The case against conversational interfaces

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.

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/

Why couldn't the interface ask you about your preferences? Because instead, what we have right now are clunky web interface that just cram every choice in the small screen in front of you and letting you understand how they are in fact different and sort out yourself how to make things work.

Of course a conversational interface is useless if it tries to just do the same thing as a web UI, which is why it failed a decade ago when it was trendy, because the tech was nowhere clever enough to make that useful. But today, I'd bet the other way round.

Scrolling through a list of a few options seems much less clunky than being asked via voice about which option I prefer. I can see multiple options at once and compare them easily. But via voice I need to keep all of the options in working memory to compare them. Harder.