
I have five digital ‘personal assistants’ and still can’t get anything done - jonbaer
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/01/01/i-have-five-digital-personal-assistants-and-still-cant-get-anything-done/
======
rloc
I tried Google for a few days. I admit the notification telling me when to
leave work to arrive on time for my next appointment with the best route was
impressive when I saw it first (the AI behind at least).

But quickly I stopped using it for these reasons:

1) I had to get ready to let go to much private data

2) I hate talking to a thing and it makes me look ridiculous both in public
and in private (the social awkwardness might improve though in time, humans
can get used to anything :) ).

3) It impacts the smartphone battery life

4) As stated in the article, it's never perfect so a single frustration in the
experience makes it basically useless compared to accomplishing the task the
old way. I'm obsessed with productivity.

5) Voice commands are perfectly suited in cars but I don't own any.

6) What about the impact on memory and cognitive skills, it probably won't
help improving them.

I might not be the target customer, I can't even see myself using a real world
assistant.

~~~
zyxley
> I hate talking to a thing and it makes me look ridiculous both in public and
> in private (the social awkwardness might improve though in time, humans can
> get used to anything).

The answer to this in scifi is a subvocal microphone. Unfortunately, the real-
world equivalents [1] haven't progressed beyond the experimental stages yet.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition)

~~~
tedmiston
Also, brain-consumer interfaces.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain%E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain%E2%80%93computer_interfaces)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
"Brain-consumer interface" is pretty great even if it was a typo.

~~~
tedmiston
Whoops! I'm glad you figured out my intent. I think my subconscious was
marveling over the surprising number of brain-computer consumer products on
that page. O_o

------
dougmwne
I feel like something has recently happened to Google's voice recognition.
Just in the past few weeks, I've found it to be more accurate than ever,
especially in noisy environments. In fact, I'm currently dictating this
comment 10 feet away from a busy interstate. I've almost exclusively switched
over from typing when I won't embarrass myself. In fact, I just had to switch
to typing because I got on the BART.

This is the beginning of Google's voice assistant being worth the trouble to
me as a user.

~~~
Pxtl
And yet they can't seem to parse my monthly boardgame night email and add it
to my calendar. Every time I have to manually copy/paste the email into
calendar and then fix the failures the parser had (ignoring the time in the
email in favour of the word "night" in the title to mean 9pm, for example.

Hopefully they'll point this recognition AI in more directions. Seems like it
should be easier since it's already text.

~~~
contingencies
Decent AI would recommend boardgames of the same genre - here's a manual
recommendation: Risk 2210 is (4 hours of) awesome!

------
danso
The headline made me roll my eyes (though that seems to be a company wide
problem at WaPo imho)...but it seems like the author, while trying to evaluate
cutting edge tech and AI networking, has inadvertently stumbled upon an
ancient piece of computing wisdom (emphasis added):

> Which is what makes the assistant from x.ai so interesting. All it does is
> schedule things: you copy it on emails where you're trying to set up
> meetings, and it sends reasonably cheerful emails to your other participants
> to find a mutually agreeable time. Mortensen sees his own company's
> assistant, Amy Ingram (AI, get it?), as a vertical agent: _she takes care of
> one task well, rather than trying to be an all-in-one._

~~~
TeMPOraL
x.ai looks very interesting. Still waiting for the invite.

> _Amy Ingram_

Like Nathan Ingram from Person of Interest, the co-creator of the AI that is a
sorta-protagonist in the show?

------
xacaxulu
Get 1 actual assistant (virtual assistant) and don't worry about any of the
edge cases that Siri hasn't figured out yet. VA's can proofread docs for you,
sit on hold with Lufthansa until they get an agent on the line then conference
you in, order your groceries for delivery, make and update medical
appointments and in some cases, send thank you letters to friends and family,
do research on xyz topic of your liking, and roughly prepare your expenses,
receipts and tax paperwork before handing it off to a CPA. There's also the
added benefit of interacting with (and financially supporting) an actual human
who is much more capable than Siri. And then there's cachet of having your
'assistant' run interference with all the usual time wasters in your day.

~~~
ajmurmann
I assume you have an actual assistant. May I ask what the monthly bill comes
out as and how you found them?

~~~
jakejake
I could be wrong, but think the OP is talking about virtual assistant services
like task rabbit since they listed many of their advertised tasks.

As far as a "real" assistant goes, it can be easy to find one if you live in a
city with craigslist. You can find someone to hire hourly once in a while, or
bring them on full/part time with a salary if you have the means. The payment
range is minimum wage up to whatever you want to pay. Whether you want
something official where you run payroll, provide health insurance and
everything, or just pay someone under the table - there's pretty much going to
be a long list of people who will want you to hire them. I've taken out ads
before and gotten over 200 responses (Chicago area). When you become directly
responsible for other people's financial livelihood it can really change how
you think about employment and life in general.

~~~
ajmurmann
I think Tim Ferris mentioned services that provide virtual assistants for
tasks similar to what the OP described. I remember looking into it right after
I read the 4 hour work week and back then the services listed in the book were
completely overrun. I never looked into it again and also never met anyone who
actually used it.

------
elorant
Those are not assistants. They’re not even organizers. They’re glorified
notification services. And it’s natural that he felt overwhelmed after a
while. From personal experience I can say that the longer to-do lists you
make, the less tasks you end up completing. If I have four-five tasks to do in
a day I get everything completed on time. Anything bigger than that and it
never gets completed.

~~~
tedmiston
I really enjoyed Jason Fried's chapter about this in Rework.

"Long lists don't get done"
[https://books.google.com/books?id=U77um_h_dgcC&pg=PA125&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=U77um_h_dgcC&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=long+to+do+lists+don't+get+done+jason+fried&source=bl&ots=FZh74kzBPb&sig=tEwbXwiGwiWiG5ULpVGbYTfem6g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR8ISKlorKAhUS2mMKHdnXDokQ6AEIHTAA)

------
officemonkey
"Can't get anything done."

All these personal assistants, from the Pilot, to MS Outlook, to the latest
smart phone, have the same problem: they don't actually help you get anything
done.

You have to have the work flows and discipline to process your "inbox,"
schedule your calendar, prioritize your work, and DO it.

I know Franklin-Covey and Getting Things Done are still popular, but where are
the new tools for THAT?

~~~
tedmiston
I'm still waiting [looking] for the software that actually helps you process
your inbox ~every day without fail.

~~~
officemonkey
You know, Duolingo gives you "lingots" (aka fake points) for keeping a streak
going every ten days.

If there was a add-on that counted every day your inbox was at zero and gave
you a meaningless brag, it would have a similar effect to me. There's nothing
like getting a tiny useless award to ensure that I do what I should be doing
anyway.

------
erikb
Anybody here having real virtual assistants (people you contact via
skype/email)? Is it a good or bad experience? How much do you spend per month?

~~~
ghaff
As someone who has been around long enough to have had actual (shared)
admins/secretaries, I'm not sure I see the value. For travel, for example,
someone really needs to understand your preferences well enough to understand
and evaluate all the tradeoffs involved. Or they need to be able to reliably
evaluate which of the many requests coming into you are really potentially
interesting.

Senior execs certainly get real value from long-term admins but that's a
different equation.

[EDIT: Of course, to the degree the assistant can find a venue for an event
etc., that's something else entirely. But I'm not sure the degree to which the
typical virtual assistant can be trusted to do that.]

------
graeme
I have an iphone 6 but don't use Siri. I don't drive, and I type quickly. Am I
missing anything?

I also work from home. So I don't care about the following: driving
directions, traffic, weather, sports, appointments (I have very few). Texts
also difficult because half are in French, half English (I live in Montreal).

~~~
forrestthewoods
Siri has a few useful shortcuts.

"Remind me tomorrow at 11am to go to the dentist".

The reminders app is kind of a piece of shit interface wise. So Siri works
really well. I also like "directions to home". I _wish_ I could say "Share my
location with Mom for 1 hour" but I can't and that's stupid.

My biggest Siri complaint is it's one and done. You can't modify commands and
have to start over. Which is super frustrating if it gets a text almost
entirely correctly but misses one word.

Any other useful shortcuts people like?

~~~
jacquesm
I don't have an agenda, I remember all my appointments (well, all but one,
last year I actually forgot one, I'm still really sorry about that but it's
the first time this happened in 3 decades so not a bad score). Before I used a
cell phone I knew all the phone numbers of all my associates by heart. Now I
only remember my own phone number and the one of my old bookkeeper because his
never changed and we worked together for 2 decades.

All these 'assistants' that we use, they relieve us from having to remember
these things ourselves. But does it actually relieve us or does it in fact
cause us to lose a useful skill?

~~~
mbrock
Obligatory reference to Plato's _Phaedrus._

> Socrates: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god,
> whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him,
> and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and
> geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was
> the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the
> whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which
> the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them
> Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other
> Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them,
> and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and
> censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long
> time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the
> various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make
> the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for
> the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the
> parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or
> inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance,
> you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children
> have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for
> _this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners ' souls,
> because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external
> written characters and not remember of themselves._ The specific which you
> have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give
> your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be
> hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be
> omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company,
> having the show of wisdom without the reality.

~~~
jacquesm
It's not obligatory, and it is a nice way to sidestep looking at the question
I asked. Sure there are advantages, and I'm fully aware of those. I am just
wondering if there is a dis-advantage that may be less visible.

I'm not versed in this matter so my question put in simpler terms is one of
attempting to see the flip side of the coin. That books and 'letters' have a
downside is reasonably well documented, cultures that do not rely on writing
for passing their information down from generation to generation are richly
populated with people that perform feats of memory casually that astound those
that rely on the written word. That the advantage lies with the 'books'
faction seems to be a foregone conclusion (this is usually the case when you
compare a human that is augmented with some tool against one that is not so
that's a bit of an open door to kick in) but it is always important that
almost everything comes with some kind of price tag and if you can't see the
price tag you might make the wrong decision in some of these cases.

Just like calculators cause us to become (much) worse in mental arithmetic
(but we can do _much_ more complex math in a short time even without the
required skills).

~~~
mbrock
I'm not sure how that Plato quote demonstrates any advantages. He's talking
about how reliance on the written word can erode one's memory. It's precisely
about the disadvantages of using external tools that replace internal
faculties. I cited it to show that the founding father (if you will) of
Western philosophy broadly agreed with your point about "assistants" causing
us to lose useful skills.

~~~
jacquesm
Interesting. I wonder what percentage of the readers took that one way or the
other.

Thank you for the addendum. Below a couple of interesting viewpoints on the
'augmented human', I had not considered those. Trying hard to imagine a modern
society without the written word, and whether or not such a thing would even
be possible. Imagine somehow leaping to a technological society without having
writing in between, what would that society look like?

~~~
mbrock
There's some tangentially relevant ideas in a book called "The Spell of the
Sensuous," and also in various works by McLuhan. I think the basic idea is
attributed to Eric Havelock. This essay seems to be relevant though I just
started skimming it:

[http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/1i/6_haveloc...](http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/1i/6_havelock.pdf)

But basically the idea is that alphabetic literacy creates a whole new style
of abstraction and detachment. Before the alphabet there were pictorial glyphs
which are still not very abstract, but after the alphabetic revolution in
Greece, Havelock traces a new style of philosophy and thinking in general,
starting around the time of Plato.

Maybe you could compare it to something like the development of algebraic
geometry, which allows you to say all kinds of new things in an abstract way,
because you move to a level of abstraction that's not limited to what you can
represent diagrammatically.

Oh, it's called the "alphabet effect":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_effect)

It's at least something to consider when thinking about an alternate history
where we didn't use written words. We would probably still have "external
memory," but maybe in a more symbolic/pictorial/diagrammatic/geometric way.
Perhaps we would even have symbolic algebra and math, taught by oral
instruction... It is pretty hard to imagine!

Abram who wrote "The Spell of the Sensuous" has a different argument than
Plato. He also critiques writing and the alphabet, not because it ruins memory
but because it allows us to retreat from our sensuous embedding in nature,
which ultimately helps create a modern world in which we mostly live in a kind
of isolation where we are always surrounded by things of human making.

> _Today we participate almost exclusively with other humans and with our own
> human-made technologies. It is a precarious situation, given our age-old
> reciprocity with the many-voiced landscape. We still need that which is
> other than ourselves and our own creations. The simple premise of this book
> is that we are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not
> human._

To try to steer back towards the original conversation... I'm thinking of
things like alarm clocks, which are also technological assistants for doing
stuff that we used to do ourselves. They also help maintain a kind of
abstraction from our surroundings and "natural" premises: they make us
independent of sunrise, circadian rhythms, and so on. And maybe they erode a
capacity for waking up at the appropriate time without help. Personally I do
avoid using them unless I risk missing a flight or something. If I need to
wake up early, I prefer to go to bed early enough to give me a reasonable
margin. If I tended to oversleep by hours, I'd consider that a symptom of
sleep deprivation or something.

~~~
jacquesm
Our exchange led to this:

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2016/01/a-world-...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2016/01/a-world-building-puzzler.html)

------
Pxtl
Semi related, does anybody know how to tell Google to send an sms message
through Hangouts? If I say okay Google hangouts message Alice, it sends an
hangouts message instead of sms. But if I say okay Google message Alice, it
sends it through the old message all instead of Hangouts and takes forever to
propagate the conversation to the unified view in Hangouts.

------
tedmiston
> When I send messages, for example, I'm constantly having to correct some
> part of them. In about 90 percent of cases, I was better off typing my own
> messages or searches -- and then had just wasted 30 seconds doing something
> that I could have done more quickly myself.

This is what happens every time I use Siri to dictate more than a sentence
too.

------
cardigan
Facebook M? Magic?

