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.

It can ask, but how much time do you want to spend answering stuff?

Such dialog is probably nice for first time user, it is a nightmare for repeated user.

What prevents the system to remember your previous choices?

Then it can assume you choice haven't changed, and propose you a solution that matches your previous choices. And to give the user control it just needs to explicitly tell the user about the assumption it made.

In fact, a smart enough system could even see when violating the assumptions could lead to a substantial gain and try convincing the user that it may be a good option this time.

It still has to tell you. Visually in a form it's much faster. Similar reason why many people prefer a blog post over a video.

Talking is not very efficient, and it's serial in fixed time. With something visual you can look at whatever you want whenever you want, at your own (irregular) pace.

You will also be able to make changes much faster. You can go to the target form element right away, and you get immediate feedback from the GUI (or from a physical control that you moved - e.g. in cars). If it's talk, you need to wait to have it said back to you - same reason as why important communication in flight control or military is always read back. Even humans misunderstand. You can't just talk-and-forget unless you accept errors.

You would need some true intelligence for just some brief spoken requests to work well enough. A (human) butler worked fine for such cases, but even then only the best made it into such high-level service positions, because it required real intelligence to know what your lord needed and wanted, and lots of time with them to gain that experience.