Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Changes we're making to Google Assistant

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 302 posts

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#101

Post by Terr_ »

kleiba wrote: post #49

I went into AI almost 30 years ago because I wanted to be part of building a science-fiction future where you could talk to your device just like in the movies. Now that we're almost there, I wouldn't touch a cloud-based speech interface with a ten foot pole -- had I foreseen that my sci-fi future included giving all my private information (like, say, what my voice sounds like) to a face-less billion dollar global co…

I want to see a personal AI revolution to echo the Personal Computer revolution.

Tools that people own-- capital, almost--that work for individual own best-interests.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#102

Post by JoshTriplett »

Bartkusa wrote: post #51
eterm wrote: post #20

Wow that's a big list of surprisingly useful features being ripped out. I'd already noticed my new phone (pixel 8, I fucking hate it) had trouble setting a simple timer with a voice command ( last time I tried it gave me a shitty youtube video result of a 10 minute timer!?!), but this list of removed features goes further, removing other basic functionality from voice assistance. If all a voice assistant can do is go…

> Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms. How much does this cost to maintain? A stopwatch? They’re axing a STOPWATCH?! This is embarrassing.

Taking a guess, based on experiences with using Google Assistant extensively:

What do you do if you have statistics saying that, say, a feature is used by a small fraction of users, and 40% of the activations of the feature were in fact not what the user wants, and instead were misunderstandings of requests for something else?

Ambiguity is a massive problem.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#103

Post by edu »

RandomWorker wrote: post #90
afavour wrote: post #30

To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive. I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was…

Funny fact is that this is core use case I use siri to add things to the reminders app which I have a smart list called "shopping list." It's amazing how great this is, and how many times I use this.

I do exactly the same.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#104

Post by notatoad »

tlogan wrote: post #72

I believe Google is heading in the wrong direction with their current approach. In my opinion, integrating LLMs and add function calling would be a significant improvement. This integration would enable the assistant to perform more complex and integrated tasks, and facilitate more meaningful conversations. Especially in scenarios where the user’s request isn’t clear or it’s uncertain which application to invoke and…

> In my opinion, integrating LLMs and add function calling would be a significant improvement

i'm sure this is where they're headed. but what announcement reads as to me is some clever PM at google realized they don't want to announce a new LLM update to the assistant and have to include all the functionality it loses in that same announcment. so they're taking the functionality away now, and in six months they can announce a new assistant that has feature parity with the "old one"

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#105

Post by axolttl88 »

RandomWorker wrote: post #90
afavour wrote: post #30

To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive. I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was…

Funny fact is that this is core use case I use siri to add things to the reminders app which I have a smart list called "shopping list." It's amazing how great this is, and how many times I use this.

This and music control are the uniques cases where Siri Just Works for me. “Add toothpaste to my shopping list” no fluff no nonsense replies, just “I added that to the shopping list” - and it’s on my phone’s Reminders in that list.

I wonder how well they’ve optimised Siri for a just few specific use cases like this, because nothing else seems to reliably work on it.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#106

Post by gr__or »

esafak wrote: post #77
afavour wrote: post #30

To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive. I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was…

It's not just voice, but conversational interfaces in general that have this discoverability problem. That means chatGPT. I'm glad people are discovering it, if you excuse the pun. CUIs are not a panacea, not a replacement for conventional UIs.

I think there's a line worth drawing here: Pre-LLM voice interfaces required you to guess the command(s) the designer of the thinking were having in mind for the action you want to perform. With LLMs you can be 10ft into human-level vaguery and metaphorism and your intent might still survive.

So the difference wrt discovery is that you only have to gesture at what you wanna do and, if a matching action exists, there is a chance it will be understood.

I'd wager we'll see a renaissance of voice assistants with LLMs, especially once the good-enough ones can run on device.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#107

Post by _dain_ »

Reading this thread is kinda bizarre to me. Do people actually ... talk to their phones? Like for real, not just in cringeworthy scripted adverts? I've never used any of these voice assistant things and nor does anyone I know. It always seemed like a huge gimmick to me. Am I just in a bubble?

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#108

Post by ygjb »

nickcw wrote: post #41

I read the title of this and thought - yes - at last - Google are going to be integrating LLM capabilities with Google Assistant to make it really really useful instead of occasionally useful with a side helping of frustration at how little it understands. Instead this seems to be a list of useful features that are being taken away! I'm disappointed. Google employ some of the best AI/ML engineers in the world and the…

The problem is that the current crop of google assistant devices (excluding current and upcoming gen cell phones) are woefully underpowered for local models, meaning that supporting the existing install base will be expensive.

I expect that a new assistant like product (Google Bard Home or something) will be announced and existing Assistant/Home devices will be deprecated.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#109

Post by Kon-Peki »

eterm wrote: post #20

Wow that's a big list of surprisingly useful features being ripped out. I'd already noticed my new phone (pixel 8, I fucking hate it) had trouble setting a simple timer with a voice command ( last time I tried it gave me a shitty youtube video result of a 10 minute timer!?!), but this list of removed features goes further, removing other basic functionality from voice assistance. If all a voice assistant can do is go…

> last time I tried it gave me a shitty youtube video result of a 10 minute timer!?!

A YouTube video has the chance to earn them advertising revenue. A 10-minute timer does not.

However, they are clearly missing an opportunity: "Your 10-minute timer, sponsored by Burger King, has finished. Would you like to order a Whopper to be delivered by Uber Eats?"

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#110

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

danielbln wrote: post #63
afavour wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite the opposite. I bike the kids to school every morning. The weather is too important to be summed up by a voice summary, I need the hour by hour details.

I can ask Alexa e.g. "what's the weather at 9am", that doesn't work with Google Assistant?

You can definitely do that.
Post reply on HN