(recommend reader mode to dodge the paywall) Look I just... How are you so out of touch industry? Even if I set aside absolutely everything I dislike about AI outside of the actual product: No one...
(recommend reader mode to dodge the paywall)
Hot take … isn’t it kinda crazy that nobody is really using AI Agents,” Josh Miller, CEO of The Browser Company, wrote in a viral X post this week. “Theoretically, the tech is ready for AI agents to totally transform how we work and live our lives … but alas the general public dgaf” (doesn’t give a fuck).
I just have not heard a single person outside of the tech community talk about an agent that they use,” Miller says. “As excited and optimistic as we as an industry may be about the frontier and recursive self-improvement, it's worth pausing and just saying, ‘Huh, what?’”
Look I just... How are you so out of touch industry?
Even if I set aside absolutely everything I dislike about AI outside of the actual product: No one is teaching people how to do that, or why to do that, or how it would help them. They're just putting "AI features" into products and selling them conversations with copy written characters.
Miller’s arguments are convenient coming from someone who sells an AI-powered web browser. But I think he’s correct that today’s agentic products are largely not designed with consumers in mind.
Miller blames the problem on groupthink in the AI industry. Many people who are building these technologies are totally obsessed with them, and they often have a particular sci-fi vision for how the products should look and feel.
I don't even think the sci-fi vibe is necessarily the problem, it's that the tools don't live up to the vibe.
Beyond the lack of teaching, beyond the gap between promise and capabilities, I genuinely don't know how I could integrate agentic AI into my day to day life, like at all. I make light use of AI...
Beyond the lack of teaching, beyond the gap between promise and capabilities, I genuinely don't know how I could integrate agentic AI into my day to day life, like at all.
I make light use of AI tools at work in specific cases where it helps me or saves time. I know and understand the tools. I 'get' what an agent is.
Now, here's a smattering of things I've done in the past few days outside of work: read a comic book, played video games, went to a local block party, ate out at a new restaurant with my wife, watched TV, took pictures with my camera. How could agentic AI help me with any of these activities whatsoever? And if there is any possible 'use-case' for me, how is it any better than using the working brain I have in my head right now?
Truly, genuinely, beyond my qualms about the AI industry, I can't think of many (any) reasons to use the product outside of my narrow work-related usage.
I could spend $20 a month to have a LLM Agent schedule my doctor appointment for me, which I do approximately once a year. Or I could spend $0 and schedule it myself? I guess I could use it to...
I could spend $20 a month to have a LLM Agent schedule my doctor appointment for me, which I do approximately once a year.
Or I could spend $0 and schedule it myself?
I guess I could use it to manage my email inbox??? Except I get approximately 1 email a day I care about and spend exactly 5 minutes in the morning checking my email?
I don’t know what the “value-add” here is.
If the LLM agent could do the dishes or run to the grocery store for me, sure. (I guess it could handle creating a grocery list or ordering for delivery or pickup…except I already build my grocery list with 3 clicks in my recipe app, and I’d rather get my groceries myself so I don’t end up with weird substitutions or bad produce).
I can't find many if any uses at work myself and like you, not so much at home either. Maybe there are amazing things it could do for me, setting aside my other issues with it, but I'm a fairly...
I can't find many if any uses at work myself and like you, not so much at home either. Maybe there are amazing things it could do for me, setting aside my other issues with it, but I'm a fairly techy person for a normy. I am comfortable learning new software and apps (except Instagram, idk I hate it) and can adjust my settings and solve most of my own problems.
But i mostly find interactions with AI frustrating and maybe that's because I can search for sources on my own and educate myself on topics and fix most of my own problems.
I need a robot handyman (and like not a humanoid weird one, a functional one) more than I can think I need an agent. And I think I even know sort of what an agent is.
And that, right there, is the goldmine they've oversold. Having the ability in excel to say "hey i'm trying to do this kind of math/formula, help me" in plain text is WILD. That's such a huge...
I make light use of AI tools at work in specific cases where it helps me or saves time.
And that, right there, is the goldmine they've oversold.
Having the ability in excel to say "hey i'm trying to do this kind of math/formula, help me" in plain text is WILD. That's such a huge advancement in helping people learn their tools. I've yet to work anywhere that has anywhere near a full grasp of just their email/text/sheets suite, let alone more complex stuff, and these "AI" tools can 100% help with that.
The issue is that doesn't require a couple trillion in data center build out so now we're on "well obviously it can do everything" which is extra hilarious because even if it can, i probably only need it once. Then i can just setup the pipeline and leave it be.
One of the huge potential upsides i see of AI is helping people standardize the edges of their system (higher quality and more existing APIs) so that others can hook up and self serve, but that's a one and done kind of problem.
Anything you didn't like in those games ? You can make a custom mod. You're TV is showing you ads ? try make a custom app that blocks them (not sure if possible...) If you're processing them on...
played video games
Anything you didn't like in those games ? You can make a custom mod.
watched TV
You're TV is showing you ads ? try make a custom app that blocks them (not sure if possible...)
took pictures with my camera
If you're processing them on your computer there's plenty you can do there too.
Not saying these are great, but they are things that could be useful. Essentially you are now an expert hacker and can tweak any computer system to your liking (exaggerating a tad...).
This seems like one of the biggest issues in the "AI Boom(/Bubble)" and it's super high evaluations/investment. I also think the gap between the promise of "anyone can use AI to do tons of amazing...
This seems like one of the biggest issues in the "AI Boom(/Bubble)" and it's super high evaluations/investment.
I also think the gap between the promise of "anyone can use AI to do tons of amazing things for you" proponents talk about and the reality of the complexity of actually setting up more advanced AI Agents/harnesses. Let alone using them in any kind of effective way.
I think he's right that in order to get any kind of broad adoption it needs to get WAY simpler for ordinary non-tech people to be able to use. The problem is by the time you simplify and "dumb down" the tooling enough to be usable by an average non-technical Joe it's lost nearly all its usefulness. You're at Microsoft levels of AI tools that can't even do what the "suggested prompt" says.
I don't think the tech industry is conscious of how much their existing skillsets lead them to being able to 'effectively' use these tools. How to be specific and clear enough in prompts to get results even close to what you wanted. How to review the output to see if it actually did what you asked and re-prompt for changes where it didn't.
The more autonomous it is the more it will get things horribly wrong and make catastrophic mistakes which leads to bad PR and even more people realizing how dangerous it can be running these tools without proper isolation and security practices. The more autonomous and long running an agent is the more important a good highly detailed prompt is, and even then there's a very good chance it's still going to get lots wrong.
Then we're back at needing to teach people very technical skills to use them, which defeats the whole idea of broad appeal.
None of this is to mention all the other issues with AI.
Because normal people don't even know what they are and nothing actually helps them use agents in a simple way. (I would leave a more substantial comment but the article is behind a paywall)
Because normal people don't even know what they are and nothing actually helps them use agents in a simple way.
(I would leave a more substantial comment but the article is behind a paywall)
It sounds like a solution trying desperately to find a problem. I am genuinely struggling to find any good usecase for where AI agent could be really useful in my personal life. The examples we...
It sounds like a solution trying desperately to find a problem. I am genuinely struggling to find any good usecase for where AI agent could be really useful in my personal life. The examples we see from the tech gurus are always bonkers, like Altman creating a podcast of his kids’ interests. Instead of talking to them ?
Compared to just a few decades ago, our lives are already heavily optimized by digital solutions. Do we really need more ?
Programmers be like: I have to do a thing, let me spend all day automating it so that I never have to do it again Programmers a week later: spending time coding because other related use cases...
Programmers be like: I have to do a thing, let me spend all day automating it so that I never have to do it again
Programmers a week later: spending time coding because other related use cases came up and code needs to be expanded
Normal people: do the thing
Normal people a week later: do the other thing
Tech companies are just out of touch. If theres setup required, most people will not do it unless they absolutely have to. None of this Ikea software shit. No setup required is what we want and all your new features require us to give you our whole life story.
Even if I genuinely saw a use case for agents outside development (where I am not even convinced) the insane amount of token usage for agentic use would already make it a non starter for me....
Even if I genuinely saw a use case for agents outside development (where I am not even convinced) the insane amount of token usage for agentic use would already make it a non starter for me.
Broadly speaking, you either give an agent broad control to let it do what you want or you give it a very restricted set of options and things it can call on. The first option, from my personal testing, is just very expensive. The second option limits the added value for having an LLM in the loop that you might as well do it by hand or automate something the old fashioned way.
Case and point as far as I am concerned. As far as answering your comment goes, if I wanted to implement deep research in the same way I have seen it work from google, anthropic and openAI then it...
Case and point as far as I am concerned. As far as answering your comment goes, if I wanted to implement deep research in the same way I have seen it work from google, anthropic and openAI then it would be in the hundreds for just token usage. In fact, you can easily see this if you ever used those research tools, you tend to hit your ratelimits rather quickly even on the expensive plans.
So in my mind there is no reasonable consumer agentic market as these things simply aren't cheap.
Because for the past 20 years that annoying chatbot in the bottom right corner has been useless and on most websites it still is useless. Because it costs a ton of money to integrate a not useless...
Because for the past 20 years that annoying chatbot in the bottom right corner has been useless and on most websites it still is useless.
Because it costs a ton of money to integrate a not useless one like Claude into sharepoint sheets.
Because for a lot of people tech has been moving to fast to begin with and most everyone really just wants you to stop moving the buttons around every other week so they can get some work done
I like my agent. I've been using it for months now and I've built several custom connectors (MCP-style) and microservices to make it super useful for me personally. And in terms of quality of...
I like my agent. I've been using it for months now and I've built several custom connectors (MCP-style) and microservices to make it super useful for me personally. And in terms of quality of life, it's absolutely worth it!
I also run a decommissioned enterprise server in my closet, know what Kubernetes is, have built several web applications, have successfully set up printing on Windows and seem to be blessed with an innate technopathy that makes computers and machines work better when I'm near them. This is not a joke, I actually believe this.
Obviously these "agentic systems" are completely out of the conceptual reach of the untarnished, the pure, the virgin non-computer-touchers, and no amount of marketing can change that.
(recommend reader mode to dodge the paywall)
Look I just... How are you so out of touch industry?
Even if I set aside absolutely everything I dislike about AI outside of the actual product: No one is teaching people how to do that, or why to do that, or how it would help them. They're just putting "AI features" into products and selling them conversations with copy written characters.
I don't even think the sci-fi vibe is necessarily the problem, it's that the tools don't live up to the vibe.
Beyond the lack of teaching, beyond the gap between promise and capabilities, I genuinely don't know how I could integrate agentic AI into my day to day life, like at all.
I make light use of AI tools at work in specific cases where it helps me or saves time. I know and understand the tools. I 'get' what an agent is.
Now, here's a smattering of things I've done in the past few days outside of work: read a comic book, played video games, went to a local block party, ate out at a new restaurant with my wife, watched TV, took pictures with my camera. How could agentic AI help me with any of these activities whatsoever? And if there is any possible 'use-case' for me, how is it any better than using the working brain I have in my head right now?
Truly, genuinely, beyond my qualms about the AI industry, I can't think of many (any) reasons to use the product outside of my narrow work-related usage.
I could spend $20 a month to have a LLM Agent schedule my doctor appointment for me, which I do approximately once a year.
Or I could spend $0 and schedule it myself?
I guess I could use it to manage my email inbox??? Except I get approximately 1 email a day I care about and spend exactly 5 minutes in the morning checking my email?
I don’t know what the “value-add” here is.
If the LLM agent could do the dishes or run to the grocery store for me, sure. (I guess it could handle creating a grocery list or ordering for delivery or pickup…except I already build my grocery list with 3 clicks in my recipe app, and I’d rather get my groceries myself so I don’t end up with weird substitutions or bad produce).
I can't find many if any uses at work myself and like you, not so much at home either. Maybe there are amazing things it could do for me, setting aside my other issues with it, but I'm a fairly techy person for a normy. I am comfortable learning new software and apps (except Instagram, idk I hate it) and can adjust my settings and solve most of my own problems.
But i mostly find interactions with AI frustrating and maybe that's because I can search for sources on my own and educate myself on topics and fix most of my own problems.
I need a robot handyman (and like not a humanoid weird one, a functional one) more than I can think I need an agent. And I think I even know sort of what an agent is.
And that, right there, is the goldmine they've oversold.
Having the ability in excel to say "hey i'm trying to do this kind of math/formula, help me" in plain text is WILD. That's such a huge advancement in helping people learn their tools. I've yet to work anywhere that has anywhere near a full grasp of just their email/text/sheets suite, let alone more complex stuff, and these "AI" tools can 100% help with that.
The issue is that doesn't require a couple trillion in data center build out so now we're on "well obviously it can do everything" which is extra hilarious because even if it can, i probably only need it once. Then i can just setup the pipeline and leave it be.
One of the huge potential upsides i see of AI is helping people standardize the edges of their system (higher quality and more existing APIs) so that others can hook up and self serve, but that's a one and done kind of problem.
Anything you didn't like in those games ? You can make a custom mod.
You're TV is showing you ads ? try make a custom app that blocks them (not sure if possible...)
If you're processing them on your computer there's plenty you can do there too.
Not saying these are great, but they are things that could be useful. Essentially you are now an expert hacker and can tweak any computer system to your liking (exaggerating a tad...).
This seems like one of the biggest issues in the "AI Boom(/Bubble)" and it's super high evaluations/investment.
I also think the gap between the promise of "anyone can use AI to do tons of amazing things for you" proponents talk about and the reality of the complexity of actually setting up more advanced AI Agents/harnesses. Let alone using them in any kind of effective way.
I think he's right that in order to get any kind of broad adoption it needs to get WAY simpler for ordinary non-tech people to be able to use. The problem is by the time you simplify and "dumb down" the tooling enough to be usable by an average non-technical Joe it's lost nearly all its usefulness. You're at Microsoft levels of AI tools that can't even do what the "suggested prompt" says.
I don't think the tech industry is conscious of how much their existing skillsets lead them to being able to 'effectively' use these tools. How to be specific and clear enough in prompts to get results even close to what you wanted. How to review the output to see if it actually did what you asked and re-prompt for changes where it didn't.
The more autonomous it is the more it will get things horribly wrong and make catastrophic mistakes which leads to bad PR and even more people realizing how dangerous it can be running these tools without proper isolation and security practices. The more autonomous and long running an agent is the more important a good highly detailed prompt is, and even then there's a very good chance it's still going to get lots wrong.
Then we're back at needing to teach people very technical skills to use them, which defeats the whole idea of broad appeal.
None of this is to mention all the other issues with AI.
Because normal people don't even know what they are and nothing actually helps them use agents in a simple way.
(I would leave a more substantial comment but the article is behind a paywall)
It sounds like a solution trying desperately to find a problem. I am genuinely struggling to find any good usecase for where AI agent could be really useful in my personal life. The examples we see from the tech gurus are always bonkers, like Altman creating a podcast of his kids’ interests. Instead of talking to them ?
Compared to just a few decades ago, our lives are already heavily optimized by digital solutions. Do we really need more ?
Programmers be like: I have to do a thing, let me spend all day automating it so that I never have to do it again
Programmers a week later: spending time coding because other related use cases came up and code needs to be expanded
Normal people: do the thing
Normal people a week later: do the other thing
Tech companies are just out of touch. If theres setup required, most people will not do it unless they absolutely have to. None of this Ikea software shit. No setup required is what we want and all your new features require us to give you our whole life story.
Even if I genuinely saw a use case for agents outside development (where I am not even convinced) the insane amount of token usage for agentic use would already make it a non starter for me.
Broadly speaking, you either give an agent broad control to let it do what you want or you give it a very restricted set of options and things it can call on. The first option, from my personal testing, is just very expensive. The second option limits the added value for having an LLM in the loop that you might as well do it by hand or automate something the old fashioned way.
On my phone while commuting and my train is to arrive so I'll have to cut this comment short. I wanted to reference some older comments I made, instead here is just the one https://tildes.net/~tech/1ua7/google_search_as_you_know_it_is_over#comment-hx1q
Honestly I'm banking on the cost killing the pressure to put AI features everywhere.
How much is it costing you? I'm at ~$800/month now for work.
Case and point as far as I am concerned. As far as answering your comment goes, if I wanted to implement deep research in the same way I have seen it work from google, anthropic and openAI then it would be in the hundreds for just token usage. In fact, you can easily see this if you ever used those research tools, you tend to hit your ratelimits rather quickly even on the expensive plans.
So in my mind there is no reasonable consumer agentic market as these things simply aren't cheap.
Because for the past 20 years that annoying chatbot in the bottom right corner has been useless and on most websites it still is useless.
Because it costs a ton of money to integrate a not useless one like Claude into sharepoint sheets.
Because for a lot of people tech has been moving to fast to begin with and most everyone really just wants you to stop moving the buttons around every other week so they can get some work done
I like my agent. I've been using it for months now and I've built several custom connectors (MCP-style) and microservices to make it super useful for me personally. And in terms of quality of life, it's absolutely worth it!
I also run a decommissioned enterprise server in my closet, know what Kubernetes is, have built several web applications, have successfully set up printing on Windows and seem to be blessed with an innate technopathy that makes computers and machines work better when I'm near them. This is not a joke, I actually believe this.
Obviously these "agentic systems" are completely out of the conceptual reach of the untarnished, the pure, the virgin non-computer-touchers, and no amount of marketing can change that.
That's also not a bad thing, per se.