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The case against conversational interfaces

julian.digital

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Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#81

Post by TeMPOraL »

Star Trek continues to be prescient. It not only introduced the conversational interface to the masses, it also nailed its proper uses in ways we're still (re)discovering now.

If you pay attention to how the voice interface is used in Star Trek (TNG and upwards), it's basically exactly what the article is saying - it complements manual inputs and works as a secondary channel. Nobody is trying to manually navigate the ship by voicing out specific control inputs, or in the midst of a battle, call out "computer, fire photon torpedoes" - that's what the consoles are for (and there are consoles everywhere). Voice interface is secondary - used for delegation, queries (that may be faster to say than type), casual location-independent use (lights, music; they didn't think of kitchen timers, though (then again, replicators)), brainstorming, etc.

Yes, this is a fictional show and the real reason for voice interactions was to make it a form of exposition, yadda yadda - but I'd like to think that all those people writing the script, testing it, acting and shooting it, were in perfect position to tell which voice interactions made sense and which didn't: they'd know what feels awkward or nonsensical when acting, or what comes off this way when watching it later.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#82

Post by Cthulhu_ »

szszrk wrote: post #32
pugio wrote: post #16

> The second thing we need to figure out is how we can compress voice input to make it faster to transmit. What’s the voice equivalent of a thumbs-up or a keyboard shortcut? Can I prompt Claude faster with simple sounds and whistles? This reminds me of the amazing 2013 video of Travis Rudd coding python by voice: https://youtu.be/8SkdfdXWYaI?si=AwBE_fk6Y88tLcos The number of times in the last few years I've wanted th…

Oh wow. That video is 12 years old. Early in the presentation Travis reveals he used Dragon back then. Do you recall Swype keyboard for Android? The one that popularized swyping to write on touch screens? It had Dragon at some point. IT WAS AMAZING. Around 12-14 years ago (Android 2.3? Maybe 3?) I was able to easily dictate full long text messages and emails, in my native tongue, including punctuation and occasional…

It sounds like Dragon was never ambitious enough, and / or the phone manufacturers were too closed off to allow them entry into that market.

But now Microsoft bought them a few years ago. Weird that it took so long though.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#83

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

strogonoff wrote: post #12
bsder wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Screens and remotes, and I think there’s something sort of anti-humanly human about it. Actually, it's the reverse. The orienting response is wired in quite deeply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienting_response When I was teaching, I used to force students using laptops to sit near the back of the room for exactly this reason. It's almost impossible for humans to ignore a flickering screen.

Sensitivity to stimuli behind orienting impulse varies by individual and I wish I was less sensitive on daily basis. These days screen brightness goes pretty high and it is unbelievable how many people seem to never use their screen (phone or laptop) on anything less than 100% brightness in any situation and are seemingly not bothered by flickering bright light or noise sources. I am nostalgic about old laptops’ dim…

The last few times I've bought a new monitor, I've gone through the process of adjusting brightness based on comparing a document on screen to a paper sheet. This invariably results into going from defaults of 50-70% to very low figures like 5-15%, and it's not that I work in dark places, my offices have reasonable light from outside. I would be extremely uncomfortable using default settings, for me they are absurdly bright.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#84

Post by TeMPOraL »

namaria wrote: post #75
phyzix5761 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're onto something. We've learned to make computers and electronic devices feel like extensions of ourselves. We move our bodies and they do what we expect. Having to switch now to using our voice breaks that connection. Its no longer an extension of ourselves but a thing we interact with.

Two key things that make computers useful, specificity and exactitude, are thrown out of the window by interposing NLP between the person and the computer. I don't get it at all.

   [imprecise thinking]
         v
In many cases, you don't want or need that. In some, you do. Use right tool for the job, etc.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#85

Post by immibis »

matsemann wrote: post #60

Not exactly the same case as the article, but just a few minutes ago I booked a time for vaccinations online, and it was done through a chat interface. Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/OWv7deF Just infuriating. Instead of a normal date- and timepicker where I could see available slots, it's a chat where you have to click certain options. Then I had to reply "Ja" (yes) when it asked me if I had clicked the correct date…

That sounds like a great interface if your goal is to take power away from the user. We could even show an ad every third prompt.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#86

Post by walterbell »

eviks wrote: post #78

> but we’ve never found a mobile equivalent for keyboard shortcuts. Guess why we still don’t have a truly mobile-first productivity app after almost 20 years since the introduction of the iPhone? Has it even been tried? Is there an iPhone text editing app with fully customizable keyboard that allows for setting up modes/gestures/shortcuts, scriptable if necessary? > A natural language prompt like “Hey Google, what’s…

Blackberry physical keyboard had many shortcuts, https://defkey.com/blackberry-10-classic-shortcuts

iPad physical keyboards also have shortcuts.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#87

Post by Aardwolf »

I'd be ok with a conversational interface if I can use it to improve my non-conversational UI.

E.g. say I find the scrollbars somewhere way too thin and invisible and I want thick high contrast scrollbars, and nobody thought of implementing that? Ask the AI and it changes your desktop interface to do it immediately.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#88

Post by fellerts »

> To put the writing and speaking speeds into perspective, we form thoughts at 1,000-3,000 words per minute. Natural language might be natural, but it’s a bottleneck.

Natural language is very lossy: forming a thought and conveying that through speech or text is often an exercise in frustration. So where does "we form thoughts at 1,000-3,000 words per minute" come from?

The author clearly had a point about the efficiency of thought vs. natural language, but his thought was lost in a layer of translation. Probably because thoughts don't map cleanly onto words: I may lack some prerequisite knowledge to graph what the author is saying here, which pokes at the core of the issue: language is imperfect, so the statement "we form thoughts at 1,000-3,000 words per minute" makes no sense to me.

Meta-joking aside, is "we form thoughts at 1,000-3,000 words per minute" an established fact? It's oddly specific.

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#89

Post by eviks »

walterbell wrote: post #86
eviks wrote: post #78

> but we’ve never found a mobile equivalent for keyboard shortcuts. Guess why we still don’t have a truly mobile-first productivity app after almost 20 years since the introduction of the iPhone? Has it even been tried? Is there an iPhone text editing app with fully customizable keyboard that allows for setting up modes/gestures/shortcuts, scriptable if necessary? > A natural language prompt like “Hey Google, what’s…

Blackberry physical keyboard had many shortcuts, https://defkey.com/blackberry-10-classic-shortcuts iPad physical keyboards also have shortcuts.

These are both desktop equivalents using an actual desktop keyboard or a mini variant thereof

Re: The case against conversational interfaces

#90

Post by wewewedxfgdf »

There have abeen a few of these posts on HN redcently - people who claim that AI/LLM are just some sort of passing fad or of no value or less value than people are saying anyway.

People who write these posts want to elevate their self value by nay-saying what is popular. I don't understand the psychology but it seems like that sort of pattern to me.

It takes a deliberate blindness to say that AI/LLMs are just some sort of thing that has popped up every few years and this is the same as them and it will fade away. Why would someone choose to be so blind and dismissive of something obviously fundamentally world changing? Again - it's the instinct to knock down the tall poppy and therefore prove that you have some sort of strength/value.

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