Natural Language Is an Unnatural Interface

Natural language is a poor primary interface for AI systems, and the article argues that apps should use constrained controls such as buttons instead of open prompt boxes. It says prompting is hard for users because text input has infinite degrees of freedom and can cause false positives, jailbreaks and hallucinations, and that LLMs lack the shared human context that makes conversation work. It points to GitHub Copilot's tab-to-accept code completion and Poe's tappable follow-up questions as examples of constrained, proactive design. It also says most LLM use falls into four tasks: summarization, ELI5, perspectives, and contextual responses.