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Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

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Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think that it is within reach to create a human quality chatbot assistant for a given narrow domain. For example, if OpenAI focused all of its energies on creating a good chatbot for a particular problem domain at a particular company I believe it could be achieved. Of course, casual / amateur efforts leveraging ChatGPT / OpenAI APIs to achieve the same thing seem unlikely to produce good results today.

Yes. Creating a human-quality chatbot? Why not. The problem is security. Many humans can be reasonably expected to actually follow the rule that says, "this is a red button. Only push it if you are threatened at actual gunpoint, because it incinerates the entire cash reserve of this bank branch". And the human can be sued into oblivion if they push the button for improper reasons. Now implement this same flow with an…

You shouldn’t give LLM any powers you wouldn’t give straight to user. LLM should be able to only perform actions on behalf of the user. Not act as a gatekeeper with admin rights. It limits the usefulness of chatbots, but it feels futile to try to keep current LLMs from being social engineered.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think that it is within reach to create a human quality chatbot assistant for a given narrow domain. For example, if OpenAI focused all of its energies on creating a good chatbot for a particular problem domain at a particular company I believe it could be achieved. Of course, casual / amateur efforts leveraging ChatGPT / OpenAI APIs to achieve the same thing seem unlikely to produce good results today.

Yes. Creating a human-quality chatbot? Why not. The problem is security. Many humans can be reasonably expected to actually follow the rule that says, "this is a red button. Only push it if you are threatened at actual gunpoint, because it incinerates the entire cash reserve of this bank branch". And the human can be sued into oblivion if they push the button for improper reasons. Now implement this same flow with an…

It is pretty simple, don't give the chatbot access to the red button.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#233
That's a great post. I like the idea and was trying to do something similar myself, but it just takes so much time to write a toolset that can be easily replaced with some LLM API in 30 minutes. Still, many of the point in this post are valid and have their own use cases.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#234

I appreciate the overall sentiment of the post, but I can't say I would choose anything like the implementation the author is suggesting. My takeaway is to avoid relying too heavily on LLMs both in terms of the scope tasks given to them as well as relying too heavily on any specific LLM. I think this is correct for many reasons. Firstly, you probably don't want to compete directly with ChatGPT, even if you are using…

> run. For instance, if you are building an app that uses OpenAI to book hotels and flights by chatting with a bot, chances are someday either ChatGPT or something by Microsoft or Google will do that and make your puny little business totally obsolete. How many times have we been down the path of “travel website making it easy to find the best deal and book your flight”. I don’t see how AI will do it any differently…

The example I pulled out of my ass is imperfect, but it's not like the point of my comment was to make a pitch.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#235

I appreciate the overall sentiment of the post, but I can't say I would choose anything like the implementation the author is suggesting. My takeaway is to avoid relying too heavily on LLMs both in terms of the scope tasks given to them as well as relying too heavily on any specific LLM. I think this is correct for many reasons. Firstly, you probably don't want to compete directly with ChatGPT, even if you are using…

> if you are building an app that uses OpenAI to book hotels and flights by chatting with a bot, chances are someday either ChatGPT or something by Microsoft or Google will do that and make your puny little business totally obsolete

Think that's debatable. Firstly the same argument could apply to non-AI stuff - there are dozens of websites that do basically the same thing as Google Flights which are big businesses, and frankly "AI" gives a lot more room for specialisation than flight search. Secondly, the quality of the general language model really isn't the most important thing in a specialised task chatbot (now that baseline language parsing is good) . A travel booking chatbot that's attuned to my preferences and integrated with lots of APIs of relevant niche stuff isn't blown away by something that parses my questions slightly better but then tries to book everything through Expedia. Plus that's the sort of market where people are going to have brand loyalty or rejection of the notionally superior app because they once got a really good/bad recommendation, so I don't think it's anywhere near winner-takes-all.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#236

This is a nice post, and I think it will resonate with most new AI startups. My advice would be don't build an AI product at all. To my mind an "x product" is rarely the framing that will lead to value being added for customers. E.g. a web3 product, an observability product, a machine vision product, an AI product. Like all decent startup ideas the obviously crucial thing is to start with a real user need rather than…

> Like all decent startup ideas the obviously crucial thing is to start with a real user

But if it's funding you want, slap the buzzword du jour in front of what you're trying to do, and you've vastly improved your prospects. In the frequent case when "the stock is the product", that's what you want.

Of course, this is basically a question of semantics: you're talking about actual companies that sell products, I'm talking about your typical tech-flavored grift.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#237

This is a nice post, and I think it will resonate with most new AI startups. My advice would be don't build an AI product at all. To my mind an "x product" is rarely the framing that will lead to value being added for customers. E.g. a web3 product, an observability product, a machine vision product, an AI product. Like all decent startup ideas the obviously crucial thing is to start with a real user need rather than…

>in applications where text isn't meant to be read word-for-word, and the entire response is expected before proceeding to the next step in the workflow, this can pose a significant issue.

Your take seems to narrow the application of AI chat down to customer service.

Taking a broader view, AI chat or really LLMs have a very wide range of applications. As discussed in the article, script and code producing AI is not meant to be "read" so much as utilized post generation.

Either way, the reality is that just like any other advancement, this will slowly start to become integral to many business networks and workflow models, all having no interface with the consumer. The current fascination is wearing thin for the unimaginative who've asked a few generic questions to ChatGPT and then failed to recognize any applications of that product in their own life.

All the better, but the more products built now means the more likely something is produced that niche markets are looking to buy.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#238

This is a nice post, and I think it will resonate with most new AI startups. My advice would be don't build an AI product at all. To my mind an "x product" is rarely the framing that will lead to value being added for customers. E.g. a web3 product, an observability product, a machine vision product, an AI product. Like all decent startup ideas the obviously crucial thing is to start with a real user need rather than…

This. Avoid the “If have hammer, everything looks like a nail” strategy. Find a customer pain point and use the right blend of tools. You can also make a new tool where tools dont exist

Sometimes everything looks like a hammer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHpDf-Q90OM

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really have much beef with your comment as it has pretty substantive points, but I just wanted to remind and let everybody know about a Hacker News guideline outlined on their guidelines under the comments section. Sorry, I just recently re-read the guidelines, so I thought I might point others to it too. I honestly believe there are a lot more people breaking all these guidelines on this site, so the whole t…

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. Please don't break the guidelines while?

I’m genuinely curious on whether this is an insinuation on me breaking that rule you posted in my previous comment or towards the general public.

If anyone can clarify what is meant by the above comment then I will gladly fix whatever I’m doing wrong. I’m just unsure (a) whether I’ve done something wrong and (b) what part of that statement I did wrong.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#240
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue the AI model also made your message more wordy and less likely to be read by other humans. But mostly, since you raise the question of value : I think your song serves as a cool novelty and gift to share, and I've been wanting to do this, so kudos to you. However, the value of the song (as a cool novelty and as a gift) is likely going to plummet exponentially once we are submerged in a deluge of other s…

You are making some broad generalisations. I had a conversation with ChatGPT this morning while exercising. Enjoyed it as much as listening to a podcast.

Hmmm I stand corrected. I've just learned that my mom is talking to some kind of AI app on the daily basis now...

I'll rethink that statement.

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