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Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

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Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#21

Post by fabioborellini »

Last time I stayed in a property booked through Airbnb, their translation feature already changed the street name in key pickup location’s address on one French street to another French street (still in French), when translating from French. I’m paranoid enough to check the source language, but that could have been a huge trouble.

Staying there was a wonderful opportunity which probably hadn’t realised without Airbnb, or would have been unreachable to foreigners in some national holiday rental service, but it still is too early to generally ditch customer service and known processes. I have stayed around 90% of nights in hotels and hostels during my travels, the rest being Airbnb-style rentals, and I plan to keep it that way for a multitude of reasons.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#22

Post by chvid »

Why would anyone use an AI trip planner? If I go for a vacation, planning it and deciding what not to plan is a part of the joy of doing it.

Though a big problem at the moment is manipulation of online reviews and recommendations; and as far as I can tell AI is making that worse.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#23

Post by theshackleford »

chvid wrote: post #22

Why would anyone use an AI trip planner? If I go for a vacation, planning it and deciding what not to plan is a part of the joy of doing it. Though a big problem at the moment is manipulation of online reviews and recommendations; and as far as I can tell AI is making that worse.

> Why would anyone use an AI trip planner?

Because not everyone will enjoy what you do? It’s not some secret, I still know people who use travel agents for the same reason, others still who stick to cruising precisely because they dont want to think or plan, they just want to do.

Mystery solved.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#24

Post by eloisius »

chvid wrote: post #22

Why would anyone use an AI trip planner? If I go for a vacation, planning it and deciding what not to plan is a part of the joy of doing it. Though a big problem at the moment is manipulation of online reviews and recommendations; and as far as I can tell AI is making that worse.

Everything should be a curated feed of slop. Even your travels.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#25

Post by throw098320923 »

eudhxhdhsb32 wrote: post #17
throw098320923 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android app, USB dongle with HDMI capture card. Screenshot goes to OCR and LLM. There is a virtual USB HID mouse build on Arduino that clicks on links.

Wouldn't it be easier to just interact directly with their web interface through an automated browser?

I prefer to scrape their Android app.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#26

Post by greatgib »

throw098320923 wrote: post #7

AI works just fine for trip planning. I use it to scrape Airbnb apartments descriptions and reviews. Common problems such cockroaches or slow internet, are not usually mentioned directly, but with indirect special wording, and LLM can find those very well. Also scraping newest social posts and Tiktok videos is great way to find cool stuff.

In my opinion, the issue when using Airbnb is not really to find the good one despite rigged scores, but more that there is usually no interesting offer at the good moment for interesting locations.

Reasonable ok ones are really expensive, overly expensive compared to going to a hotel, and affordable ones are all really crappy and so overly over expensive for their value.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#27

Post by amelius »

I really hate traveling because of all the bureaucracy involved in checking-in, validating emails, validating whatsapp accounts, buying train tickets in foreign countries, doing all this on the small screen of my phone and while I'm sitting on some subway with dropping connections. Oh, and checking into the hotel takes 15 minutes because the clerk needs to make a copy of my passport which I'm questioning the legality of. There's a LOT to be improved here.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#28

Post by mettamage »

amelius wrote: post #27

I really hate traveling because of all the bureaucracy involved in checking-in, validating emails, validating whatsapp accounts, buying train tickets in foreign countries, doing all this on the small screen of my phone and while I'm sitting on some subway with dropping connections. Oh, and checking into the hotel takes 15 minutes because the clerk needs to make a copy of my passport which I'm questioning the legality…

What? I just use a laptop. I don't get it. Worst-case, I tether internet via my phone.

Also, why are you doing it in the subway? To be fair, I once did vimtutor in a subway [1] and learned vim within two 30 min. rides but not the point :')

[1] Thanks to a HN'er like 8 years ago who was kind enough to mention it to me, I never heard of vimtutor and almost have never heard of it since (with 2 exceptions perhaps)

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#29

Post by deadbabe »

chvid wrote: post #22

Why would anyone use an AI trip planner? If I go for a vacation, planning it and deciding what not to plan is a part of the joy of doing it. Though a big problem at the moment is manipulation of online reviews and recommendations; and as far as I can tell AI is making that worse.

Planning a trip is not at all fun unless you’re doing something very basic.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#30

Post by amelius »

mettamage wrote: post #28
amelius wrote: post #27

I really hate traveling because of all the bureaucracy involved in checking-in, validating emails, validating whatsapp accounts, buying train tickets in foreign countries, doing all this on the small screen of my phone and while I'm sitting on some subway with dropping connections. Oh, and checking into the hotel takes 15 minutes because the clerk needs to make a copy of my passport which I'm questioning the legality…

What? I just use a laptop. I don't get it. Worst-case, I tether internet via my phone. Also, why are you doing it in the subway? To be fair, I once did vimtutor in a subway [1] and learned vim within two 30 min. rides but not the point :') [1] Thanks to a HN'er like 8 years ago who was kind enough to mention it to me, I never heard of vimtutor and almost have never heard of it since (with 2 exceptions perhaps)

The point is that all of this should be mostly automatic, and/or you should be able to do this before you even leave, and/or it should work in a unified way (the same with all airlines, train services, etc.)
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