this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
185 points (95.6% liked)

Technology

72988 readers
3075 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Agent on Thursday, its latest effort in the industry-wide pursuit to turn AI into a profitable enterprise—not just one that eats investors' billions. In its announcement blog, OpenAI says its Agent "can now do work for you using its own computer," but CEO Sam Altman warns that the rollout presents unpredictable risks.

[...]

OpenAI research lead Lisa Fulford told Wired that she used Agent to order "a lot of cupcakes," which took the tool about an hour, because she was very specific about the cupcakes.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] JackDark@lemmy.world 43 points 3 days ago (3 children)

For anyone wondering what the fuck that title meant:

OpenAI research lead Lisa Fulford told Wired that she used Agent to order "a lot of cupcakes," which took the tool about an hour, because she was very specific about the cupcakes.

"It was easier than me doing it myself," Fulford said, "because I didn't want to do it."

[–] SheeEttin@lemmy.zip 35 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I'm still wondering. Like did it call up a bakery and place an order? Or go online? I know it didn't actually make the cupcakes itself.

But I'm not sure that spending an hour trying to wrangle ChatGPT into getting your cupcakes is any faster or easier than placing the order yourself.

The article also noticeably omits what happened after. Were the cupcakes made, and did they match what she wanted?

[–] qupada@fedia.io 20 points 3 days ago

Also did baking the cupcakes use more or less energy than ChatGPT used to order them?

[–] vividspecter@aussie.zone 17 points 3 days ago

I'm guessing it's the AI agent stuff. Which at the moment is literally just automating browsing through a website.

Apparently there will be APIs to do this in the future. Ironically, AI wouldn't even be needed for that to be useful.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 9 points 3 days ago

The AI willed those cupcakes into existence, why don't you trust them?

It's like the metaverse and NFT, you're not supposed to think about how it works. Instead you just need to believe reality will magically reorganize to make it work.

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 17 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Okay but that’s not what easier means.

Easier would be to call the bakery or spending 10 minutes browsing their website, asking to cast, and checking out.

I don’t want to spend an hour on tasks that would normally take 10 minutes. My executive dysfunctions already make me good at doing that.

This might be a revolutionary idea, but what if they helped me do that take an hour in 10 minutes?

I’m just putting that idea out there totally for free in case any AI companies want to jump on that opportunity.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 4 points 2 days ago

I don’t want to spend an hour on tasks that would normally take 10 minutes.

I don't get it, do you think she spent an hour talking to ChatGPT to try and get it to order doughnuts?

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world -2 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I use agents a lot and have written several MCP servers now, the tasks I automate aren't things like order cupcakes, it's mainly the glue between complex things.

I still can't get Claude to nicely open a JIRA ticket for me, but I can get it to read through a sequence of connected documents and filter that into.

I don't think agents are ready for the main event and these are some poor examples of their power.

I'm not saying they won't improve, but using the right tool for the right job is critical. An hour to order cupcakes is silly even for an llm.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

yes in the wired article one of them says they would like to find out where it got stuck taking an hour with an agent replay feature

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

It’s examples for the common guy in the streets who don’t know what an mcp server is.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

With how terrible Google Search has become, I think I’m on Lisa’s side this time.

[–] opavader@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

unfortunately any ai service is going to make things worse. right now we can discover and choose. with search and browsing dead, ai provider will shove the product giving them the highest cut aka most garbage or snake oil products.

even today targeted advertising for poor people is filled with betting, lottery & poker game. similarly elder people are primarily shown ads of miracle cure for chronic illness and scammy religious crap.

edit: switch to kagi. its paid but well worth it. searchXNG is also a good alternative if you have got time for hosting it urself.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It really is a nightmare brewing. And they will hide behind excuses and keep it all opaque unless they are strongly regulated.

[–] opavader@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

regulated by who ? our senate and congress is filled by pimps who work for pedophiles like epstien and cheer genocider scum murdering children on daily basis. this include the “lesser evil” party. they had 4 years to release the pedo list or even try to slow down the genocide. they are not gonna give a fck about us working 3 jobs just to pay rent and live on prison food.

sad reality is that after a certain threshold in a parasites-host dynamic, there is no other ending other than host dying because parasites has grown too big for it too feed. so unless another deadly parasite like cia or kgb luigi the 1%, the rest 99% are dead.

[–] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Kagi is all in on AI. Its the AI slop version of a search ranking algorithm

[–] ebolapie@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Kagi has AI tools but they don't shove it down your throat. I don't understand what "all in on AI" means in this context. The company has said that they want to use AI like they use JavaScript, ie they want to use it as a tool but their product should work well without it.