>At best the AI could use the equivalent of screen scraping to use existing apps, but eventually all apps should be replaced by APIs that just extend the capabilities of the AI engine.
Why would companies want to expose APIs in this manner? Instead, they can force you to access them only through their app, and that way they can force you to sit through advertising, and otherwise control how you see the information and how you're allowed to interact with it. Open APIs cut them out of a lot of profits.
>You should be able to tell the AI engine something like "as soon as the weather forecast predicts snow, order a snow blower from Amazon".
This is crazy: this way, someone could just have their AI do these tasks in an automated way, without paying some company for the privilege.
Instead, what we need is an app that's the only way to access these APIs, and the app will give you ways to set up automation, but only in the ways the company wants you to, and poorly. Then they can charge you a monthly subscription fee for access to this automation app, and also embed annoying advertising in it.
They don't. But why would record companies want to license their music to streaming services instead of selling CDs? If the AI is there, and it offers a superior experience to users, the companies that don't support it will disappear.
> this way, someone could just have their AI do these tasks in an automated way, without paying some company for the privilege.
You're assuming that APIs need to be free, but that doesn't need to be the case. Companies that provide data will need to charge for that, just like record companies charge Spotify when you stream music.
Companies that provide a service (Amazon, Uber etc) won't be happy that they lose marketing opportunities and brand recognition, but again, if the user experience is superior to the old app ways, those companies that don't adapt will die.
For that to happen, the AI needs to already be working. If the companies proactively prevent this from happening, then users won't have any basis for comparison. Closed APIs will prevent them from having the ability to program their own AI to do these things.
>You're assuming that APIs need to be free, but that doesn't need to be the case. Companies that provide data will need to charge for that, just like record companies charge Spotify when you stream music.
Sure, companies could require you to have a subscription to access the API, but they can make more money by controlling the experience instead of just giving you (paid) access to the API.
>Companies that provide a service (Amazon, Uber etc) won't be happy that they lose marketing opportunities and brand recognition,
Yes, this is exactly my point.
>but again, if the user experience is superior to the old app ways, those companies that don't adapt will die.
Users won't easily go backwards to proprietary access when they're used to (more) open access to something, but this isn't the case in this scenario: the users haven't had easy access to APIs before in a way that a regular person can just, for instance, give a voice command to their system saying "when the weather is like this, do these things with these various services", so they don't know what they're missing. The services already control the experience, and will want to keep it that way.
I don't think that the AI will be primarily developed to replace apps. I would rather expect Alexa or Google Assistant or Siri to start supporting arbitrary APIs.
> Closed APIs will prevent them from having the ability to program their own AI to do these things.
I would expect that a company like Google is able to find partners, but if not, there's always screen scraping.
> but they can make more money by controlling the experience instead of just giving you (paid) access to the API.
Not if people stop using the controlled experience. It just takes one competitor to offer the API.
They can shut that down with laws banning the practice. It might not stop someone working on a personal project, but it would prevent any significant company from offering any kind of paid product or service using screen-scraping. In fact, it might already be forbidden just by ToS.
If you're a company, that's not a bug, that's a feature. Data is your asset and releasing it for free is almost always a net loss.
Actually one more way towards few companies controlling the internet. Because having an agreement with one supplier is more easy then contracts with many.
There is absolutely nothing in the above declaration that requires an AI.
You should be able to tell the AI engine something like "as soon as the weather forecast predicts snow, order a snow blower from Amazon". The AI can only do this if it has access to weather data and an API from Amazon it can control to get you the snow blower. It should also be able to check your calendar, because you can't accept the delivery if you are on vacation.
Apps are silos that prevents the AI from doing these things. At best the AI could use the equivalent of screen scraping to use existing apps, but eventually all apps should be replaced by APIs that just extend the capabilities of the AI engine.
And what about GUIs? I think they will be pretty irrelevant. The AI engine should be able to render your data any way you want. There will certainly be designs to chose from, but you should be able to customize them any way you want ("remove that italic button, I never need it").