I think what's more likely is that an AI based interface will end up being superior after it has had a chance to observe your personal preferences and approach on a conventional UI.
So both will still be needed, with an AI helping at the low end and high end of experience and the middle being a training zone as it learns you.
There's nothing to infer. The sequence is already short. There are no benefits from AI here.
But you raise a good point, which is that there are occasionally things like 15-step processes that people repeat a bunch of times, that the AI can observe and then take over. So basically useful in programming macros/shortcuts as well. But that still requires the original UI -- it doesn't replace it.
Voice is not really clumsy, compared to finding a device, browsing to an app, remembering the interface etc.
Already when we meet a new app, we (I) often ask someone to show me around or tell me where the feature is that I want. Not any easier than asking my house AI. Harder really.
Hard to underestimate the laziness of humans. I'll get very accustomed to asking my AI to do ordinary things. Already I never poke at the search menu in my TV; I ask Alexa to search for me. So, so much easier. Always available. Never have to spell anything.
Everyone agrees setting timers in the kitchen via voice is great precisely because your hands are occupied. It's a special case. (And often used as the example of the only thing people end up consistently using their voice assistant for.)
And asking an AI where a feature is in an app -- that's exactly what I was describing. The app still has its UX though. But this is exactly the learning assistance I was describing.
And as for searching with Alexa, of course -- but that's just voice dictation instead of typing. Nothing to do with LLM's or interfaces.
And when describing apps - I imagine the AI is an app-free environment, where I just ask those questions of my AI assistant, in lieu of poking at an app at all.
So sure, it will still have buttons, but those buttons are really just preset AI prompts on the backend. You can also just talk to your appliance and nuance your request however you want to.
A TV with a remote whose channel button just prompts "Next channel" but if you want you would just talk to your TV and say "Skip 10 channels" or "make the channel button do (arbitrary behavior)"
The shortcuts will definitely stay, but they will behave closer to "ring bell for service" than "press selection to vend".
When taking a shower, I would like fine control over the water temperature, preferably with a feedback loop regulating the temperature. (Preferably also the regulation changes over the duration of the showering.)
Choosing to read the NY times indeed is only a few taps away, but navigating through and within its list of articles is nowadays done quite fast and intuitively thanks to quite a lot of UI advancements.
My point being, short sequences are a very limited set within a vast UI space.
People go for convenience and speed, oftentimes even if there's some accuracy cost. AI fulfills this preference, especially because it can learn on the go.
That exists, but it’s expensive because of the electronics and mechanics involved. There are so many interfaces with this exact problem.
You also almost certainly don’t want non-deterministic hallucination prone AI controlling physical systems.
If you want the shower to save your temperature preferences and start automatically, there’s no reason to build in a computer capable of running an AI.
But in reality you almost certainly don’t want a system like this because you don’t want an AI accidentally turning on your shower when you’re not home, when you do ok to clean it, or grab a razor, or when your toddler wanders in.
Granted an AI could try to determine intent, but it’s never going to get it 100% right. Which is why for physical systems like this you almost always want a physical button to signal intent.
Also that sounds like an awful lot of computing power for everyday UIs. It also doesn’t solve the non determinism problem.
There’s no way to use fewer actuators, and the control system is already dead simple, and uses one temperature sensor per outlet.
Who knows, AI can come up with simpler or cheaper solutions that did not cross our mind. I would say, time will tell.
The lack of AI isn’t what’s holding back your dream of a temperature controlled shower in every house.