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A hackable AI assistant using a single SQLite table and a handful of cron jobs

geoffreylitt.com

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Re: A hackable AI assistant using a single SQLite table and a handful of cron jobs

#4

Post by dogline »

This made me think: what if my little utility assistant program that I have, similar to your Stevens, had access to a mailbox?

I've got a little utility program that I can tell to get the weather or run common commands unique to my system. It's handy, and I can even cron it to run things regularly, if I'd like.

If it had its own email box, I can send it information, it could use AI to parse that info, and possibly send email back, or a new message. Now, I've got something really useful. It would parse the email, add it to whatever internal store it has, and delete the message, without screwing up my own email box.

Thanks for the insight.

Re: A hackable AI assistant using a single SQLite table and a handful of cron jobs

#6

Post by mbil »

dogline wrote: post #4

This made me think: what if my little utility assistant program that I have, similar to your Stevens, had access to a mailbox? I've got a little utility program that I can tell to get the weather or run common commands unique to my system. It's handy, and I can even cron it to run things regularly, if I'd like. If it had its own email box, I can send it information, it could use AI to parse that info, and possibly se…

I’ve been thinking lately that email is a good interface for certain modes of AI assistant interaction, namely “research” tasks that are asynchronous and take a relatively long time. Email is universal, asynchronous, uses open standards, supports structured metadata, etc.

Re: A hackable AI assistant using a single SQLite table and a handful of cron jobs

#7

Post by groseje »

This is the kind of pragmatic AI hack I want to see. It feels like sometimes we are forgetting why certain tooling even exists. To simplify things! No fancy vector DBs or complex architectures, just practical integration with existing data sources. Love it.

Re: A hackable AI assistant using a single SQLite table and a handful of cron jobs

#8

Post by criddell »

mbil wrote: post #6
dogline wrote: post #4

This made me think: what if my little utility assistant program that I have, similar to your Stevens, had access to a mailbox? I've got a little utility program that I can tell to get the weather or run common commands unique to my system. It's handy, and I can even cron it to run things regularly, if I'd like. If it had its own email box, I can send it information, it could use AI to parse that info, and possibly se…

I’ve been thinking lately that email is a good interface for certain modes of AI assistant interaction, namely “research” tasks that are asynchronous and take a relatively long time. Email is universal, asynchronous, uses open standards, supports structured metadata, etc.

How does email support structured metadata? Are you talking about X headers?

Re: A hackable AI assistant using a single SQLite table and a handful of cron jobs

#9

Post by bob1029 »

mbil wrote: post #6
dogline wrote: post #4

This made me think: what if my little utility assistant program that I have, similar to your Stevens, had access to a mailbox? I've got a little utility program that I can tell to get the weather or run common commands unique to my system. It's handy, and I can even cron it to run things regularly, if I'd like. If it had its own email box, I can send it information, it could use AI to parse that info, and possibly se…

I’ve been thinking lately that email is a good interface for certain modes of AI assistant interaction, namely “research” tasks that are asynchronous and take a relatively long time. Email is universal, asynchronous, uses open standards, supports structured metadata, etc.

This is how I initially pitched an AI assistant in my last shop.

It is a lot cheaper to leverage existing user interfaces & tools (i.e., Outlook) than it is to build new UIs and then train users on them.

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