@aparrish I largely agree with all of this but I do think that there is one thing you're glossing over here that's pretty important: LLMs present a universal affordance. In an appropriate context, like with Chrome's AI goop, you can say "Hey, can you make me a button that will log in to Target and buy more laundry detergent", it will string together something resembling the full sequence of actions required to do it.
@aparrish That sequence of actions is not *difficult* by any means—given a couple of months I'm pretty sure I could teach an average 11-year-old how to do it if they were motivated—but it is *obscure*. It requires knowing a bunch of stuff about what's possible, that this _is_ a thing you could ask for, the mechanics of something like a browser extension…nothing especially difficult, but the affordance that lets people realize it's possible in the first place is important.
@aparrish again I definitely agree with you that this is more a consequence of politics and marketing rather than technology. there was a time when a mac would show you AppleScript and HyperCard in the course of onboarding and now it very much does not, it's all buried when the asshole-logo buttons are front and center. but for the vast majority of people this is the first time they've seen a UI that allows them to conceptualize of task automation
@aparrish I say this because I think that if we want to get rid of them (and BOY HOWDY DO I WANT TO GET RID OF THEM) I think we need to figure out a similar affordance to present traditional automation techniques and a way to get it in front of users. There's a built-in marketing pitch, if we can manage it; "like Chrome's AI, but it's reliable and you can understand what it's doing!" but it's still tough to compete with freeform english-language input box that "does anything"
@glyph see i think the idea of the LLM as a "universal affordance" is part of what's being propped up with politics and marketing. a chat interface isn't inherently a superior way to do computer stuff—it's just that decades of tech commercials and scifi have convinced people that it *must* be superior. but yeah, from a practical "what should we do" perspective, providing folks with any other kind of interface is definitely an uphill battle
Nov 10, 2026, 10:28 PM@glyph @aparrish reminds me of this @beka_valentine thread on end user programming: https://kolektiva.social/@beka_valentine/116845902133405690
@dngrs @aparrish @beka_valentine clicking though to that I can see I have already liked every post several months ago :). and yes it's very salient.
Nov 10, 2026, 10:01 PMI have noticed a big difference with how I approach things and how family members and friends who haven't built up the same comfort/skills with computers approach things is I assume that it is possible and it's just a matter of figuring it out and stick to that belief until proven otherwise (sometimes even beyond that point but let's not talk about that)