AI is coming for your job, Browser.
I fired up my computer today, and as I typically do on the weekends, I went to check out the #memtech Discord, and I found a poll that said, "What desktop web browser would you recommend these days?" Surprisingly, Firefox wasn't on the list of options, so I chose "Other", and proceeded to do what I do -- post a snarky comments:
The internet is overrated.
But no sooner did I get this comment posted when I started having an idea! Not that browsers will disappear, but what if how we interact with and consume information is changing—away from browser windows and toward AI?
Let's back up.
Somewhere in my undergrad CS education, I had to write a paper (I think it was an Operating systems class). This is the first time I ever remember writing a paper where I felt like a had a very solid sense of how technology would change the future.
Let's say it was 1998 (probably close), and at the time operating systems were how you interacted with the computer. They let you access files, run applications that you used to play or do work, and they handled all the stuff that you didn't care about (bits and bytes and electrons etc).
My paper contended that the role of the "Operating System" as we knew it could be supplanted by a Web Browser. I saw a world where every application was a web application -- where all of your "files" were stored somewhere with a web interface (or even better) you never had to think about files again because the applications abstracted all that. I was proud of this paper -- I wish I still had a copy.
Of course, the traditional operating system didn't go anywhere, but the world of Web 2.0 told me that I'd actually been on to something, and when ChromeOS launched in 2011 I felt pretty validated.
So what's that got to do with AI?
So, as soon as those snarky words made their way out of the tips of my fingers into my keyboard, I had this exact same sense of prescience. Just last night, after watching a documentary, that I had a long conversation with Claude (using the ios app) about some US historical events. I never left the app. I spelled out exactly what I wanted to know about, and claude fed me the content I wanted to read. I just hope it was correct.
I know A LOT of people that are now using "computers" (desktops, laptops, ipads, phones, whatever) in this way thanks to AI.
Yes of course, a lot of people interact with ChatGPT through the browser. Yes, Gemini is now part of Google search results -- all delivered through a browser. But think about it... ChatGPT's voice mode is becoming more and more popular. There is a future timeline where more and more of our interactions are with AI systems, and those may not be through a browser.
Maybe Apple will finally fix Siri, and the apple watch becomes our lifeline to information, events, news, and a neverending stream of wikipedia-like articles fed directly into my bluetooth connected earplugs.
This post was refined with the help of Claude, an AI assistant.