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Chatbots are not the future

wattenberger.com

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Re: Chatbots are not the future

#21

Post by regularjack »

autokad wrote: post #15

> When I go up the mountain to ask the ChatGPT oracle a question, I am met with a blank face. What does this oracle know? I think if your attitude is that its an oracle, then you already have the wrong attitude for using the tool. Chatgpt is a tool, if you dont know how to use the tool, stop complaining that you don't like it. Imagine telling everyone scalpels are horrible tools because they tried to perform surgery…

Scalpel manufacturers don't advertise their scalpels as capable of performing surgery on their own.

Re: Chatbots are not the future

#22

Post by autokad »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #18
autokad wrote: post #15

> When I go up the mountain to ask the ChatGPT oracle a question, I am met with a blank face. What does this oracle know? I think if your attitude is that its an oracle, then you already have the wrong attitude for using the tool. Chatgpt is a tool, if you dont know how to use the tool, stop complaining that you don't like it. Imagine telling everyone scalpels are horrible tools because they tried to perform surgery…

Yes, sure. But you know what makes most of human history's output of art, music, literature et al great? Intent, attention to detail and self-expression . Broad strokes are broad strokes. I can procedurally generate levels all day long in a video game, but for me, they're never going to be as compelling or interesting as a lower-resolution and low quality textured game from the '90s or '00s where every single tree an…

I'm not arguing artists are going to go away, just that story telling is going to become a lot easier. it also doesn't mean the content produced is necessarily painted with 'broad strokes' and absolutely doesn't mean its soulless. It means the barriers to entry for producing stories just came down a whole lot - akin to the printing press did for books.

Re: Chatbots are not the future

#23

Post by LesZedCB »

itsuka wrote: post #10

Someone said that using a chat-only interface is like using CLI tools. It's even worse, I would add, because there is no autocomplete or man command to help you out. Most of us here probably get it, but my dad had a hard time getting a good answer from GPT when he first tried it, even with GPT-4 model.

isn't it ironic that there's no autocomplete on the tool that's literally autocomplete? haha

where's the fine-tuned prompt helper model?

Re: Chatbots are not the future

#24

Post by notahacker »

rocketbop wrote: post #13

I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before now, that using ChatGPT is quite to similar to playing Zork and Infocom games from the 1980s, with less trial and error needed to get something out of it. The point and click adventure games from Sierra and Lucas Arts were a huge step forward in interaction, although you didn't have to use your imagination as much to solve the puzzles. And here we are again asking user…

The other obvious UX comparison point is with sending instant messages to a person until they get it right....

Provided the responses aren't too brittle (and the LLM getting it wrong isn't too upsetting or find-out-too-late) lots of non power-users are going to prefer it, at least in cases where a menu or form input with about six options won't suffice.

Re: Chatbots are not the future

#25

Post by warent »

regularjack wrote: post #21
autokad wrote: post #15

> When I go up the mountain to ask the ChatGPT oracle a question, I am met with a blank face. What does this oracle know? I think if your attitude is that its an oracle, then you already have the wrong attitude for using the tool. Chatgpt is a tool, if you dont know how to use the tool, stop complaining that you don't like it. Imagine telling everyone scalpels are horrible tools because they tried to perform surgery…

Scalpel manufacturers don't advertise their scalpels as capable of performing surgery on their own.

Do you have an example of AI false advertising?

Re: Chatbots are not the future

#26

Post by JohnFen »

autokad wrote: post #22
hammyhavoc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, sure. But you know what makes most of human history's output of art, music, literature et al great? Intent, attention to detail and self-expression . Broad strokes are broad strokes. I can procedurally generate levels all day long in a video game, but for me, they're never going to be as compelling or interesting as a lower-resolution and low quality textured game from the '90s or '00s where every single tree an…

I'm not arguing artists are going to go away, just that story telling is going to become a lot easier. it also doesn't mean the content produced is necessarily painted with 'broad strokes' and absolutely doesn't mean its soulless. It means the barriers to entry for producing stories just came down a whole lot - akin to the printing press did for books.

But is the person using the tool an artist? I think this is an important question. If I give detailed instructions to a human ghost writer about a story I want them to write, I don't think anyone would say that I wrote the story. It was written by the ghost writer.

If a piece of art is made by a computer based on detailed instructions, that art was made by a computer, not a person.

If you are in the camp that you don't care whether or not art was made by a human, this isn't even a little problem. If, however, you are in the camp that cares a lot about that, then this is a very, very serious problem.

Either way, this means that this isn't "just a tool" like a printing press. It's something completely different, and more than a tool.

Re: Chatbots are not the future

#27

Post by sitkack »

> Text inputs have no affordances

It has all the affordances. You can turn it into anything you want. Want it respond with json, check, it can do that. Turn a wall of text into a Python data structures, check, it can do that too.

You can take your LLM text interface and put what ever api you want on top. You start with clay and mold it into anything you need. You construct a parser so that the way data is already constrained and validated. Same goes for the output.

Re: Chatbots are not the future

#28

Post by freediver »

dang wrote: post #8
raggi wrote: post #2

one thing I can say for certain: scroll handlers definitely aren't the future

I agree, but: " Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Comments like this confirm that you are indeed reading every comment on the website, which should be out of the realm of humanely possible.

Re: Chatbots are not the future

#29

Post by rurp »

itake wrote: post #5

> Good tools make it clear how they should be used. This is such a weird statement from someone in the tech space. Programming languages rarely have an opinion for how they are to be used (for example JS MUST only run the browser or which code style to use). When I chat with customer support, I wish they could meet me where I am instead of me needing to learn their tools. For example, I want to say "cancel my subscri…

Subscription cancellation buttons are intentionally confusing and hard to find. It's easy to add a big red Cancel button in an obvious place that works immediately, but companies choose to avoid that route in order to extract more money from customers. Nothing about that dynamic will change with LLMs, those same companies will have the same priorities.

The only difference will be that script-following customer service reps giving you the runaround will be replaced by indefatigable chatbots giving you the runaround, which honestly sounds pretty hellish to me.

Re: Chatbots are not the future

#30

Post by andrepd »

LesZedCB wrote: post #23
itsuka wrote: post #10

Someone said that using a chat-only interface is like using CLI tools. It's even worse, I would add, because there is no autocomplete or man command to help you out. Most of us here probably get it, but my dad had a hard time getting a good answer from GPT when he first tried it, even with GPT-4 model.

isn't it ironic that there's no autocomplete on the tool that's literally autocomplete? haha where's the fine-tuned prompt helper model?

We clearly need to ask chatgpt to write a model for the prompt helper model.
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