[galaxyLogic]

I recently had to fill out a PDF form to send it to the Social Security Admininistration. They didn't have the option of submitting it online so I had to print it out and take it to them.

I filled out the PDF using FireFox PDF-editor, at which point it occurred to me, this is not so different from using an application which has a form for me to enter data into it.

Maybe in a few years Government has a portal where I can submit any of their forms as PDF documents, and they would probably use AI to store the contents of the form into a database.

A PDF-form is kind of a Universal API, especially when AI can extract and validate the data from it. Of all the API-formats I've seen I think PDF-forms is the most human-friendly. Each "API" is defined by the form-identifier in the PDF-form. It is easy for humans to use, and pretty easy for office-clerks to create such forms, especially with the help of AI. I wonder will this, or something similar, catch on?

[monsieurbanana]

A pdf can be anything and everything. It's just a wrapper around text, images, html, you can even embed javascript. There's already pdf forms that are user-editable (without a pdf editor). Not all features are available on all pdf viewers though.

If we're at the point where they use ai to make form pdfs, might as well cut the middleman and ask the ai to generate a form on a website.

[galaxyLogic]

The thing I think is that PDFs can be understood by both humans and AI. And they work even if power goes down as long as we have enough paper printouts and pens to fill out the forms. They can be shared by sending them by physical mail, no web needed. But they can be of course "uploaded" as well.