This article from New York Magazine asks if maybe an AI chatbot assistant is just a bit too much friendliness from our computers:

Maybe we really are on the cusp of a total change to the way we interact with machines and the arrival of the long-anticipated era of truly conversational computing is imminent. (Also, lots of folks love ordering people around and issuing unrealistic commands — I’m sure that extends to machines, no problem.) It’s quite possible that, in retrospect, grumbling about chatbot interfaces will sound like command-line devotees lamenting the arrival of graphical icons and the mouse.

Or, just maybe, big tech’s frantic enthusiasm for AI will result in a few nice upgrades and a thousand weird and pointless chatbot detours, which, rather than resembling an obvious next step for human-machine interaction, look more like a regression: a return to an unreliable, shifty take on the command line, a few steps further removed from the tasks at hand. Using the early crop of LLM-powered built-for-purpose chatbots feels like acting out an expository scene intended to let the audience know that this movie is set in the crude average of all possible futures. (“Okay, computer, let’s enhance.”) Is that something anyone actually wants to see?

In the meantime, get ready. Legions of Clippys are gathering just over the horizon, and they’re armed.

Read the full article here.