[ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6]

I’m not sure how many people there are like me outside of this website but there’s not a single bone in my body that wants to use AI for these things.

Buying plane tickets for example. It’s not even that I don’t trust the AI or that I’m afraid it might make a mistake. I just inherently want to feel like I’m in control of these processes.

It’s the same reason I’m more afraid of flying than driving despite flying being a way safer mode of travel. When I’m flying I don’t feel like I’m in control.

[tokioyoyo]

I have very normie and not-so-normie friends that ask ChatGPT almost anything. My parents consistently make use of it, and they're almost 70, and not that tech-literate. There was a fun release from Anthropic about the type of queries that they're receiving, and code-gen is minority. I think we're, once again, not the average user.

[OccamsMirror]

I wonder how many of those “average users” will actually happily pay what the true cost is though? Are they really getting perceivable value for it or is it just more convenient than present day Google.

[darkamaul]

I don’t see why you wouldn’t book a flight using an AI assistant. No one’s saying it should do it completely unsupervised (maybe that’ll come much later), but having something that can research the best routes based on my criteria and show me several options — with a single click to purchase the one I find most convenient — is something I’d love.

It could even work against the dynamic pricing algorithms airlines use to maximize revenue: if I have a tireless assistant exploring every possible combination to find the cheapest ticket, it’ll probably do a much better job than I ever could.

[willtemperley]

There's probably little danger to the savvy user who understands how manipulative technology like this can be.

The problems come when vulnerable users are targeted using dark patterns. How AI dark patterns will evolve is very uncertain [1] however I suspect they will be extremely subtle and very effective.

What's the worst that can happen if someone vulnerable is persuaded to buy a flight by an AI. I don't know, maybe depression and bad credit after the chatbot's promises weren't met. If they're persuaded to buy a weapon, that's a different matter.

At least current advertising is somewhat public, although that's increasingly less true as ads get more targeted.

This is new territory where ads will be so extremely private it will be only known by the user (maybe they won't even notice) and someone reading the subpoenaed chat logs after a user does something terrible. Those chat logs will likely be inconclusive anyway.

[1] https://venturebeat.com/ai/darkness-rising-the-hidden-danger...

[kisamoto]

I suppose you just have to trust that it's incentivized to find you the best route and not only offer you 3 options which it says are the best, but are actually paid promotions.

[zengineer]

I would try using AI to book flights - then double check if I can't get a better offer. Do this a couple of times and when I see AI is as good or even better at getting me flights, then sure, why not use it.

[Schiendelman]

I suspect the cost of the AI will end up being more than the difference in flight pricing, but we'll see.

[whstl]

I feel the same, but Airline and big hotel websites have way too many dark patterns made to confuse the user and force them to pay extra.

Booking an emergency flight last time I had a family issue was a mind-fucking experience. I had to go through 10 screens trying to sell me stuff and constantly hiding the skip button in different places. Maybe HN will say that I "shouldn't have had a family emergency in the first place" but reality is realty.

And honestly it's not just booking websites, it's anything tech that they do. For example, the last checkin kiosk I used also had an incredibly convoluted path for the case where someone else booked my luggage but it was a different size.

[raphman]

> but Airline and big hotel websites have way too many dark patterns made to confuse the user and force them to pay extra.

And sooner or later these websites will implement new dark patterns to confuse the LLMs...

[shantara]

I’m with you. My elderly parents always ask me to book a ticket for them every time they need to fly because the airline websites are so full of dark patterns, it drives them anxious that they’ve missed something or spent money on something they don’t need.

[sofixa]

This is sadly prevalent in some niches (e.g. low cost travel), but I don't think LLMs would be able to navigate those dark patterns better than humans would.

[Schiendelman]

Ah, yeah. I assume from this comment you aren't in either US or EU, the only places this is better. It sucks.

[rapatel0]

Indeed this problem could become worse. Dark patterns are darker when you cannot see them at all

[jwpapi]

I would argue a website made to buy you tickets (skyscanner f.e.) is always gonna be a better interface than chat.

Right now I cant imagine an AI (esp. chat) being more convenient for me than skyscanner or Google Hotels, but maybe I’m missing the imagination.

[sothatsit]

Flexibility is the advantage. In a chat interface, you can type literally whatever you want and ChatGPT will do its best to serve you. In a website like Skyscanner, you are inherently limited by their UI design.

If all you want is the cheapest flight on a specific day, Skyscanner is really great. But what if you need to book a bus at the other end of your flight? Skyscanner is not going to help you with that, but ChatGPT might! It could search up different bus providers in your destination and cross-reference them against the available flights.

How much you trust ChatGPT to actually do this well is up to you. But I suspect a lot of people will trust it, and I would probably be willing to use it for low-stakes tasks at least.

[nicewood]

It will just iframe whatever page/app you would have been browsing anyway but potentially with ChatGPT directly being able to operate on the App state. So if configured, I guess ChatGPT will be just a handy middle layer to your usual interfaces.

[fkyoureadthedoc]

Here's somewhat of a counter example. At work our llm project can schedule you time off. Workday already has a dedicated UI for this, so text interface can't be better right? Well it's a very popular feature, people use it all the time. In my opinion it's not better than a dedicated UI, but for some people it's good enough and more convenient (our site loads much faster than workday, they are likely already using it throughout their day, etc.)

[whywhywhywhy]

It's not a case of wanting to it's a case of going to ChatGPT first instead of going to Google or the iOS App Store.

Currently GPT gets you better answers than Google so people are gonna be going there first.

[Applejinx]

That says a lot more about what Google has become, than GPT.

[taurath]

The majority of americans are more concerned with AI. Only like 22% are optimistic. And why would they be optimistic that it'll result in a better life for them

[theshrike79]

But, hear me out.

If (when) companies want their things to be present in ChatGPT replies, they need to provide an AI-compatible way to get it. Just shoving a full-ass web page at it is inefficient and error-prone.

They have to either build a version of their site that's AI-accessible or provide an API (or MCP) for it to access the data.

Now that the API is built and the cost is paid, we can use it for non-AI uses.

[findme_dg]

In India, it is pretty common to call a travel agent and book tickets, in fact it is the preferred method for those who can afford it. It is super convenient, everything including the transfer of funds is taken care of by the agent.

This experience is 10x better than online alternatives. AI agents can replicate this at marginal cost.

[theshrike79]

And knowing the Indian mindset and education level of the people, there are most likely a 1000 startups doing just that right now =)

[innanet-worker]

you don't have to go so far as it buying the tickets for you if you don't trust it enough to do that. I built a deep research agent and one of the tasks that i found it very useful for was taking complex requirements and building a report for me to review and make decisions based off of. I live in one city, my travel partner lives in another, and we each want flights to get to a city around the same time, options for airbnbs, and travel activities. I may not trust ai to do this without human intervention but i certainly trust it to assemble this information for me with options and i can make decisions based on that

[freakynit]

Same here. Neither do I trust these tools to be working accurately, nor do I have the patience to wait for them to complete the given task when I ca do that manually 10x faster already.

[chernobogdan]

There's no way I give an AI access to my wallet, every expense he makes should be approved at least.