I hope the future of AI isn't this sort, where companies provide the user/customer with an interface to an AI that can do things for the user... I would much prefer that companies instead provide an interface FOR an AI, and the user brings their own AI which connects to that interface.
In other words, provide my AI with tools, instead of providing me an AI that uses your tools.
That way, my AI can bring all the context it needs, and I can bring all of the settings and knowledge about what I want with me. I don't want a fractured world of tons of AIs i interact with where I have to explain all the fundamental information about what I want and how I work every time.
This also has the benefit of sidestepping the issue the essay is talking about. You provide a consistent tool, and the AI weirdness is not your issue anymore. You don't have to worry about solving for all the weird ways people prompt the AI, or the ways they break.
A better internet is one in which LLMs enable everyone to ride their own custom Chromium (or whatever) flavor and the "frontend" of > 90% of sites - especially e-commerce - is generated specific to the user given their configuration of their personal LLM intermediary.
Companies will increasingly not ship frontends anymore, maybe just themed components that most users will ignore. "Pages" naturally become synthetic amalgamations of the various things you are interested in from various sources. Your preferred UI/UX comes for free courtesy of your LLM intermediary.
Everything is an API. Regulation will probably be needed to enforce this on the data access side given the incentives for companies to resist despite the benefit to the consumer. A relatively easy solution is to make it part of the requirements to take payments online, which is already highly regulated. The goal would be that essentially to operate anything approaching e-commerce online you must allow consumer AI intermediaries sufficient access that they could independently construct whatever your current frontend is from the publicly available API/MCP endpoints.
The tricky part of engineering around privacy/personas, account creation, etc. will be relatively easy following such state intervention. Take payments - virtual credit cards are already a useful way to protect data and mitigate risks when dealing with multiple vendors. This sort of API is a natural fit for a world in which companies are not allowed to box you into their horrible UIs, most of which are simply lazy attempts at copying the most profitable anti patterns of their competitors. Let your personal agent generate a unique card for each vendor behind the scenes. Why should you have to care?
How much better the internet would be if every UI/UX was in a meaningful sense, your own.
I feel like this is a bit too-optimistically describing an outcome which is unlikely, given how consumers have been slowly losing the same war for decades already.
The elephant in the room and the really "tricky part" involves powerful advertising and copyright-holding companies. They will (continue to) interpret that kind of user-agency as an existential threat. Their businesses revolve around deciding and knowing what you actually see and do with your computer, and their toolkit isn't just technical, but also economic and political.
That's why we already have problems with DRM, "felony contempt of business model" under the DMCA, browser fingerprinting, and everybody surrendering to arbitrary JS code controlling their computer. We capitulate not just to see an article or talk to a friend, but also to avoid our technical details getting into a secret un-appeal-able "suspicious" blacklist.
cortesoft · · focus · HN ↗
In other words, provide my AI with tools, instead of providing me an AI that uses your tools.
That way, my AI can bring all the context it needs, and I can bring all of the settings and knowledge about what I want with me. I don't want a fractured world of tons of AIs i interact with where I have to explain all the fundamental information about what I want and how I work every time.
This also has the benefit of sidestepping the issue the essay is talking about. You provide a consistent tool, and the AI weirdness is not your issue anymore. You don't have to worry about solving for all the weird ways people prompt the AI, or the ways they break.
godwinson__4-8 · · focus · HN ↗
Companies will increasingly not ship frontends anymore, maybe just themed components that most users will ignore. "Pages" naturally become synthetic amalgamations of the various things you are interested in from various sources. Your preferred UI/UX comes for free courtesy of your LLM intermediary.
Everything is an API. Regulation will probably be needed to enforce this on the data access side given the incentives for companies to resist despite the benefit to the consumer. A relatively easy solution is to make it part of the requirements to take payments online, which is already highly regulated. The goal would be that essentially to operate anything approaching e-commerce online you must allow consumer AI intermediaries sufficient access that they could independently construct whatever your current frontend is from the publicly available API/MCP endpoints.
The tricky part of engineering around privacy/personas, account creation, etc. will be relatively easy following such state intervention. Take payments - virtual credit cards are already a useful way to protect data and mitigate risks when dealing with multiple vendors. This sort of API is a natural fit for a world in which companies are not allowed to box you into their horrible UIs, most of which are simply lazy attempts at copying the most profitable anti patterns of their competitors. Let your personal agent generate a unique card for each vendor behind the scenes. Why should you have to care?
How much better the internet would be if every UI/UX was in a meaningful sense, your own.
Terr_ · · focus · HN ↗
The elephant in the room and the really "tricky part" involves powerful advertising and copyright-holding companies. They will (continue to) interpret that kind of user-agency as an existential threat. Their businesses revolve around deciding and knowing what you actually see and do with your computer, and their toolkit isn't just technical, but also economic and political.
That's why we already have problems with DRM, "felony contempt of business model" under the DMCA, browser fingerprinting, and everybody surrendering to arbitrary JS code controlling their computer. We capitulate not just to see an article or talk to a friend, but also to avoid our technical details getting into a secret un-appeal-able "suspicious" blacklist.