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The case against conversational interfaces

julian.digital

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Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#161

Post by UncleMeat »

littlestymaar wrote: post #107
shubhamjain wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why couldn't the interface ask you about your preferences? Because instead, what we have right now are clunky web interface that just cram every choice in the small screen in front of you and letting you understand how they are in fact different and sort out yourself how to make things work. Of course a conversational interface is useless if it tries to just do the same thing as a web UI, which is why it failed a dec…

Scrolling through a list of a few options seems much less clunky than being asked via voice about which option I prefer. I can see multiple options at once and compare them easily. But via voice I need to keep all of the options in working memory to compare them. Harder.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#162

Post by sebastiennight »

The author seems to ignore the main case for conversational interfaces - which is not to replace the software, but the software user.

Not telling your car to turn left or right, but telling your cab driver you're going to the airport.

This is our usecase at our startup[1] - we want to enable tiny SMBs who didn't have the budget to hire a "video guy", to get an experience similar to having one. And that's why we're switching to a conversational UX (because those users would normally communicate with the "video guy" or girl by sending them a Whatsapp message, not by clicking buttons on the video software)

[1] https://www.onetake.ai

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#163

Post by general_reveal »

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…

[dead]

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#164

Post by UncleMeat »

littlestymaar wrote: post #118
earnestinger wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can ask, but how much time do you want to spend answering stuff? Such dialog is probably nice for first time user, it is a nightmare for repeated user.

What prevents the system to remember your previous choices? Then it can assume you choice haven't changed, and propose you a solution that matches your previous choices. And to give the user control it just needs to explicitly tell the user about the assumption it made. In fact, a smart enough system could even see when violating the assumptions could lead to a substantial gain and try convincing the user that it may…

The previous choice might not what I want today.

Maybe I'm tired of layovers and I'm willing to pay more for a direct flight this time. Maybe I want a different selection at a restaurant because I'm in the mood for tacos rather than a burrito.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#165

Post by grbsh »

fragmede wrote: post #92
JSR_FDED wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worthwhil…

But that is how we used to buy a plane ticket. Long before flights.google.com's price table, you'd call a human up and tell them you'd like to go on holiday. They'd ask you where and when and how much you could afford, and then after a while with the old system (SABRE) clicking and clacking they'd find you a good deal. After a few flights with that travel agent, they'd hey to know you and wouldn't have to ask so many…

It's a great point that this is how we primarily used to interact with businesses and services, but we've moved on. For Gen-Z, e.g., many will refuse to use the product or service if they have to speak to an actual human. Just like we're now not willing to take boat across the ocean for 3 months, but before airplanes this was not uncommon.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#166

Post by grbsh »

namaria wrote: post #75
phyzix5761 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're onto something. We've learned to make computers and electronic devices feel like extensions of ourselves. We move our bodies and they do what we expect. Having to switch now to using our voice breaks that connection. Its no longer an extension of ourselves but a thing we interact with.

Two key things that make computers useful, specificity and exactitude, are thrown out of the window by interposing NLP between the person and the computer. I don't get it at all.

Why would you ever hire a human to perform some task for you in a company? They're known for having problems with ambiguity and precision in communication.

Humans require a lot of back and forth effort for "alignment" with regular "syncs" and "iterations" and "I'll get that to you by EOD". If you approach the potential of natural interfaces with expectations that frame them the same way as 2000s era software, you'll fail to be creative about new ways humans interact with these systems in the future.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#168

Post by stevage »

alnwlsn wrote: post #158

Somebody showed me a text-to-CAD AI tool recently, and I can't help but feel that whoever made it doesn't understand that people who use CAD aren't trying to solve the problem of "make a model of a rubber duck" but something more like "make a custom angle bracket which mounts part number xxxyyyy". Sure, you can try to describe what you want in words, but there's a reason machine shops want drawings and not a 300 word…

Surely those text based tools exist for people who aren't CAD experts. I don't know CAD. But a tool that let me type in a description of a thing and then send it off to be 3D printed sounds pretty great to me.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#170

Post by Izkata »

grbsh wrote: post #160
DabeDotCom wrote: post #149

> It was like they were communicating telepathically. > > That is the type of relationship I want to have with my computer! The problem is, "The Only Thing Worse Than Computers Making YOU Do Everything... Is When They Do Everything *FOR* You!" "ad3} and "aP might not be "discoverable" vi commands, but they're fast and precise. Plus, it's easier to teach a human to think like a computer than to teach a computer to thi…

I think we can have the best of both worlds here. We want the precision and speed of using vi commands, but we want the discoverability of GUI document editors. LLMs may be able to solve the discoverability problem. If the editor can be highly confident that you want to use a given a command, for example, it can give you an intellisense like completion option. I don't think we've cracked the code on how this UX shoul…

> We want the precision and speed of using vi commands, but we want the discoverability of GUI document editors.

> The other great thing about this mode is that it can double as a teaching methodology.

gvim has menus and puts the commands in the menus as shortcuts. I learned from there vim has folding and how to use it.

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