic".

mjfisher 9mo ago
Serious question: what are those things from windows 95/98 I might miss? Rose tinted glasses perhaps, but I remember it as a very straightforward and consistent UI that provided great feedback, was snappy and did everything I needed. Up to and including little hints for power users like underlining shortcut letters for the & key.
- eterm 9mo ago
  The only one I can think of, literally the only one, is grouped icons. And even that's only because browsers ended up in a weird "windows but tabs but actually tabs are windows" state. So yeah, I'd miss the UX of dragging tabs into their own separate windows. But even that is something that still feels janky in most apps ( windows terminal somehow makes this feel bad, even VS code took a long time to make it feel okay ), and I wouldn't really miss it that much if there were no tabs at all and every tab was forced into a separate window at all times with it's own task bar entry.
  - tliltocatl 9mo ago
    It's not like grouped icons wasn't technically infeasible on win95. And honestly, whatever they are more useful is quite debatable. And personally, I don't even have a task panel anymore. The real stuff not on Win95 that everyone would miss is scalable interfaces/high DPI (not necessary as in HiDPI, just above 640x480). And this one does require A LOT of resources and is still wobbly.