People did talk about that though. There were so many allusions to Clippy when Copilot was launched, and even before that.
Based on Google Gemini and the sheer number of restrictions Microsoft had to place on Bing to prevent chaos.
I think saying that it “works” is a stretch.
I think AI works well as an assistant for creative problems. But businesses are shoving large language models on everything they can think of. It’s basically a fad.
Doctors recommend that you smell glue to make your head cold go away
It’s just revealing that we never actually needed a clippy in the first place. An “assistant” in tech isn’t actually as useful as people assumed it would be.
That’s what I figured. Everything the assisstant does for you will be done faster with the right know how and experience
Nah, I’d love to be able to ask an assistant to make sense of the dog shit layout in word, instead of having to blindly click at menus for 10 minutes, then finally give up and Google for 10 more minutes, all because Microsoft thought it would be cool and intuitive to split menus into “view”, “review”, “layout” and “design”, because those words don’t basically all mean the same thing.
That’s why I said if you have the know how and experience. Asking the assisstant to do something for you will probably take londer than doing it yourself
What you’re talking about is more like Q&A imo, which is just kind of an inbuild google or manual
It loons like you’re trying to make pizza… can I recommend a vintage Elmer’s Glue?
I often worry that the last thing we’ll all read is Clippy on every screen in the world saying “It looks like your planet is running out of oxygen. Bet you’d like some help now, huh bitch!”
…often?
Many such cases
Monthly at least
I heard this in Jack McBrayer‘s voice
June 28, 2023:
Almost wanna offer an API key to someone willing to test it… :) Must be a pretty simple wrapper.
Clippy can get reincarnated with AI, but it will still be crappy.
On a side note, we can also bring back Bonzi Buddy 😂
And just for that extra bit of curse that the world needs these days: “Bonzi Buddy II is dedicated to the memory of Harambe”
He just chills there on the screen, dick out 24/7.
we can finally Ask Jeeves
Alright, let’s not dogpile onto this, everyone.
Do you want an AI Tamagotchi?
“works”
I was gonna say… you would first have to tell me what clippy was really meant to help with back in the day besides saying, here’s a link to the help page.
I mean, the idea wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t executed well.
It was supposed to provide a non-threatening way to help users access functionality of their device or software that they may have been unaware of that would be relevant to their current task. This would assist users in accomplishing their task more efficiently, and help Microsoft by increasing consumers perception of the value their software provides, which reduces their likelihood to want to use something else in the future.
A modern, potentially useful clippy would ideally be able to tell…
- what you were actually doing
- if you appeared to be struggling or doing something repetitively
- if it has the ability to help
…Before it tries to interact with you.
Beyond that, it should be able to link to the tool in question in a way that automatically sets it up to do what you’re trying to do so using it doesn’t set you back from where you were, or just offer to do it for you in a way that doesn’t trash your work if you hate the output.
It’s still probably gonna suck ass and not be helpful, but at least it wouldn’t by vaguely mystifying why it even existed.
The best “digital assistants” I’ve seen recently are ones that actually acknowledge that these are language tools, not “knowledge” or “reasoning” tools.
They can legitimately do a good job figuring out a good response to what you ask it, ignoring the accuracy question. So if you set it up to know how to format data and what data you have available, you can get it to respond to questions like “are there trends in the monthly sales statistics for the past three years?” with a graph of those statistics broken down by product, rather than trying to let a language tool try to do reasoning on numerical data.Talking good can sound like reasoning because right now things that talk good are usually humans that have basic reasoning skills. It’s why it so confusing when they just happily spout irrational nonsense: we’re used to rationality being a given in things that are confident and articulate.
I think it would be cool if you were writing a ransom note on your computer, if the paper clip popped up and said, ‘Looks like you’re writing a ransom note. Need help? You should use more forceful language, you’ll get more money.’
-Demetri Martin, 2007
It looks like you are trying to point something out. I can help with that. 📎
I think Microsoft did do an ad campaign about it
Maybe a modern Clippy would be great, but original Clippy was so annoying I’m not willing to give it a chance.
An AI-powered Clippy… have we learned nothing from Star Trek Lower Decks about what can go wrong with this??
“Clippy, write a novel so convoluted that even Data can’t figure out the ending before reading the final page.”
