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zippergz • today at 4:03 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

Even complex things like travel booking. I have been fortunate enough a few times in my life to have humans whose job it was to help me with things like booking travel, and eventually they did learn my preferences, but there's a ton of nuance that is just hard to explain and doesn't show up in data. There is always a lot of back-and-forth, trial and error, to get aligned on how I want things arranged. Stuff like what time of day I want my flight to be depending on what I had going on the day before. What seat I want on a particular aircraft, vs. a different seat on a different aircraft. What hotel I might prefer, because a restaurant I like happens to be across the street. I've been around long enough to never say never when it comes to technology, but I will say AI agents are not even remotely close to a point where I'd want one to be booking a trip for me. If I don't even want a skilled and experienced human doing it for me most of the time, the bar is very high for software.


Replies

what • today at 4:41 AM

> What seat I want on a particular aircraft, vs. a different seat on a different aircraft.

This seems really strange to me? I have preferences on seats too, but they largely boil down to “I want to be at the front to deplane faster” and “I want a bulkhead or emergency seat for leg room” and “I prefer aisle seat”. I can communicate those preferences and a human booking my flight can balance them regardless of specific airframe.