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Agree with this article, and I almost threw up in my mouth when I read this quote from Stephen Levy: > By the end of this decade, it’s unlikely that people wil

Agree with this article, and I almost threw up in my mouth when I read this quote from Stephen Levy: > By the end of this decade, it’s unlikely that people will swipe on their phones to tap on Uber or Lyft. They will just tell their always-on AI agent to get them home. Or that agent will have already figured out where they need to go, and the car will be waiting without the friction of a request. “There’s an app for that,” may be replaced by “Let the agent do that.” Who TF are these people who think this kind of future is desirable? I basically think it's just people that want to broadcast that they're so important and busy that they can't take the 5 seconds it takes to hail an Uber. Its like all that "productivity optimization" porn that people spew online to show how focused they are. I was reading article recently that said that a majority of people interviewed did not want to use AI agents simply because they didn't have much stuff in their life worth automating. Or more to the point, a lot of people actually enjoy making grocery lists, planning trips, picking out gifts for friends, etc. This stuff is generally considered "life", not some back breaking drudgery like washing clothes in a stream that I'd like to automate. These folks like Levy who view this dystopian future as some sort of nirvana (and not because they view a different future, they actually want all this nonsense) can go F themselves. You can also tell how incredibly sheltered these people are because you can see they're rarely interacting with people outside their bubble. For example, a lot of people that open the Uber app make their decision based on data in the app, like "surge pricing, nevermind, I'll just walk" or "this looks expensive, let me try Lyft". You could argue an agent could learn all those rules, but again, these minutia of life are not exactly a nuisance to most people.

wilg 5mo ago
[flagged]
- the_af 5mo ago
  "Better how"? If you're going to dismiss a comment, you better address the points they are making, like: > I was reading article recently that said that a majority of people interviewed did not want to use AI agents simply because they didn't have much stuff in their life worth automating. Or more to the point, a lot of people actually enjoy making grocery lists, planning trips, picking out gifts for friends, etc. This stuff is generally considered "life", not some back breaking drudgery like washing clothes in a stream that I'd like to automate.
  - wilg 5mo ago
    Better how?! It's obvious how doing less work to figure out your transportation is a better user experience. And again, that's just a trivial example. If people like making grocery lists, that's fine, but I bet there's other things they might consider drudgery that could be automated.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
dpark 5mo ago
> Who TF are these people who think this kind of future is desirable? Some of this is weird techno delusion. Some of it is because the people describing it do a poor job of explaining how it might work. If a couple decades ago someone told you that you’d have an always listening device in your pocket to answer your questions from all the world’s information, it would have sounded dumb, and with the always-listening device, rather dystopian. But that’s what you have assuming you have any modern smart phone. The “agent knows where you’re going and calls a car for you” sounds dystopian as hell if done totally autonomously. But you could also imagine that an agent pops up a message on your watch “hey, you’ve been at dinner for an hour, if you’re winding down I can call you a car in 15 minutes” and suddenly it’s not that absurd.
- hn_throwaway_99 5mo ago
  > and with the always-listening device, rather dystopian. But that’s what you have assuming you have any modern smart phone. That feels a little bit of muddling the waters. At least on Android with which I'm familiar, (a) you can turn off the "OK Google" detection in settings so that it's not always listening (and I'm not sure what the setup is now but originally I had to opt it to OK Google detection) and (b) the path for OK Google detection runs on a lower power, on device chip that only has capacity to store like the last few seconds of ambient noise to look for the assistant key phrase.
  - the_af 5mo ago
    Agreed, plus it ignores all the commentary making a fuss about phones listening, even here on HN. Just because it's a losing battle doesn't mean nobody cares.
lxgr 5mo ago
> [...] broadcast that they're so important and busy that they can't take the 5 seconds [...] It takes a lot more than 5 seconds to make an informed decision these days. Apps and websites are throwing abusive fine print and dark patterns at users left and right. I'd be absolutely thrilled to e.g. not have to interact with the Uber app and all its dark patterns if there were somebody or something I could trust to competently represent my interests. That said, that's a big if, i.e., whether commercial LLMs or agents will be able to do that, given the overwhelming pressure to just take money from both sides of the transaction and skew the decision. But if it does happen, I actually see this as a huge potential factor strengthening smaller suppliers directly competing with large platforms. If my agent can independently figure out if a given supplier is trustworthy, whether their terms and conditions are reasonable etc., I'd be much more willing to engage with them outside of a large platform.
- hn_throwaway_99 5mo ago
  > It takes a lot more than 5 seconds to make an informed decision these days. Apps and websites are throwing abusive fine print and dark patterns at users left and right. I just opened the Uber app. The first thing that pops up is a search bar that says "Where to?". I entered a destination address. Next thing it showed was a map with a path to my destination and nearby cars, and buttons where I can choose my type of ride (e.g. UberX, Premier, etc.) It defaulted to UberX, which was the cheapest option except for the "Wait and Save" option that was further down. I tapped the "Choose UberX" button and the ride was on its way. So, OK, maybe it took literally 15 seconds. I'm not denying Uber may use dark patterns elsewhere, but from the end user experience of hailing a ride I don't see how it could be any simpler or more straightforward.
  - signatoremo 5mo ago
    Did you ever take Uber in a unfamiliar place? When you're supposed to be at a particular spot but you don't know where that is? When the driver doesn't speak English very well? When both your hands is busy with luggages? When you need glasses to read signs? That's very common when you travel. Agent would be godsend, and once you're used to it, you don't want to go back to the phone. Anywhere. What if the agent can also communicate with the car's agent? They may even negotiate the meeting spot. Agent is superior.
manoDev 5mo ago
That's just the experience any executive with a secretary or personal assistant is used to having. If AI allows more people to have such a premium experience, that's a use of technology that makes a lot more sense than all the "AI will take over your job" scaremongering.
- easton 5mo ago
  Are people in the habit of asking their admin to order a pizza or a Uber? There’s more complex things (the floor I think is booking a flight that doesn’t conflict with activities I have to do), but by time you summon your assistant you could’ve had the car on its way.
  - lmm 5mo ago
    > Are people in the habit of asking their admin to order a pizza or a Uber? They're in the habit of their admin telling them the Uber has arrived to take them to their 3 o'clock yes.
buu700 5mo ago
I'd be more inclined to believe that an abundance of robotaxis will use predictive algorithms to preemptively show up wherever they're likely to be needed, allowing a UX where users can hail them like traditional taxis without an app. Maybe not in four years, but maybe in a decade or two. That feels both more credible and more desirable than the magic panopticon predicted in the quote, and doesn't really depend on any major technological leaps beyond continued maturation and scaling of Waymo/alternatives.
- hn_throwaway_99 5mo ago
  I agree with what you've written about robotaxis, and Uber/Lyft already put a ton of data analysis into ensuring they have capacity where it's needed. But I don't think apps are going anywhere anytime soon, or in decades for that matter, primarily because there are economic forces in play that make them desirable for the network owners.
  - buu700 5mo ago
    Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that the apps will or should ever go away, but rather that with sufficient volume both ways could become plausible options. If an available Waymo happens to be sitting there waiting for a passenger, I don't see why it shouldn't let me just tap my credit card on the handle or something and tell it where to drop me off. Of course, summoning one or tapping my phone would ideally work too.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5mo ago
      > I don't see why it shouldn't let me just tap my credit card on the handle or something and tell it where to drop me off. I imagine because a huge part of optimizing fleet availability and distribution is knowing where you want to go before deciding which vehicle you should travel in.
      - buu700 5mo ago
        Ah, yeah, that's a good point. I can imagine some potential creative workarounds (e.g. having certain rides or types of rides involve transferring between two vehicles, possibly with multiple parties per vehicle like Uber Pool), but whether they'd actually be willing to support that is another matter entirely.

wilg 5mo ago

[flagged]

the_af 5mo ago
"Better how"? If you're going to dismiss a comment, you better address the points they are making, like: > I was reading article recently that said that a majority of people interviewed did not want to use AI agents simply because they didn't have much stuff in their life worth automating. Or more to the point, a lot of people actually enjoy making grocery lists, planning trips, picking out gifts for friends, etc. This stuff is generally considered "life", not some back breaking drudgery like washing clothes in a stream that I'd like to automate.
- wilg 5mo ago
  Better how?! It's obvious how doing less work to figure out your transportation is a better user experience. And again, that's just a trivial example. If people like making grocery lists, that's fine, but I bet there's other things they might consider drudgery that could be automated.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]

dpark 5mo ago

> Who TF are these people who think this kind of future is desirable? Some of this is weird techno delusion. Some of it is because the people describing it do a poor job of explaining how it might work. If a couple decades ago someone told you that you’d have an always listening device in your pocket to answer your questions from all the world’s information, it would have sounded dumb, and with the always-listening device, rather dystopian. But that’s what you have assuming you have any modern smart phone. The “agent knows where you’re going and calls a car for you” sounds dystopian as hell if done totally autonomously. But you could also imagine that an agent pops up a message on your watch “hey, you’ve been at dinner for an hour, if you’re winding down I can call you a car in 15 minutes” and suddenly it’s not that absurd.

hn_throwaway_99 5mo ago
> and with the always-listening device, rather dystopian. But that’s what you have assuming you have any modern smart phone. That feels a little bit of muddling the waters. At least on Android with which I'm familiar, (a) you can turn off the "OK Google" detection in settings so that it's not always listening (and I'm not sure what the setup is now but originally I had to opt it to OK Google detection) and (b) the path for OK Google detection runs on a lower power, on device chip that only has capacity to store like the last few seconds of ambient noise to look for the assistant key phrase.
- the_af 5mo ago
  Agreed, plus it ignores all the commentary making a fuss about phones listening, even here on HN. Just because it's a losing battle doesn't mean nobody cares.

lxgr 5mo ago

> [...] broadcast that they're so important and busy that they can't take the 5 seconds [...] It takes a lot more than 5 seconds to make an informed decision these days. Apps and websites are throwing abusive fine print and dark patterns at users left and right. I'd be absolutely thrilled to e.g. not have to interact with the Uber app and all its dark patterns if there were somebody or something I could trust to competently represent my interests. That said, that's a big if, i.e., whether commercial LLMs or agents will be able to do that, given the overwhelming pressure to just take money from both sides of the transaction and skew the decision. But if it does happen, I actually see this as a huge potential factor strengthening smaller suppliers directly competing with large platforms. If my agent can independently figure out if a given supplier is trustworthy, whether their terms and conditions are reasonable etc., I'd be much more willing to engage with them outside of a large platform.

hn_throwaway_99 5mo ago
> It takes a lot more than 5 seconds to make an informed decision these days. Apps and websites are throwing abusive fine print and dark patterns at users left and right. I just opened the Uber app. The first thing that pops up is a search bar that says "Where to?". I entered a destination address. Next thing it showed was a map with a path to my destination and nearby cars, and buttons where I can choose my type of ride (e.g. UberX, Premier, etc.) It defaulted to UberX, which was the cheapest option except for the "Wait and Save" option that was further down. I tapped the "Choose UberX" button and the ride was on its way. So, OK, maybe it took literally 15 seconds. I'm not denying Uber may use dark patterns elsewhere, but from the end user experience of hailing a ride I don't see how it could be any simpler or more straightforward.
- signatoremo 5mo ago
  Did you ever take Uber in a unfamiliar place? When you're supposed to be at a particular spot but you don't know where that is? When the driver doesn't speak English very well? When both your hands is busy with luggages? When you need glasses to read signs? That's very common when you travel. Agent would be godsend, and once you're used to it, you don't want to go back to the phone. Anywhere. What if the agent can also communicate with the car's agent? They may even negotiate the meeting spot. Agent is superior.

manoDev 5mo ago

That's just the experience any executive with a secretary or personal assistant is used to having. If AI allows more people to have such a premium experience, that's a use of technology that makes a lot more sense than all the "AI will take over your job" scaremongering.

easton 5mo ago
Are people in the habit of asking their admin to order a pizza or a Uber? There’s more complex things (the floor I think is booking a flight that doesn’t conflict with activities I have to do), but by time you summon your assistant you could’ve had the car on its way.
- lmm 5mo ago
  > Are people in the habit of asking their admin to order a pizza or a Uber? They're in the habit of their admin telling them the Uber has arrived to take them to their 3 o'clock yes.

buu700 5mo ago

I'd be more inclined to believe that an abundance of robotaxis will use predictive algorithms to preemptively show up wherever they're likely to be needed, allowing a UX where users can hail them like traditional taxis without an app. Maybe not in four years, but maybe in a decade or two. That feels both more credible and more desirable than the magic panopticon predicted in the quote, and doesn't really depend on any major technological leaps beyond continued maturation and scaling of Waymo/alternatives.

hn_throwaway_99 5mo ago
I agree with what you've written about robotaxis, and Uber/Lyft already put a ton of data analysis into ensuring they have capacity where it's needed. But I don't think apps are going anywhere anytime soon, or in decades for that matter, primarily because there are economic forces in play that make them desirable for the network owners.
- buu700 5mo ago
  Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that the apps will or should ever go away, but rather that with sufficient volume both ways could become plausible options. If an available Waymo happens to be sitting there waiting for a passenger, I don't see why it shouldn't let me just tap my credit card on the handle or something and tell it where to drop me off. Of course, summoning one or tapping my phone would ideally work too.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5mo ago
    > I don't see why it shouldn't let me just tap my credit card on the handle or something and tell it where to drop me off. I imagine because a huge part of optimizing fleet availability and distribution is knowing where you want to go before deciding which vehicle you should travel in.
    - buu700 5mo ago
      Ah, yeah, that's a good point. I can imagine some potential creative workarounds (e.g. having certain rides or types of rides involve transferring between two vehicles, possibly with multiple parties per vehicle like Uber Pool), but whether they'd actually be willing to support that is another matter entirely.