I think it's hilariously tone deaf that travel booking and shopping are the two examples of "agentic" AI that keep popping up.
1. "Help customers buy crap" is one of the vaguely plausible use-cases which excite investors who see the ads, even if it isn't so exciting for actual customers.
2. The ideas seem sourced from some brain-trust of idle-rich, rather than from the average US consumer. Regardless of how the characters in the ads are presented, all of them are somehow able to prefer saving 60 seconds even if it means maybe losing $60 on a dumb purchase or a non-refundable reservation at the wrong restaurant, etc.
I think it says more about the economy currently. The "average US consumer" is the wealthy right now. Just 10% of the population, the highest earners, drive nearly 50% of consumption currently and that number is growing.
That is the new average US consumer, hence the ads and use cases targeting a more well-off demographic. Everyone else has been left behind.
Limiting the scope to people living in high cost-of-living cities (probably smaller than their ideal customer field) that might be $300-400k/yr.
The real chore is having to go to the store to get groceries, doing laundry, pairing socks etc … but solving any of that would require more than just bullshit LLM capabilities.
Isn't that what grocery delivery apps are for, if you really don't want to go to the store.
> doing laundry, pairing socks etc … but solving any of that would require more than just bullshit LLM capabilities.
Yes, it's a shame robotics (hardware) is harder than software, but that's not really the fault of AI model developers.
> not really the fault of AI model developers
It’s their fault for pushing all this crap in all the things and misleading their investors that there is actually “intelligence” in what we now call AI.
> grocery delivery apps are for
These are not popular here and for a good reason - you need to enjoy your food and it starts by picking the right ingredients yourself.
“someone packs a bag for me and delivers it to my door” is just moving the problem somewhere else, not actual innovation.
I understand the sentiment but this couldn't be further from the truth. There are no robotic hand models that get close to the fidelity of humans (or even other primates).
The technology just doesn't exist yet, motors are a terrible muscle replacement. Even completely without software, a puppeteered hand model would be revolutionary.
Getting groceries is practically relaxing at this point
It is just too much to go to the store, put what you want to eat in the cart, pay and walk out.
It stresses me out too much and takes time away from wasting time on my phone.
It's just shitware being added to everything at very few people's benefit just so they can score some points on the stock market AI hype leaderboard.
Or the "write code more quickly" for LLMs. NOT the problem we need solved.