That's fair, I'll give a couple of example of things that I've used it for...

I built an app (in codex), that goes through my emails, pulls out any receipts, and adds the purchases to a sqlite database. I do all my grocery shopping online (through my supermarket), so our weekly shop is stored in the database.

Hermes uses that to predict what items will need restocking (based on how often I buy it, and when I last bought it).

Every week, it logs into the supermarket website on my behalf, books a delivery slot, and adds all the items that need restocking to the shop.

Throughout the week, if I run out of something, I take a photo of the barcode and send it to hermes, it adds it to the shop for me.

I built a similar app for travel; if I have any upcoming travel, hermes will send me updates (delays, platform changes etc...). I do a lot of train travel for work, if my train is delayed, it will automatically apply for the compensation on my behalf.

It reads my emails, and pulls any actionable items out, and adds it to an Asana list. I can either do the tasks myself, or assign it to Hermes and it will do it for me. As an example, I had an task to book swimming lessons for my son, hermes monitors the swimming lesson availability and automatically booked it when a suitable one becomes available.

Shopping is a good use case, I have a clock that needed a new battery, it wasn't a standard battery, and required a screwdriver to open the compartment. I took a photo of the clock, sent it to hermes, and it found out what battery took and ordered it of Amazon for me.

I wanted to buy some smart thermostats for our radiators, but wanted to be compatiable with our current smart heating system. Hermes is connected to my home assistant, so it figured out what heating system we have and found a compatiable set of eBay (this is slightly more involved than it sounds, as there is a new version of the heating system with a new set of completely incompatiable accesories).

I don't think "it does everything" or that it has "changed my life", but all of those examples are chores, things that I don't particularly enjoy doing; and if something can take it off my plate, then it's useful for me.

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gherkinnn 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Your thermostat and non-standard battery are examples of LLMs being helpful.

As for the rest, that is a lot of tokens burned to keep a fridge stocked.

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sksksk 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It doesn't burn that many tokens, as most of the code is deterministic.

Receipt emails are in a predictable format, so codex built scripts to parse the emails. If there is a receipt email it doesn't recognise, it will use an LLM to build a parser for that kind of email once.

The agent also "self improves", so after asking once to get items to restock, it wrote a skill with the query it used in, so it doesn't burn tokens figuring it out again.

I was impressed that after it logged into my supermarket account, it inspected the network traffic and discovered a GraphQL API, and used that (instead of screen scraping); much more economic.

I've averaged 2.6 cents a day in token costs over the last month.

	▲	ryandrake an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Thanks for your detailed answers. Although none of what you posted even remotely interests me as something I’d be interested in doing on a computer, it is absolutely fascinating to see details about how others are using LLMs and turning their computers into these “assistants.”

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convict 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When i run out of something to buy from the store, i type it in the notes app on my phone

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sksksk 2 hours ago | parent [-]

When I need to change the channel, I just get up and walk over to the television.

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latexr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I understand what you’re getting at, but that example doesn’t bode well for you. The remote control increased convenience at the cost of making us more sedentary and lowering our attention spans. It was not a good trade.

	▲	331c8c71 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I was thinking that I actually use grocery shopping as a recovery activity. I could cut it out but don't feel the need that much. It's not that I feel I'd do something incredible instead (which requires energy and/or recovery time of its own)...