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   Eaton (eaton@phire.place)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jul-2024 03:22:47 JST Eaton

   Fascinating conversation with an old friend this week about the world of API "auto-discovery" and documentation. Basically, systems that allow software to negotiate an interface with other software, within certain constraints.

   It's AI adjacent these days, because those systems are what would probably have to power an "Ask your phone to do something, and it'll figure out how" style feature. LLMs might be involved in natural language portions, but the task-work would be done by discoverable APIs.

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     Eaton (eaton@phire.place)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jul-2024 03:25:30 JST Eaton

     in reply to

     The key difference being that discoverable parsable documentation endpoints for APIs actually contain meaningful, unambiguous semantic information about specific tasks and capabilities — not just a hazy cloud of text.

     But beyond the “Huh, that could actually happen" possibilities, there are really significant moral questions that our industry has to grapple with. Even beyond “how much energy does it use" and “is it just a way of firing workers”

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     Eaton (eaton@phire.place)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jul-2024 03:30:02 JST Eaton

     in reply to

     • redsesame

     Building the infrastructure for a future world where the things you can do are discovered via a negotiated system of API brokerages and human-friendly front ends is very cool and very scifi — a kind of taxonomy of potential action.

     But taxonomy (hat-tip @redsesame) is frozen opinion, not objective truth. Building a world where people know what they can do via systems of discovery constrains as much as it enables; it pushes what is not describable, monetizable, or desirable to the margins.

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     Eaton (eaton@phire.place)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jul-2024 03:33:55 JST Eaton

     in reply to

     • mtp

     @matt It's extremely scifi stuff for the vast majority of organizations, like the WHAT WILL 2000 BE LIKE? articles from the 60s.

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     mtp (matt@proud.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jul-2024 03:33:56 JST mtp

     in reply to

     @eaton This precise conversation is happening at my job with an internal platform. I keep telling these folks: we don’t even have any APIs; let’s build some and not get ahead of ourselves! It’s kind of mind numbing.