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AI is a technology not a product

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Re: AI is a technology not a product

#101

Post by piker »

rglover wrote: post #2

Steve already gave away the secret [1] (must watch) a long time ago: "You have to work backwards from the customer experience." AI was never going to be on Apple's roadmap in a significant way because it's in their DNA to differentiate technology from products. [1] https://youtu.be/oeqPrUmVz-o?si=ndUU1H5D3pNifWss

I love this video. It's classic Steve Jobs in a real meta way.

While I agree with the thesis, the response is total reality distortion field.

He says "you have to start with the customer experience" rather than the technology.

Then he name drops 4-5 technologies that were speculative endeavors and says when Apple put them all together to make the laser printer: "we can sell this".

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#102

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

lxgr wrote: post #74
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

Agree with this article, and I almost threw up in my mouth when I read this quote from Stephen Levy: > By the end of this decade, it’s unlikely that people will swipe on their phones to tap on Uber or Lyft. They will just tell their always-on AI agent to get them home. Or that agent will have already figured out where they need to go, and the car will be waiting without the friction of a request. “There’s an app for…

> [...] broadcast that they're so important and busy that they can't take the 5 seconds [...] It takes a lot more than 5 seconds to make an informed decision these days. Apps and websites are throwing abusive fine print and dark patterns at users left and right. I'd be absolutely thrilled to e.g. not have to interact with the Uber app and all its dark patterns if there were somebody or something I could trust to comp…

> It takes a lot more than 5 seconds to make an informed decision these days. Apps and websites are throwing abusive fine print and dark patterns at users left and right.

I just opened the Uber app. The first thing that pops up is a search bar that says "Where to?". I entered a destination address. Next thing it showed was a map with a path to my destination and nearby cars, and buttons where I can choose my type of ride (e.g. UberX, Premier, etc.) It defaulted to UberX, which was the cheapest option except for the "Wait and Save" option that was further down. I tapped the "Choose UberX" button and the ride was on its way.

So, OK, maybe it took literally 15 seconds. I'm not denying Uber may use dark patterns elsewhere, but from the end user experience of hailing a ride I don't see how it could be any simpler or more straightforward.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#103

Post by the_af »

wilg wrote: post #71
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

Agree with this article, and I almost threw up in my mouth when I read this quote from Stephen Levy: > By the end of this decade, it’s unlikely that people will swipe on their phones to tap on Uber or Lyft. They will just tell their always-on AI agent to get them home. Or that agent will have already figured out where they need to go, and the car will be waiting without the friction of a request. “There’s an app for…

[flagged]

"Better how"? If you're going to dismiss a comment, you better address the points they are making, like:

> I was reading article recently that said that a majority of people interviewed did not want to use AI agents simply because they didn't have much stuff in their life worth automating. Or more to the point, a lot of people actually enjoy making grocery lists, planning trips, picking out gifts for friends, etc. This stuff is generally considered "life", not some back breaking drudgery like washing clothes in a stream that I'd like to automate.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#104

Post by the_af »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #96
dpark wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who TF are these people who think this kind of future is desirable? Some of this is weird techno delusion. Some of it is because the people describing it do a poor job of explaining how it might work. If a couple decades ago someone told you that you’d have an always listening device in your pocket to answer your questions from all the world’s information, it would have sounded dumb, and with the always-listening d…

> and with the always-listening device, rather dystopian. But that’s what you have assuming you have any modern smart phone. That feels a little bit of muddling the waters. At least on Android with which I'm familiar, (a) you can turn off the "OK Google" detection in settings so that it's not always listening (and I'm not sure what the setup is now but originally I had to opt it to OK Google detection) and (b) the pa…

Agreed, plus it ignores all the commentary making a fuss about phones listening, even here on HN.

Just because it's a losing battle doesn't mean nobody cares.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#106

Post by coffeefirst »

wpm wrote: post #95
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…

Shortcuts already lets you set up custom workflows you can trigger by voice.

I know. I actually use it a lot. But the way you assemble shortcuts leaves a lot to be desired for anything nontrivial.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#107

Post by 2dfdd »

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.

Classic example of a bozo talking out his arse.

"Folks who didn't have them before can now build them. Folks who had to rely on a web designer no longer have to."

You ever heard of squarespace?

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#108

Post by msabalau »

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…

The MP3 spec was defined a decade before we had iPods. Spreadsheets took a decade to become indispensable to businesses.

Clifford Stoll had used the internet for two decades before writting his infamous 1995 essay in Time saying the internet was overhyped, and "normal" people would never e-mail because they can just fax.

CRISPR was first observed in 1987, and the gene-editing breakthrough came in 2012.

It's really, really unclear why you think LLMs would have faster adoption, when they are already that being adopted faster that anything other tech, ever.

Do you honestly know of no non-technical person who use LLMs? Because an absurd number of people report on surveys that they use it every week.

LLM apps are regularly the top downloads on the iPhone.

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#109

Post by pyrolistical »

buu700 wrote: post #94
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

Agree with this article, and I almost threw up in my mouth when I read this quote from Stephen Levy: > By the end of this decade, it’s unlikely that people will swipe on their phones to tap on Uber or Lyft. They will just tell their always-on AI agent to get them home. Or that agent will have already figured out where they need to go, and the car will be waiting without the friction of a request. “There’s an app for…

I'd be more inclined to believe that an abundance of robotaxis will use predictive algorithms to preemptively show up wherever they're likely to be needed, allowing a UX where users can hail them like traditional taxis without an app. Maybe not in four years, but maybe in a decade or two. That feels both more credible and more desirable than the magic panopticon predicted in the quote, and doesn't really depend on an…

So robo taxis are going to stalk us?

Re: AI is a technology not a product

#110

Post by concinds »

So far, Google has been better than Apple at treating AI as a technology/feature and not just a product.

Staying on hold for you. Google Lens on that coat or bag. Warning you in the middle of a text convo with a stranger, if the conversation veers into typical scam patterns. Better text/email spam detection than Apple. Hanging up spoofed calls posing as your bank. Magic Cue. Magic Eraser. Better transcriptions and translations, in far more languages.

And who could forget, a good touchscreen keyboard. Those are real "AI as a feature". Not a better Siri.

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