[jwpapi]

I would argue a website made to buy you tickets (skyscanner f.e.) is always gonna be a better interface than chat.

Right now I cant imagine an AI (esp. chat) being more convenient for me than skyscanner or Google Hotels, but maybe I’m missing the imagination.

[sothatsit]

Flexibility is the advantage. In a chat interface, you can type literally whatever you want and ChatGPT will do its best to serve you. In a website like Skyscanner, you are inherently limited by their UI design.

If all you want is the cheapest flight on a specific day, Skyscanner is really great. But what if you need to book a bus at the other end of your flight? Skyscanner is not going to help you with that, but ChatGPT might! It could search up different bus providers in your destination and cross-reference them against the available flights.

How much you trust ChatGPT to actually do this well is up to you. But I suspect a lot of people will trust it, and I would probably be willing to use it for low-stakes tasks at least.

[jwpapi]

I would argue Skyscanner or whatever other company is better in offering additional services (hotels, taxis, buses) than ChatGPT, because it’s specialized.

I think if you really exactly know what you want the input in AI might be faster "book me on the flight tomorrow at 1pm from x to y on airline xyz -y" This I could imagine being faster, but it would still require verification by me to actually pay. I wonder if AI is faster in doing that given the added latency compared to me visiting airline xyz and doing the search manually (even perceive loading time taking in consideration) as it will be perceived less time if you are active.

[weregiraffe]

>you can type literally whatever you want and ChatGPT

And ChatGPT will answer whatever it wants

[nicewood]

It will just iframe whatever page/app you would have been browsing anyway but potentially with ChatGPT directly being able to operate on the App state. So if configured, I guess ChatGPT will be just a handy middle layer to your usual interfaces.

[workingnbar]

It baffles me that people seem to think that chat is limited to text and text only. We're not there yet but the moment chats get excellent embedded interfaces is when we see this tech really come to fruition - at least from a consumer point of view.

[fkyoureadthedoc]

Here's somewhat of a counter example. At work our llm project can schedule you time off. Workday already has a dedicated UI for this, so text interface can't be better right? Well it's a very popular feature, people use it all the time. In my opinion it's not better than a dedicated UI, but for some people it's good enough and more convenient (our site loads much faster than workday, they are likely already using it throughout their day, etc.)

[jwpapi]

Ahh great point thank you very much this makes a lot of sense.

I see my mistake now. I evaluate based on how it could be useful for me. As a heavy computer user, familiar with shortcuts and user interfaces, interacting with UX works very good.

But for a lot of users text will be more natural and easier. I might be able to get the flight I want easiest with Skyscanner, but other users might not be and will come to a better result with texts.

It’s the same as I prefer documentations over Youtube tutorials, but it’s different on different stages.