
Ask HN: Building a Better Clippy? - hsikka
I&#x27;m fascinated with using ML&#x2F;DL to build useful features that augment work and productivity, and for my master&#x27;s thesis at Georgia Tech I&#x27;m trying to build a virtual assistant for student learners.<p>Do you think Clippy, the microsoft office assistant, could have been much more useful if it had learned behaviors rather than rule based decision making?<p>Do you think this is an interesting opportunity? Is there anything out there like this?
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kleer001
I would look at IDEs, specifically feature requests that are the same across
platforms, the same in every forum from Eclypse to Amethyst 2. Specifically
features that don't tend to be implemented because they're just a bit too
complex to be rule based.

IMHO an agent is the wrong way and discovery (like in Emacs) or a status/hint
line is the way to go. Keeping it unobtrusive enough not to be annoying, but
still present enough to be helpful when needed. AKA be more like Alfred from
Batman and less like Ace Ventura.

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hsikka
Wow thank you for the feedback! I love the idea that its a more natural,
unobtrusive extension rather than an explicit agent sitting there.

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kleer001
Spacemacs has IMHO a great setup that might interest you. Check out their
hotkey discoverability with mnemonics and their use of which-key for
suggesting functions.

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probinso
Amiga Learning claims they use Deep Learning to leverage AV processing to
measure stress of students to inform restructuring first-readers curriculum of
children.

I think Charlse River Analytics is doing dynamic dialog systems as well, for
guiding through experimental design

I think this is also the strategy that Knewton uses for their product

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muzani
I think Google Assistant is awesome. But it seems that its advantage over Siri
is rule based.

Word doesn't seem great for digital assistants, but I think what really needs
help is documentation. There's often a good deal of bad documentation, and
it's something an assistant could learn to navigate.

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notahacker
You might find this interesting: [https://medium.com/@saranormous/clippy-s-
revenge-39f7387f9aa...](https://medium.com/@saranormous/clippy-s-
revenge-39f7387f9aab)

TLDR Clippy was probably ahead of its time. Since then the tech to understand
behaviours and NLP inputs has got better, but more importantly the median
users have got increasingly used to typing queries rather than browsing or
reading manuals to get fast results, and spends a lot more time reading and
responding to instant messages. I don't know about student learning
specifically, but conversational AI assistants for commercial use are
approaching the peak of the hype cycle.

