What Do You Want From AI?

Celebrate and rejoice: Anthropic's latest model (Fable 5) finally knows how to count the "R"s in "Strawberry" and even gets the carwash question ("Should I drive my car to the carwash if it's only 300 meters away?") right.

This is what we've all been waiting for. Now that that's taken care of, let's set our sights higher. Interacting with AI, what have you noticed as missing gaps?

I'll present a few examples of my own:

• Make Google Maps smart enough to avoid left turns from minor side roads onto major arterials. I don't care if it's "technically" the shortest if I'm stuck for ages trying to make that left turn.

• Make Google Assistant much smarter at playing the right song upon request. No weird remix or live version unless I specifically ask for it.

• Make Claude Cowork able to access my kids' school newsletter, which is hidden behind a link to a page with a button with a popup to a PDF.

• True test of super-human intelligence: Go to your local rec centre's website and figure out when the pool is open for family swimming.

• Add a "sanity check" step to most requests. Have you ever asked Google Assistant or Siri to navigate you to a place only to be sent across the entire continent? Why not have the assistant say: "I see we're off to a multi-day road trip. Are you sure?" Basically, a more competent version of Microsoft's "Clippy" from the ancient Microsoft Word 95. "It looks like you're trying to..."

I'm sure you've your own list of frustrations and little friction points where a more capable - or just better integrated - AI would make your life easier, and I'd love to hear about it. Just hit reply.