Gregory's Server@david_chisnall Lofty ideals, but there's a reason Windows became more popular than Linux despite being worse. Ease. Same reason GUIs won out over command lines. It might be more efficient to do things the way you've described, but you're never going to get everyone to do it - they broadly want the easiest way, and there's probably no easier UI than natural language. Not sure LLMs, which are indeed horribly inefficient, are needed for natural language *input* though?
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 @david_chisnall Fair point! I think the point about ease of use still stands though. Command lines require specific, obscure commands you have to remember, while natural language people already know. The proof after all is in the pudding - do most people (I'm talking mass market) prefer GUIs or the command line? Ok, then do most people prefer Alexa (or find it easier) over pointing and clicking? Yes. Why? Because it's like talking to a person, and there's no simpler interaction than that really.  > do most people prefer Alexa (or find it easier) over pointing and clicking? Yes. Objection: counselor is drawing conclusions from facts not in evidence If a point & click interface -- say, a light switch -- doesn't require me to cross the room or get out of my bed/chair, I am definitely going to prefer the unambiguous non-verbal method for turning the lights on. Verbal interfaces always interrupt any conversations I'm in, even if it's just talking to myself |
@freequaybuoy You are making the opposite argument to the one that you think you are making. GUIs present a finite set of discoverable, unambiguous choices to the user. Command lines are closer to natural language interfaces: the set of commands available is not discoverable and it is not bounded. The difference is that a non-LLM command line will tell you if it canβt parse the input, whereas the LLM will instead do something that happens to be nearby in an n-dimensional latent space for which you have no way of building a good mental model.
@freequaybuoy You are making the opposite argument to the one that you think you are making. GUIs present a finite set of discoverable, unambiguous choices to the user. Command lines are closer to natural language interfaces: the set of commands available is not discoverable and it is not bounded. The difference is that a non-LLM command line will tell you if it canβt parse the input, whereas the LLM will instead do something that happens to be nearby in an n-dimensional latent space for which you...