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The case against conversational interfaces

julian.digital

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Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#61

Post by chthonicdaemon »

benob wrote: post #38

To me natural language interfaces are like the mouse-driven menu vs terminal interpreter. They allow good discoverability in systems that we don't master at the cost of efficiency. As always, good UI allows for using multiple modalities.

I feel like chat interfaces have terrible discoverability. You can ask for anything but you have no idea what the system can actually do. In the menu system the options were all spelled out - that's what discoverability means to me. If you spend enough time going through the menus and dialogs you will find all the options, and in a well-designed interface you might notice a function you didn't know about near the one you're using now.

What chat interfaces have over CLIs is good robustness. You can word your request in lots of different ways and get a useful answer.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#62

Post by gblargg »

cdrini wrote: post #17

Completely agree, voice UI is best as an augmentation of our current HCI patterns with keyboard/mouse. I think one of the reasons this is, is because our brains kind of have separate buffers for visual memory and aural memory (Baddeley's working memory model). Most computer use takes up the visual buffer, and our aural buffer has extra bandwidth. This also means we can do things aurally while still maintaining focus/…

The multitasking is something I like about smart home speakers. I can be asking it to turn the lights on/off or check the temperature, while doing other things physically and not interrupting them, often while walking through the room. Even if voice commands are slower, they don't interrupt other processing nearly as much as having to visually devote attention and fine motor skills, and navigate to the right screen in an app to do what you want.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#63

Post by internet_points »

gatinsama wrote: post #53

It is a huge turnoff for me when futuristic series use conversational interfaces. It happened in the Expanse and was hard to watch. For anyone who likes to think, learn, and tinker with user interfaces (HCI in general), it's obviously a high-latency and noisy channel.

I actually found that quite reasonable. E.g. they were using it to sort and filter data, just like people today use llm's to write their R script and (avoid having to) figure out how to invoke gnuplot. I'm sure somewhere in that computer it's still invoking gnuplot under a century of vibe-coded moldy spaghetti code =P

I don't remember where else they used voice, they had a lot of other interface types they switched between. Tried searching for a clip and found this quote:

    > The voice interface had been problematic from the start. 
    > The original owner was Chinese so, I turned the damn thing off.
So yes, quite realistic :-)

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#64

Post by benrutter »

benob wrote: post #38

To me natural language interfaces are like the mouse-driven menu vs terminal interpreter. They allow good discoverability in systems that we don't master at the cost of efficiency. As always, good UI allows for using multiple modalities.

Yesyesyesyes! I do wish I could think of more examples supporting both well.

VSCode is probably the best I can think of, where keyboard shortcuts can get you up to a decent speed as an advanced user, but mouse clicks provide an easy intro for a new user.

For the most part, I see tools like NVim, which is super fast but not new-user friendly. Or IOS, which a toddler can navigate, but doesn't afford many ways to speed up interactions like typing.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#65

Post by f1shy »

soulofmischief wrote: post #6
neom wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through Waldorf education and although Rudolf Steiner is quite eccentric, one thing I think he was spot on about was regarding WHEN you introduce technology. He believed that introducing technology or mechanized thinking too early in childhood would hinder imaginative, emotional, and spiritual development. He emphasized that children should engage primarily with natural materials, imaginative play, storytellin…

I will counter this by saying that my time spent with screens before 6 was unimaginably critical for me. If I hadn't had it, I would have been trapped by the racist, religously zealous, backwoods mentality that gripped the rest of my family and the majority of the people I grew up with. I discovered video games at age 3 and it changed EVERYTHING. It completely opened my mind to abstract thought and, among other thing…

I second this motion. Technology is just a tool. It can be wisely used or not. Just forbidding it, is not wise in my opinion. You have to be careful to use it properly, or course.

Also let me drop the thought here, that Rudolf Steiner, like Montesori and the like, shoot "this is good" "this is bad" based on "feeling" or intuition, or such. There were no extensive scientific studies behind it.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#66

Post by d3vmax »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #33

This clearly elucidated a number of things I've tried to explain to people who are so excited about "conversations" with computers. The example I've used (with varying levels of effectiveness) was to get someone to think about driving their car by only talking to it. Not a self driving car that does the driving for you, but telling it things like: turn, accelerate, stop, slow down, speed up, put on the blinker, turn…

Agree. Not all systems require convo mode. I personally find Chat/Convo/IVR type interface slow/tedious. Keyboard/Mouse ftw.

However, A CEO using Power BI with Convo to can get more insights/graphs rather than slice/dicing his data. They do have fixed metrics but incase they want something not displayed.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#67

Post by JSR_FDED »

shubhamjain wrote: post #55
ChuckMcM wrote: post #33

This clearly elucidated a number of things I've tried to explain to people who are so excited about "conversations" with computers. The example I've used (with varying levels of effectiveness) was to get someone to think about driving their car by only talking to it. Not a self driving car that does the driving for you, but telling it things like: turn, accelerate, stop, slow down, speed up, put on the blinker, turn…

I had the same thoughts on conversational interfaces [1]. Humane AI failed not only because of terrible execution, the whole assumption of voice being a superior interface (and trying to invent something beyond smartphones) was flawed. > Theoretically, saying, “order an Uber to airport” seems like the easiest way to accomplish the task. But is it? What kind of Uber? UberXL, UberGo? There’s a 1.5x surge pricing. Accep…

And 10x worse than that is booking a flight: I found one that fits your budget, but it leaves at midnight, or requires an extra stop, or is on an airline for which you don't collect frequent flyer miles, or arrives it at a secondary airport in the same city, or it only has a middle seat available.

How many of these inconveniences will you put up with? Any of them, all of them? What price difference makes it worthwhile? What if by traveling a day earlier you save enough money to even pay for a hotel...?

All of that is for just 1 flight, what if there are several alternatives? I can't imagine have a dialogue about this with a computer.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#68

Post by f1shy »

neom wrote: post #23
Foobar8568 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, packed of pseudosciences, which we still suffer today. In Switzerland, we get often measle outbreaks thanks to his cult.

Well, how folks view the philosophy can be multifaceted, so I'll leave the pseudoscience and cult part aside. On the measles, Steiner was certainly skeptical of vaccination, but I think in Switzerland you have a cultural issue with vaccination. The Waldorf school I went to in Canada, everyone had a measles vaccine, but I do recall a Swiss student coming to our distinctively not Waldorf high school and there being a h…

It is pseudoscience, as they speak as if it was science (made categorical affirmations of what is better and worst for the education), but there is not science behind it. The cult is more controversial. But as long as people believe something that is not scientifically backed, for me at least, that is what I call religion.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#69

Post by theshackleford »

incognito124 wrote: post #31
cdrini wrote: post #17

Completely agree, voice UI is best as an augmentation of our current HCI patterns with keyboard/mouse. I think one of the reasons this is, is because our brains kind of have separate buffers for visual memory and aural memory (Baddeley's working memory model). Most computer use takes up the visual buffer, and our aural buffer has extra bandwidth. This also means we can do things aurally while still maintaining focus/…

> This also means we can do things aurally while still maintaining focus/attention on what we're doing visually, allowing a kind of multitasking. Maybe you, but I most definitely cannot focus on different things aurally and visually. I never successfully listened to something in the background while doing something else. I can't even talk properly if I'm typing something on a computer.

Yup, we are all different. I require auditory stimulation to work at my peak.

I did horribly in school but once I was in an environment where I could have some kind of background audio/video playing I began to excel. It also helps me sleep of a night. It’s like the audio keeps the portion of me that would otherwise distract me occupied.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#70

Post by var_cw »

have few thoughts on this, esp after working in voice AI since couple of years

1. > "What’s the voice equivalent of a thumbs-up or a keyboard shortcut?" Current ASR systems are much narrow in terms of just capturing the transcript. there is no higher level of intelligence, even the best of GPT voice models fail at this. Humans are highly receptive of non-verbal cues. All the uhms, ahs, even the pauses we take is where the nuance lies.

2. the hardware for voice AI is still not consumer ready interacting with a voice AI is still doesn't feel private. i am only able to do a voice based interaction only when am in my car. sadly at other places it just feels a privacy breach as its acoustically public. have been thinking about a private microphones to enable more AI based conversations.

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