OpenAI's ChatGPT plugins may revolutionise the traditional customer journey | Hacker News Reader

OpenAI's ChatGPT plugins may revolutionise the traditional customer journey

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39 pointssxanus32 comments

Shopping moving from brick and mortar to online was truly revolutionary. Compare a few taps on your phone to getting in your car, getting gas, driving to store, locating item, waiting in line, paying, getting back in your car, etc and the time savings are astounding. And there are still brick and mortar stores everywhere because a lot of people simply like to shop and browse all the options.

I just don’t see the need to trust ChatGPT to do my shopping for me. Earlier today at a red light I searched for something I needed on Amazon, found a good option and ordered it all before the light turned green. Maybe for cheap things that don’t matter or commodities it would be fine to just tell ChatGPT or Alexa to order something for you but it’s really not that revolutionary compared to what we already have. If OpenAI is going to get a cut of every transaction, they’ll just make the purchase that secures the highest commission for them. This is akin to telling google to buy the first ad in their search results for you. Do a lot of people make a purchase with the I’m feeling lucky button sight unseen?

Ok so maybe you don’t like the first option the chatbot gives you and it presents the next one…and the next one…then we’re basically back where we started at that point?

I prefer to spend an extra few seconds comparing the options so I know what I’m getting and I’m not even someone who enjoys shopping. I think ChatGPT will be game changing for a lot of things but not for online shopping.

I always imagined that we would have personal assistants (personal ChatGPTs) that are trained with our treats and after watching a few times which could learn by our standards. They could even do negotiations for us as it knows our price elasticity as well!

That would make sense if we didn’t already have online shopping that is so easy and seamless. I know what I like and can already find it and order it inside of literally 15 seconds, 1 minute maximum. Is that minimal time savings worth the creepy factor of a corporate chatbot learning every little thing about you? Have we not been paying attention to the last 10 years with respect to privacy concerns surrounding ad tech?

There’s things about shopping that are monotonous and annoying and there are things that are pleasant and fun. Online shopping already took away 99% of the monotonous, annoying things like driving, waiting in line, etc. I don’t mind spending 10 minutes looking at pictures of 5 different hotels for my vacation, well worth it to make sure thousands of dollars are well spent. It does make sense to let a bot handle routine things like toilet paper and dog food but we already solved stuff like that with subscriptions.

I definitely have concerns about security, but I think Google already knows as well. What if OpenAI would promise us to keep our data in our OpenAI device and actually run most of the operations in the device while having limited data sync with their server?

I wouldn't believe ChatGPT about what it's doing with my data any more than I would believe a human.

OpenAI's ChatGPT plugins may revolutionise the traditional customer journey. With access to the internet and all websites, it's now possible to bypass browsers and middlemen. This end-to-end system could mean the future of AI, where devices become unnecessary and OpenAI owns the entire journey.

Terrifying that one company would own the world.

That'll most likely not happen. Or they'll be declared a public utility soon enough.

For now we are still living in a world governed by humans

The history of economics seems to imply that it’s more likely than not. As for the public utility part, even the internet itself isn’t, which is arguably more impactful than AI.

Internet cable owners are in fact required to provide access to third party resellers at a fixed price in many European countries.

Net neutrality was upheld here by the courts and required phone companies to cancel plans.

It may happen (no guarantee obviously).

Right now I'm less concerned about the AI apocalypse but good old human greed.

Agreed. Though I had a strange moment on a podcast when I realized mid sentence that human greed might be how the AI starts to fool humans into doing its bidding. https://youtu.be/vYhtYjXNBCU

Which specific part of history of economics implies that this is more likely than not?

Every transformative technology has been concentrated into a few powerful companies that have a natural monopoly. OpenAI has all the hallmarks.

I can't name a transformative technology that has remained concentrated into a few powerful companies long-term. Can you?

Besides that, it doesn't seem to me there's a natural monopoly available in this landscape. All natural monopolies have some kind of natural physical barrier precluding other companies from forming. What would the natural physical barrier be in the case of... machine learning? Or LLMs?

Unless they make very bad decisions with which lobbyists to hire, I think there is essentially no chance they end up being declared a public utility.

Sadly, most people don't have a clue which world they live in.

Google didn't get defined as public utility.

> With access to the internet and all websites

This has me wondering... Does ChatGPT honor robots.txt?

Apparently it does.

There is no need for plugins. GPT4 can already figure out a series of instructions to perform whatever we want from a browser. All it needs is a chrome extension to allow it to control the browser. This gives more power to openAI without relinquishing control to third parties.

I think openAI is using the plugins to increase adoption and bring visibility to its chat through third parties. Much like how facebook initially used its FB platform. When they have grown their audience they 'll cut it down and use their own means.

I'm going to reiterate a point I've been making at the previous ChatGPT posts, which is that ChatGPT and its plugins are now a target for SEO. The recommendations it produces in the future may not be as useful in certain aspects as its current recommendations.

This is the elephant in the room. HN types have incredibly strong cognitive dissonance around the structural foundations of the tech industry.

My feeling is that this is in this near future, all they need to do is to make a chat app.

They’re currently hiring iOS and Android developers so it’s likely on the horizon.

https://openai.com/careers/search

ChatGPT is what I always thought Google was going to be. A simple search box that understands intent. When Google first came out, that search box was pioneering.

Ok, suppose we have milions of plugins. How will the discovery be made and plugins (suppliers) ranked? If there is an ad-marketplace we'll end up with another Google. If there isn't an ad-supported marketplace on what criteria one supplier of a USB cable been ranked higher than another one? (for products that are chosen on utility, not branding with more than one "direct" provider)?

We build web browser for a reason. Talk to a chatbot like talk to customer service. It's far slower and sometimes frustration.

But we text all the time with people we know for information we trust, and it’s easier to interact for information by text than web browsing for the many and not the few

What if our chatbots are talking to other chatbots?

If you tell Bing Chat that you are making two Bing Chats talk to each other, the conversation will shut down immediately.

Yeah I've been thinking a similar thing since joining a startup and researching for https://github.com/Jeadie/awesome-chatgpt-plugins

There is no guarantee that anyone will buy anything through ChatGPT, right? Google, Twitter, and Facebook were doing similar things, but in the end, don’t people just search directly on Amazon’s site?

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