Comment by hedgehog
6 days ago
Viewed from a different angle I think he's probably close. A service provider changing the back end while leaving the front end UI similar is not dissimilar to early cars being built like carriages. But when the product can shift from "give me an app that makes it easier to do my taxes" to "keep me current on my taxes and send me status updates" that's a pretty radical difference in what the customer sees.
> But when the product can shift from "give me an app that makes it easier to do my taxes" to "keep me current on my taxes and send me status updates" that's a pretty radical difference in what the customer sees.
For a bunch of stuff - banks, online shopping, booking a taxi, etc - this shift already happened with non-LLM-based "send me notifications of unusual account activity" or even the dead-simple "send me an email about every transaction on my bank account." Phone notifications moved it from email to built-into-the-OS even.
The "LLM hype cycle" tweak becomes something like "have an LLM summarize the email instead of just listing the three transactions" which is of dubious use to the average user.
No the shift hasn't happened yet at all. Let's take those examples one by one.
Banks: Normal retail customers are responsible for managing their account balances, importing transaction data into whatever book keeping system, downloading their tax forms for filing, adjusting their services and strategy based on whatever they're planning to do in their life etc. Private banking is a reasonable model for the service that everyone should get, but can't because it's too expensive.
Online shopping: Most people have to figure out what they're looking for, research the options, figure out where to order from, keep track of warranties, repairs, returns, recalls, maintenance, consumables, etc. Personal assistants can absorb most of that, but that's expensive.
Booking a taxi: On the same theme, for all the scheduled travel that should be booked and ready to go based on your calendar. Personal assistants can do this too, but again it's expensive.
The core ideas of giving the service provider context, guidance, and autonomy to work without regular intervention are not unique to automation but only recently is there a conceivable path to building software that can actually deliver.
This was your pitch, right? "product can shift from "give me an app that makes it easier to do my taxes" to "keep me current on my taxes and send me status updates"
How is that not Mint from 15 years ago? Actual integration into the US tax system is a government problem, not an LLM problem.
Now it sounds like you're suggesting more of a even-more-centralized Mint-replacement that aggregates everything for you to try to be a single AI assistant.
But do I want an LLM pulling the trigger on ordering new products for me based on what it thinks I'd want when? Or changing the investment strategy on my accounts? Not really.
"Personal assistant for keeping track of your receipts for when you need to return something" is mildly interesting except... if you're buying online, the receipt's already basically trivially to find 99% of the time. And if you're buying offline, are you scanning all the receipts by hand? And unlike a personal assistant, the LLM isn't driving to drop off those packages.
Booking transit at the same time as travel, also something that's existed for a long time. And a third party Google Calendar "hey, we see a flight here, and a hotel there, do you want us to pre-book an Uber between the two" feature would not require LLMs at all.
So what am I gaining from this super-Mint-app and how is it LLM-specific if I don't have financials that need super-heavy-oversight and I don't want to outsource my grocery and shirt shopping to a personal assistant?