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AI is a technology not a product

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Re: AI is a technology not a product

#11

Post by coffeefirst »

Agreed.

The ideal implementation of AI for Apple is probably to finally make Siri work. This isn’t necessary fancy, just let me set some calendar events without knowing the magic words or tell it to open Overcast and play the new Gastropod episode. Better yet, for power users, let me set up reusable shortcuts using natural language.

The most important part of this is it doesn’t necessarily feel like AI. The user does not like AI for its own sake or the weirdos who ramble about putting them into a permanent underclass. The user likes messaging their friends and playing music.

To much of this hype cycle has no user in mind.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#12

Post by samrus »

coffeefirst wrote: post #11

Agreed. The ideal implementation of AI for Apple is probably to finally make Siri work. This isn’t necessary fancy, just let me set some calendar events without knowing the magic words or tell it to open Overcast and play the new Gastropod episode. Better yet, for power users, let me set up reusable shortcuts using natural language. The most important part of this is it doesn’t necessarily feel like AI. The user does…

Absolutely agreed. It feels like tech companies forgot that they are supposed to add value to users. Theyve been shoving random AI usecases down their users throats with no regard for whether it works for the users flow or not. When theres so much value to be had from AI in normal products. Claude code is the best in this right now, probably because the engineers themselves are users.

This isnt unprecedented, its what happened in the dotcom bubble as well. But then that tech started getting used properly as well. So i think its a matter of time before claude code levels of value is avialable to normal users

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#13

Post by JumpCrisscross »

coffeefirst wrote: post #11

Agreed. The ideal implementation of AI for Apple is probably to finally make Siri work. This isn’t necessary fancy, just let me set some calendar events without knowing the magic words or tell it to open Overcast and play the new Gastropod episode. Better yet, for power users, let me set up reusable shortcuts using natural language. The most important part of this is it doesn’t necessarily feel like AI. The user does…

> ideal implementation of AI for Apple is probably to finally make Siri work

Wouldn't the simplest solution be to auction off Siri's back end the way Apple does Safari's search bar in iOS?

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#14

Post by miguel_rdp »

amazingamazing wrote: post #10

GPT 3.5 is nearly 4 years old. What’s a non coding use case that’s enabled with LLMs that materially improves the average person’s life? For the sake of conversation let’s say the average person is some random person in middle America. To me there are cool things but nothing so great where if LLMs were deleted I’d cry about it. To contrast mRNA vaccines, gene therapy and crispr seem more impactful in reality, just to…

Access to a rational, imperfect yet functional expert in lots of everyday subjects: personal finance, making decisions and plans, relationships, taboo questions, the first steps of a medical/law opinion, general problem solving and breakdown..

Even considering that it’s sometimes wrong or hallucinating, it’s doing an important job by beginning to eliminate gate keeping, be it centered on cost or access.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#15

Post by pixl97 »

dwa3592 wrote: post #8
oulipo2 wrote: post #3

[flagged]

I was honestly a bit intrigued to read that article but its written on a stack of weak arguments. for example: >>technologies have built-in politics that stem from the political views and goals of the people building the technology. First, its not just technology that has built-in politics. It's everything, think of tshirts, cups, hats sold on political rallied. Second- how does this even hold up in the context of AI…

Yea, in itself AI is just AI.

The practical implementation is what leads to the autocratic and or fascist like tendencies. LLMs in their current state take massive amounts of money/compute/energy to make. Those items in large amounts are typically managed by corporations or governments. Corporations are not democracies. Corporations also have liability considerations they have to work around. And, they have to do all this without pissing off the government they operate under too much. So yes, this is almost always going to lead to a situation that is not individual friendly. The implementation ends up opinionated because it must. There are only a small number of implementations and the company has much less freedom in what it outputs than the average 'open all the freedom gates' idiot thinks.

Really the only solution here, if possible, is hoping that we can train LLMs/AI with far less resources in the future. If so, this can lead to a proliferation of different models optimized for different purposes. But at the end of the day we must remember all models are biased, this includes human brains. At the end of the day, both AI and brains, are a map and not the territory. We are defined by what we filter out.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#16

Post by JumpCrisscross »

amazingamazing wrote: post #10

GPT 3.5 is nearly 4 years old. What’s a non coding use case that’s enabled with LLMs that materially improves the average person’s life? For the sake of conversation let’s say the average person is some random person in middle America. To me there are cool things but nothing so great where if LLMs were deleted I’d cry about it. To contrast mRNA vaccines, gene therapy and crispr seem more impactful in reality, just to…

> What’s a non coding use case that’s enabled with LLMs that materially improves the average person’s life?

Coding adjacent, but my small town's small businesses have all dramatically improved their websites with LLMs. Folks who didn't have them before can now build them. Folks who had to rely on a web designer no longer have to.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#17

Post by JumpCrisscross »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #6

I totally agree - the phone as a form factor is not going away. People are always going to want to have a mobile communicator/computer, and want one with a screen and all-day battery life. The phone is not going to be replaced by smart glasses or some other wearable or screen-less pocket device. It may well be that the user interface of your "phone", and how you use it, changes over time as we progress toward AGI, bu…

> the phone as a form factor is not going away

It's not going away in the next few years. Which means Apple doesn't have to rush to release an AI product for the sake of it à la Giannandrea.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#18

Post by amazingamazing »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16
amazingamazing wrote: post #10

GPT 3.5 is nearly 4 years old. What’s a non coding use case that’s enabled with LLMs that materially improves the average person’s life? For the sake of conversation let’s say the average person is some random person in middle America. To me there are cool things but nothing so great where if LLMs were deleted I’d cry about it. To contrast mRNA vaccines, gene therapy and crispr seem more impactful in reality, just to…

> What’s a non coding use case that’s enabled with LLMs that materially improves the average person’s life? Coding adjacent, but my small town's small businesses have all dramatically improved their websites with LLMs. Folks who didn't have them before can now build them. Folks who had to rely on a web designer no longer have to.

Was it really that difficult to build a generic website with a template before? Using a LLM instead of a template seems like ridiculous overkill imho but thanks for the anecdote.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#19

Post by amazingamazing »

miguel_rdp wrote: post #14
amazingamazing wrote: post #10

GPT 3.5 is nearly 4 years old. What’s a non coding use case that’s enabled with LLMs that materially improves the average person’s life? For the sake of conversation let’s say the average person is some random person in middle America. To me there are cool things but nothing so great where if LLMs were deleted I’d cry about it. To contrast mRNA vaccines, gene therapy and crispr seem more impactful in reality, just to…

Access to a rational, imperfect yet functional expert in lots of everyday subjects: personal finance, making decisions and plans, relationships, taboo questions, the first steps of a medical/law opinion, general problem solving and breakdown.. Even considering that it’s sometimes wrong or hallucinating, it’s doing an important job by beginning to eliminate gate keeping, be it centered on cost or access.

Im unconvinced. How do you trade this for misinformation and scams that will be coming on unprecedented scale? In any case isn’t it the case that the value there is human expertise and search? At least with gpt 5 using it without search will almost certainly give you wrong information in a variety of topics so the value seems to be in search which is old tech

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#20

Post by JumpCrisscross »

amazingamazing wrote: post #18
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What’s a non coding use case that’s enabled with LLMs that materially improves the average person’s life? Coding adjacent, but my small town's small businesses have all dramatically improved their websites with LLMs. Folks who didn't have them before can now build them. Folks who had to rely on a web designer no longer have to.

Was it really that difficult to build a generic website with a template before? Using a LLM instead of a template seems like ridiculous overkill imho but thanks for the anecdote.

> Was it really that difficult to build a generic website with a template before?

Yes. Code looks intimidating if you aren't used to it (and don't have an IDE). And there are lots of steps between having a file of code and having a hosted website.

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