In my opinion, this post misses the forest for the trees. Yes, the model of an OS running various off-the-shelf apps for various tasks will soon become obsolete. But it's not the idea of the OS that's outdated - it's the idea of apps. Why would you ever want to ask an AI to make an app for you to complete some task, if you can instead ask the AI to complete the task directly? The future isn't a bunch of extremely personalized apps - the future is a single AI assistant doing all the work.
> Yes, the model of an OS running various off-the-shelf apps for various tasks will soon become obsolete.
I doubt it. Most people would rather stab at their phone to download an app that just does what they want than explain to a chatbot over a period of minutes/hours and several reiterations to get it to spew out what they want, let alone what kind of software they want it to make for them. Most people can barely articulate what they want in the first place.
The market for applications isn't going anywhere and neither is the OS. I can't imagine booting a computer directly into a chat window where I have to explain to a bot what I wish would show up on my screen, where on my screen, and how it should look. What a total nightmare that would be!
Even if what passes for "AI" these days was as smart and capable as the computers on Star Trek (and it very much isn't) you wouldn't want to ask it for everything. Even the Enterprise had an OS that people interacted with. What they also had though was an OS with configurable interfaces that people could customize according to their current task and preferred workflow.
That sort of thing is maybe possible in the future for "AI" empowered operating systems we might live to see, but 90% of the people using computers aren't going to bother with any of that, just like they've never seen the settings/options in most of their applications or their operating system right now. Not because it couldn't make their time working the computer better, but because they just can't be bothered.
The writer of this piece remembers how, as a child, computers promised to let him write his own software and games and it seemed like there were endless possibilities until the reality that programing takes effort killed a little of that enthusiasm (although not enough that he didn't eventually become a programmer), but many people never see a computer as anything more than a means to an end or a device for mainly passive content consumption.
The cognitive dissonance is astounding in AI circles. The vast majority of people have a personal computer in their pocket and they use it the vast majority of the time to scroll Instagram, play games, and occasionally interact with their bank and other social services. People who have laptops and desktop computers have them for specialized tasks they already do. None of the vast majority of users who buy their phone when the screen cracks and the battery stops working care about the agentic AI world because their phone already does everything they want to do.
I think the rise of Claw's, Grok Bot and Muse is a good counterpoint to this. Yes they are still niche specialized interfaces right now, but they are basically allowing non-technical people to do things that have been easily possible with scripts and cronjobs for a long time. Its basically the Ford and faster houses analogy.
When I look around me, the only time people get their phone out of their pockets is either for youtube, some social media, or calling/chatting with people. It's very rare to even see them set reminders or use the calculator. It's look like you're in some tech bubble. People outside of that don't scripts or do repetitive and formalized stuff. The people that do create apps and services to sell.
My wife is as non-technical as it gets, but she still spends hours with ChatGPT everyday. Calorie counting, parenting tips, gardening help, fact checks, looking up celebrities, road trip planning, meal planning, health related questions, all with ChatGPT. I really don't think she's the only one. It wasn't the most downloaded iPhone app of 2025 for nothing.
This is a bizarre sentence seeing as Google is a portal for most people. So replacing Google with ChatGPT is replacing all those destination sites as well.
The use cases described above aren't really multiple applications though. They're just using a search method to get the right fact or factoid. I consider that the scope of a single "app".
Most of those websites have been complements for Google Search rather than standalone services whether they like it or not, and if chat bots replace Google Search, they'll replace the entire ecosystem.
Oh, and she also uses image generation to test redecoration ideas by asking "gipitiak" to add/remove/recolor things on room photos. That's something you can't do with Google search in any way, shape or form.
Not that this matters, because Google search alone disproves the claim that people only use phones for videos and social media.
I didn't intend to argue either way, but I feel that adding "and search" to the argument made above doesn't really weaken it. The full claim is that regular users weren't really interested in using power-user apps, so they won't be interested with a chat-bot UI either.
I do personally think that we'll see regular users interested in new, different workflows than the automation ones we associate with power users, and the image generation use case you mention is a good example. Chat-bots do seem to be owning those rather than entirely new apps.
Xirdus · · focus · HN ↗
autoexec · · focus · HN ↗
I doubt it. Most people would rather stab at their phone to download an app that just does what they want than explain to a chatbot over a period of minutes/hours and several reiterations to get it to spew out what they want, let alone what kind of software they want it to make for them. Most people can barely articulate what they want in the first place.
The market for applications isn't going anywhere and neither is the OS. I can't imagine booting a computer directly into a chat window where I have to explain to a bot what I wish would show up on my screen, where on my screen, and how it should look. What a total nightmare that would be!
Even if what passes for "AI" these days was as smart and capable as the computers on Star Trek (and it very much isn't) you wouldn't want to ask it for everything. Even the Enterprise had an OS that people interacted with. What they also had though was an OS with configurable interfaces that people could customize according to their current task and preferred workflow.
That sort of thing is maybe possible in the future for "AI" empowered operating systems we might live to see, but 90% of the people using computers aren't going to bother with any of that, just like they've never seen the settings/options in most of their applications or their operating system right now. Not because it couldn't make their time working the computer better, but because they just can't be bothered.
The writer of this piece remembers how, as a child, computers promised to let him write his own software and games and it seemed like there were endless possibilities until the reality that programing takes effort killed a little of that enthusiasm (although not enough that he didn't eventually become a programmer), but many people never see a computer as anything more than a means to an end or a device for mainly passive content consumption.
Shank · · focus · HN ↗
fy20 · · focus · HN ↗
skydhash · · focus · HN ↗
Xirdus · · focus · HN ↗
debugnik · · focus · HN ↗
hackinthebochs · · focus · HN ↗
debugnik · · focus · HN ↗
Most of those websites have been complements for Google Search rather than standalone services whether they like it or not, and if chat bots replace Google Search, they'll replace the entire ecosystem.
Xirdus · · focus · HN ↗
Not that this matters, because Google search alone disproves the claim that people only use phones for videos and social media.
debugnik · · focus · HN ↗
I do personally think that we'll see regular users interested in new, different workflows than the automation ones we associate with power users, and the image generation use case you mention is a good example. Chat-bots do seem to be owning those rather than entirely new apps.