alt Hacker NewsThis seems overly cynical.
Firstly, tl;dr; is a very real thing. If the user asks a question and the LLM both answers the question but then writes an essay about every probable subsequent question, that would be negatively overwhelming to most people, and few would think that's a good idea. That isn't how a conversation works, either.
Worse still if you're on a usage quota or are paying by token and you ask a simple question and it gives you volumes of unasked information, most people would be very cynical about that, noting that they're trying to saturate usage unprompted.
Gemini often does the "Would you like to know more about {XYZ}" end to a response, and as an adult capable of making decisions and controlling my urges, 9 times out of 10 I just ignore it and move on having had my original question satisfied without digging deeper. I don't see the big issue here. Every now and then it piques me, though, and I actually find it beneficial.
The prompts for possible/probable follow-up lines of inquiry are a non-issue, and I see no issue at all with them. They are nothing compared to the user-glazing that these LLMs do.
Have you used ChatGPT lately?
What you describe is not quite what they are doing, they are adding nudges at the end of the follow-up question suggestions. For instance I was researching some IKEA furniture and it gives suggestions for followup, with nudges in parenthesis "IKEA-furniture many people use for this (very cool solution)" and at the end of another question suggestion: "(very simple, but surprisingly effective)". They are subtle cliffhangers trying to influence you to go on, not pure suggestions. I'm just waiting for the "(You wouldn't believe that this did!)". It has soured me on the service, Claude has a much better personality imo.