Conversational AI to-do/time-tracking assistant?

November 24, 2023 12:55 AM

I'd love to have an "AI" *eyeroll* personal assistant to track my working hours and to-do list through a conversational interface. ChatGPT is not up to the task. Has someone make a better AI productivity buddy yet?

Back with yet another app question. I've been using ChatGPT as a sort of accountability buddy/reminder app. I set up a Pomodoro timer using the Windows clock app, and I list the tasks or goals I want to accomplish during that work session. If I think of something I need to take care of after the session, like starting a load of laundry, I ask ChatGPT to remind me at the end of the session.

Unfortunately, that's about as useful as I've been able to make it. ChatGPT apparently doesn't have access to the current time (so weird), so time-tracking and time-based reminders are out. It's also clearly isn't meant to have very persistent memory within a "conversation", so it's pretty flaky for complex context-dependent reminders. For example, yesterday I asked it to remind me to charge my headphones when I told it I had finished work for the day, but it reminded me at the end of my current session instead, and then forgot to remind me when I was actually finished for the day. It also doesn't seem to be great at remembering whether I've actually completed a task or not.

There seem to be a lot of productivity/time-tracking apps that claim AI integration, but what I really want is a conversational interface. Looking at a long to-do list or a timeline of my daily computer usage stresses the hell out of me, I'd much rather store and retrieve this information using a conversational interface. Has anyone created this tool yet?

posted by nanny's striped stocking to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

I'm not sure about your particular use case, but I've found that Pi (https://pi.ai/talk) is better than ChatGPT at having extended conversations. And Pi has access to the time. Also, it's free (for now). On the other hand, Pi hallucinates just like ChatGPT does, so you have to be careful with it and take its answers with a grain of salt.
posted by alex1965 at 4:58 AM on November 24, 2023

Have you tried using Siri or whatever Android's equivalent is? I have seen many many examples of Siri use that accomplish exactly what you're describing here.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:52 AM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Y'know, I've been thinking a verbal "smarter" planner and reminder that was somewhat AI-ish enhanced would be nice, but I haven't actually seen any that do it. (But then, it's pretty much impossible for me to find a planner that works the way I think one ought to, anyway... so finding an even better one is probably extreme wishful thinking.)

And it just occurred to me that with all the worries out there about AI and danger - it's probably much more likely that someone creates a mundane app like a planner - and someone trains it to be a little more attitude-y or mischievous than intended. Just enough to screw up plans and feel obnoxious and deliberate, yet on a just-inconsistent-enough basis to take a while to get caught.

Of course, we allow NON-ai apps to do that sort of nonsense to us all the time, so...
posted by stormyteal at 10:04 AM on November 24, 2023

OpenAI have their own chatbot platform and there's a squillion startups in this area, but unfortunately I can't recommend a candidate that will solve your needs immediate lee.

(I wrote this myself, sincerely etc. but it reads back like I asked a prompt.)
posted by k3ninho at 12:58 PM on November 24, 2023

Best answer: What you want is still somewhat complicated - you would have to create a sort of pool of your data like your todo list, calendar and productivity guidelines and have them fed to the AI alongside with every prompt. This can be done by building a RAG set up but it isn’t out of the box friendly yet - you still need your own instances and an api key at a minimum. These things are being built right now and some people are using extensions with local km systems like Obsidian but it’s an effort.

I am fooling around with something like this (creating a chatbot that pulls on a very specific set of documents) as a personal project and it is doable but rapidly changing.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:25 PM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: dorothyisunderwood, thanks, I hadn't heard the term retrieval-augmented generation before. That's exactly what I'm looking for. Is there anywhere people are discussing their work on these? I don't have the time or know-how to do it myself, but I'd be interested in reading more.
posted by nanny's striped stocking at 10:04 AM on November 25, 2023