The pursuit of increasingly intuitive and effortless interactions with technology is a primary driver of conversational AI. Conversational AI responds to our deep-seated desire for effortless productivity, where information can be obtained and tasks can be initiated with minimal input and effort. From a user perspective, the ideal conversational AI system operates with high efficiency on the basis of simple, everyday language, requiring no specialised input to function optimally in a wide range of topics with a high degree of expertise.
However, implementation exposes a fundamental tension: while humans can infer meaning from minimal information, conversational AI to date lacks this capacity. Instead, optimal responses from AI systems depend on structured, detailed input to generate accurate and contextually appropriate responses. Attempts to mimic human dialogue often struggle with ambiguity and nuanced language, causing these systems to go astray without specific guidance. This leads to a paradox where users seek simplicity, but achieving productive AI-derived outputs necessitates precision, verbosity and fragmentation into increasing specificity with increasing volume of interactions, a situation which runs contrary to the promised convenience.
The broad challenge remains human expectations. As technology meets current user demands, expectations shift, continuously raising the standards for what is considered productive and differentiating. This cyclical pattern demonstrates that an equilibrium between minimal input and high specificity may be fleeting or never achievable, given the inherently evolving nature of human expectations and technological adaptation. When a conversational AI meets a certain threshold of convenience, demand shifts towards even finer inference, even less input, and still higher-quality outputs. This perpetual cycle means balance isn’t just unlikely, it contradicts the nature of technological and cognitive progress. This insatiable demand is inherently positive, and by refusing to settle for a balance, humans thereby fuel technological evolution.
A paradox emerges. As an AI system gains capability, we humans want to converse with it less, while experiencing more "you read my mind" moments. We prefer the AI prompts take up the role of conversing amongst themselves, at our behest, bringing to us, or performing for us, that information or those activities which we now consider ourselves beyond. That conversation amongst AI prompts does not need to entail human readable content or form, nor limit itself to the bandwidth of human conversation. In this paradox lies the demise of conversational AI.
Hat tip to @nedlowe82 for the intellectual repartee and video suggestion https://www.youtube.com/@programmersarealsohuman5909
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