Ten years from now, the agent layer will be the interface the majority of people use a computer through. Operating systems will become more agentic and absorb the application layer while platforms like Claude Cowork will try to become the omniapp. They’ll meet in the middle and it will be like Microsoft trying to fight Netscape’s view of the web as the omniapp all over again.

Apple will either capitalise on this by making their operating systems more agentic, or they will be reduced to nothing more than a hardware and media vendor.

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nilamo 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I hope so. We're right on the cusp of having computers that actually are everything we ever wanted them to be, ever since scifi started describing devices that could do things for us. There's just a few pesky details left to iron out (who pays for it, insane power demand, opaque models, non-existent security, etc etc).

Things actually can "do what I mean, not what I say", now. Truly fascinating to see develop.

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snailmailman 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Ah yes. “Non-existent security” is only a pesky detail that will surely be ironed out.

It’s not a critical flaw in the entirety of the LLM ecosystem that now the computers themselves can be tricked into doing things by asking in just the right way. Anything in the context might be a prompt injection attack, and there isn’t really any reliable solution to that but let’s hook everything up to it, and also give it the tools to do anything and everything.

There is still a long way to go to securing these. Apple is, I think wisely, staying out of this arena until it’s solved, or at least less of a complete mess.

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mastermage 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I think he was being sarcastic

	▲	vimda 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Poe's Law strikes again

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AlienRobot 6 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not my operating system.

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skeptic_ai 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think in 10 years your pc will be more locked down than your iPhone.

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oidar 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think you are right. In fact, if were a regular office worker today, a Claude subscription could possibly be the only piece of software you might need to open for days in a row to be productive. You can check messages, send messages, modify documents, create documents, do research, and so on. You could even have it check on news and forums for you (if they could be crawled that is).

	▲	falloutx 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I wouldn't call that productive, not even close if you are just sending AI replies, offloading all your tasks and doing nothing. This is what execs think we do, while every job has a lot of complexities that are hard to see from surface level. Belief that all work can be automatable is just a dream that execs have.

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falloutx 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In 10 years you probably wont own a PC if things go the way all the corporations want.

	▲	bossyTeacher 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Possibly so in urban areas. Internet is already available everywhere. Sell dumb devices that can remotely log in to virtual devices. An LLM can connect to this virtual device and execute whatever action the user wants. Centralising compute resources this way means it's likely cheaper to offer huge compute to tons of users and so rather than buying a smartphone, you buy a monthly subscription to AI which can do everything your device does but you just need to speak or text to it. Sub includes cost of dumb device maintenance, securing the data you sent to the virtual device, etc. Personal Computing as a service. Let the computer think for you.

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fooker 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t doubt the end goal.

My point is that it won’t be a ‘layer’ like it is now and the technology will be completely different from what we see as agents today.

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mrkstu 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So they need to finally finish Knowledge Navigator…

	▲	mrkstu 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=welKoeoK6zI