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The case against conversational interfaces

julian.digital

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Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#171

Post by indoordin0saur »

android521 wrote: post #43

>I admit that the title of this essay is a bit misleading (made you click though, didn’t it?). This isn’t really a case against conversational interfaces, it’s a case against zero-sum thinking. No matter the intention or quality of the article, i do not like this kind of deceitful link-bait article. It may have higher quality than pure link-bait but nobody like to be deceived

I did not find the article to be deceitful at all. He does make a case against overuse of conversational interfaces. The author is just humbly acknowledging his position is more nuanced than the title of article might suggest.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#172

Post by notnullorvoid »

la_oveja wrote: post #122
pydry wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This rules out conversational UI for some tasks and applications but there are many where it will be useful and many where a hybrid would be best. Even in a car, being able to control the windscreen wipers, radio, ask how much fuel is left are all tasks it would be useful to do conversationally. There are some apps (im thinking of jira as an example) where i'd like to do 90% of the usage conversationally.

> Even in a car, being able to control the windscreen wipers, radio, ask how much fuel is left are all tasks it would be useful to do conversationally. are you REALLY sure you want that? how much fuel there is is a quick glance into the dash, and you can control precisely the radio volume without even looking. 'turn up the volume', 'turn down the volume a little bit', 'a bit more',... and then a radio ad going 'get y…

If the choice for controls is touchscreen vs conversational, conversational wins by a mile. However if physical buttons and dials are an option there's really no competing with that.

I wish car manufacturers stopped with the touchscreen bullshit, but it seems more likely that they'll try to offset the terrible experience with voice controls.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#173

Post by indoordin0saur »

lolinder wrote: post #155
throwaway290 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a team of senior, experienced and bright engineers, you can with a few words point out a desire and, trust them to ask for information when there is relevant ambiguity, and expect a good outcome It's such a fallacy. First thing an experienced and bright engineer will tell you is to leave the premises with your "few words about a desire" and not return without actual specs and requirements formalized in…

> First thing an experienced and bright engineer will tell you is to leave the premises with your "few words about a desire" and not return without actual specs and requirements formalized in some way. No, that's what a junior engineer will do. The first thing that an experienced and bright senior engineer will do is think over the request and ask clarifying questions in pursuit of a more rigorous specification, then…

You're entirely right. The person you're responding to doesn't sound like a senior engineer so much as a grouchy old engineer who is burned out. Of course, you can get bad clients but expecting them to know exactly what specs they want every time is unreasonable in most situations, particularly if they don't have the technical knowledge of the systems you work in.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#174

Post by mpalmer »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #171
android521 wrote: post #43

>I admit that the title of this essay is a bit misleading (made you click though, didn’t it?). This isn’t really a case against conversational interfaces, it’s a case against zero-sum thinking. No matter the intention or quality of the article, i do not like this kind of deceitful link-bait article. It may have higher quality than pure link-bait but nobody like to be deceived

I did not find the article to be deceitful at all. He does make a case against overuse of conversational interfaces. The author is just humbly acknowledging his position is more nuanced than the title of article might suggest.

"Humbly"? The author has full control over the title, and in addition to being bait, the title is not humble at all.

Not a case against, but the case against.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#175

Post by littlestymaar »

UncleMeat wrote: post #164
littlestymaar wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just tell it then.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#176

Post by shakna »

furyofantares wrote: post #135
walthamstow wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? The way I'm reading it, the first step is LLM turning human imprecise thinking into specific and exact commands

That's true, but that is the input section of the diagram, not the output section where [specific and exact output] is labeled, so I believe there was legitimate confusion I was responding to. To your point, which I think is separate but related, that IS a case where LLMs are good at producing specific and exact commands. The models + the right prompt are pretty reliable at tool calling by themselves, because you giv…

The tool may not even exist. LLMs are really terrible at admitting where the limits of the training are. They will imagine a tool into being. They will also claim the knowledge is within their realm, when it isn't.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#177

Post by steveBK123 »

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…

Yeah I mean - haven't we already been doing this a decade with home voice assistant speaker things and all found them to be underwhelming?

Theres 1-5 things any individual finds them useful for (timers/lights/music/etc) and then.. thats it.

99.9% of what I use a computer for its far faster to type/click/touch my phone/tablet/computer.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#178

Post by uoaei »

wetoastfood wrote: post #126
nerdponx wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many people book flights that way today?

Many people today are booking flights for others, be it families, business leaders, or traditional travel agents. They’re communicating preferences and asking about preferred travel times, budget, seat selection, and more. When you book for and with someone else, these preferences get learned and you no longer have to ask if they prefer an aisle seat—you just pick it. The booking experience today is granular to help…

And how many bad experiences do you expect people to tolerate before AI eventually learns the person's "real" preferences?

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#180

Post by Zamaamiro »

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…

I don't see how "but that's the way we used to do things" is an argument in favor of conversational interfaces.

The whole point is that we currently have better, more efficient ways of doing those things, so why would we regress to inferior methods?

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