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The case against conversational interfaces

(julian.digital)
279 points nnx | 13 comments | 01 Apr 25 02:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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ChuckMcM ◴[01 Apr 25 06:35 UTC] No.43543501[source]▶
This clearly elucidated a number of things I've tried to explain to people who are so excited about "conversations" with computers. The example I've used (with varying levels of effectiveness) was to get someone to think about driving their car by only talking to it. Not a self driving car that does the driving for you, but telling it things like: turn, accelerate, stop, slow down, speed up, put on the blinker, turn off the blinker, etc. It would be annoying and painful and you couldn't talk to your passenger while you were "driving" because that might make the car do something weird. My point, and I think it was the author's as well, is that you aren't "conversing" with your computer, you are making it do what you want. There are simpler, faster, and more effective ways to do that then to talk at it with natural language.
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shubhamjain ◴[01 Apr 25 07:20 UTC] No.43543791[source]▶
I had the same thoughts on conversational interfaces [1]. Humane AI failed not only because of terrible execution, the whole assumption of voice being a superior interface (and trying to invent something beyond smartphones) was flawed.

> Theoretically, saying, “order an Uber to airport” seems like the easiest way to accomplish the task. But is it? What kind of Uber? UberXL, UberGo? There’s a 1.5x surge pricing. Acceptable? Is the pickup point correct? What would be easier, resolving each of those queries through a computer asking questions, or taking a quick look yourself on the app?

> Another example is food ordering. What would you prefer, going through the menu from tens of restaurants yourself or constantly nudging the AI for the desired option? Technological improvement can only help so much here since users themselves don’t clearly know what they want.

[1]: https://shubhamjain.co/2024/04/16/voice-is-bad-ui/

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1. JSR_FDED ◴[01 Apr 25 07:38 UTC] No.43543915[source]▶
And 10x worse than that is booking a flight: I found one that fits your budget, but it leaves at midnight, or requires an extra stop, or is on an airline for which you don't collect frequent flyer miles, or arrives it at a secondary airport in the same city, or it only has a middle seat available.

How many of these inconveniences will you put up with? Any of them, all of them? What price difference makes it worthwhile? What if by traveling a day earlier you save enough money to even pay for a hotel...?

All of that is for just 1 flight, what if there are several alternatives? I can't imagine have a dialogue about this with a computer.

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2. fragmede ◴[01 Apr 25 08:56 UTC] No.43544403[source]▶
But that is how we used to buy a plane ticket. Long before flights.google.com's price table, you'd call a human up and tell them you'd like to go on holiday. They'd ask you where and when and how much you could afford, and then after a while with the old system (SABRE) clicking and clacking they'd find you a good deal. After a few flights with that travel agent, they'd hey to know you and wouldn't have to ask so many questions.

Similarly, long before Waymo, you'd get into a taxi, and tell the human driver you're going to the airport, and they'd take you there. In fact, they'd get annoyed at you if you backseat drove, telling them how to use the blinker and how hard to brake and accelerate.

The thing about conversational interfaces is that we're used to them, because we (well, some of us) interface with other humans fairly regularly, and so it's a fairly baseline level skill to have to exist in the world today. There's a case to be made against them, but since everyone can be assumed to be conversational (though perhaps not in a given language), it's here to stay. Restaurants have menus that customers look at before using the conversation interface to get food, in order to guide the discussion, and that's had thousands of years to evolve, so it might be a local maxima, but it's a pretty good one.

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3. nerdponx ◴[01 Apr 25 09:42 UTC] No.43544764[source]▶
And how many people book flights that way today?
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4. everdrive ◴[01 Apr 25 10:37 UTC] No.43545138[source]▶
But the booking agent used to understand what you were saying, and it'd be very easy to work out miscommunications. AI chatbots just send you in circles endlessly and if you get "stuck" there is no recourse.
5. wetoastfood ◴[01 Apr 25 10:46 UTC] No.43545202{3}[source]▶
Many people today are booking flights for others, be it families, business leaders, or traditional travel agents. They’re communicating preferences and asking about preferred travel times, budget, seat selection, and more. When you book for and with someone else, these preferences get learned and you no longer have to ask if they prefer an aisle seat—you just pick it.

The booking experience today is granular to help you find a suitable flight to meet all the preferences you’re compiling into an optimal scenario. The experience of AI booking in the future will likely be similar: find that optimal scenario for you once you’re able to articulate your preferences and remember them over time.

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6. mschuster91 ◴[01 Apr 25 12:24 UTC] No.43545915{3}[source]▶
More than enough. Corporate flights are almost always handled that way, alone for compliance reasons (the travel agency knows about budget and "appearance" limits aka only c-level gets business class, everyone else gets economy).

Anecdata: last year my wife and I went on a rail tour through Eastern Europe and god, I wish we had chosen to spend a few hundred euros on a travel agency in retrospect - I can't count just how much time we had to spend researching on what kind of rail, bus and public transit tickets you need on which leg, how to create accounts, set up payment and godknowswhat else. Easily took us two days worth of work and about two dozens individual payment transactions. A professional travel agency can do all the booking via Sabre, Amadeus or whatever...

7. grbsh ◴[01 Apr 25 13:16 UTC] No.43546443[source]▶
It's a great point that this is how we primarily used to interact with businesses and services, but we've moved on. For Gen-Z, e.g., many will refuse to use the product or service if they have to speak to an actual human. Just like we're now not willing to take boat across the ocean for 3 months, but before airplanes this was not uncommon.
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8. uoaei ◴[01 Apr 25 14:38 UTC] No.43547319{4}[source]▶
And how many bad experiences do you expect people to tolerate before AI eventually learns the person's "real" preferences?
9. Zamaamiro ◴[01 Apr 25 15:13 UTC] No.43547779[source]▶
I don't see how "but that's the way we used to do things" is an argument in favor of conversational interfaces.

The whole point is that we currently have better, more efficient ways of doing those things, so why would we regress to inferior methods?

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10. dcrimp ◴[01 Apr 25 15:37 UTC] No.43548075{3}[source]▶
the inferior methods were slower but more flexible - could handle any and all edge cases. Currently we have a UX that really efficiently realises 80% of cases.

To relate to the article - google flights is the Keyboard and Mouse - covering 80% of cases very quickly. Conversational is better for when you're juggling more contextual info than what can be represented in a price/departure time/flight duration table. For example, "i'm bringing a small child with me and have an appointment the day before and I really hate the rain".

Rushed comment because I'm working, but I hope you get the gist.

Current flight planning UX is overfit on the 80% and will never cater to the 20% because cost/benefit of the development work isn't good

11. taneq ◴[01 Apr 25 15:45 UTC] No.43548181{3}[source]▶
Taking a 3 month voyage was still an uncommon thing to do for a person, it’s just that it was the most common type of intercontinental journey due to lack of competition.
12. fragmede ◴[01 Apr 25 22:16 UTC] No.43551891{3}[source]▶
not how many, but which ones? As a regular person, I buy it myself, but do you think rich people do that? No, they just ask their (human) assistant to get a flight to New York around 7pm this Friday, and then move onto the next problem in their lives.
13. fragmede ◴[01 Apr 25 22:47 UTC] No.43552077{3}[source]▶
You have to define which axis' you're using to define efficient. If I were an executive at some corporation, I'd tell my assistant to book me a flight to New York on Friday at 7pm and that takes me less than 10 seconds. It may take her a while longer, but that's her problem and that's what I pay her for.

How long is it going to take you to get to a device, load the app/webpage, tell it which airport you're flying from and going to and what date and then you start looking at options. You've blown way past the 10 seconds it took for that executive to get a plane flight.

Better is in the eye of the beholder. What's monetarily efficient isn't going to be temporaly efficient, and that's true along a lot of other dimensions too.

Point is, there are some people that like having conversations, you may not be one of them. you don't have to be. I'm not taking away your mouse and keyboard. I have those too and won't give them up either. But I also find talking out loud helps my thinking process though I know that's not everybody.