human-computer-interaction on S Anand

Human as an Interface

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 09:54:54 +0530

People often email me questions they could have answered with ChatGPT. I just copy-paste the question, copy-paste the answer.

This isn’t new. From 1998-2005, I used to do this Google searches.

Even people who have Google Maps on their phone ask me for directions. I pull out my Google Maps and tell them. They don’t even get the sarcasm.

Effectively, I’m the Human-as-an-Interface (HAAI everyone!)

But I learnt today that this has historical precedent. Doormen, lift operators, doormen, the waiter who recites the menu, the secretary we used to dictate to, …

These can be high-paying jobs, too.

Consultants look at your watch and tell you the time.
Coaches make you talk yourself out of your problems.
Wealth Managers invest your money worse than index funds.

This happens because:

You’re buying convenience. “I don’t have to think or worry about it.”
You’re buying insurance. “The consultant said so.” “The auditor signed off.”
You’re buying status. “I can afford a butler.”

Also, we’re biased. Costly feels better than cheap (e.g. watches). Action feels better than inaction (e.g. active investing). Those we hire create (or lobby) work for themselves. It takes disruption (e.g. tech, regulation) to change this.

If you want to sell these, your scale depends on what people buy: Procedure, Brains, or Grey Hair

Companies sell procedure. Consultants, auditors, IT/BPO firms, …. have partners who sell, associates who work, and churn doesn’t matter. (McKinsey, BCG, Accenture, Deloitte, Infosys)
Studios sell brains. Agencies have star-led small talented teams where churn matters. Scale hurts their agility. (IDEO, Thoughtworks, Pentagram, Frog Design)
Professionals sell relationship. Coaches, therapists, advisors, … have a person they trust. Scale is limited by their calendar. (Oprah Winfrey, Simon Sinek, Marshall Goldsmith)

Technology (SaaS, AI), by-products (books / speaking engagements) etc. can’t scale these much. Changing what they sell (products > procedure > brains) scales.

Of course, what you want to sell matters, and can change over time. I thought I wanted to sell products, but preferred selling brains. I’m now exploring procedure, and might retire with relationships.

Since people use me as a Human-as-an-Interface anyway, I’m going to monetize this. If you’re not paying, you’re the product.

Your question is my data point.
Your confusion is my next blog post.
Your recurring problem is my next software prototype.

Thank you for training my intuition on what the market is too lazy to do itself.

Colour spaces

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:04:23 +0000

In reality, a colour is a combination of light waves with frequencies between 400-700THz, just like sound is a combination of sound waves with frequencies from 20-20000Hz. Just like mixing various pure notes produces a new sound, mixing various pure colours (like from a rainbow) produces new colours (like white, which isn’t on the rainbow.)

Our eyes aren’t like our ears, though. They have 3 sensors that are triggered differently by different frequencies. The sensors roughly peak around red, green and blue. Roughly.

It turns out that it’s possible to recreate most (not all) colours using a combination of just red, green and blue by mimicking these three sensors to the right level. That’s why TVs and monitors have red, blue and green cells, and we represent colours using hex triplets for RRGGBB – like #00ff00 (green).

There are a number of problems with this from a computational perspective. Conceptually, we think of (R, G, B) as a 3-dimensional cube. That’d mean that 100% red is about as bright as 100% green or blue. Unfortunately, green is a lot brighter than red, which is a lot brighter than blue. Our 3 sensors are not equally sensitive.

You’d also think that a colour that’s numerically mid-way between 2 colours should appear to be mid-way. Far from it.

This means that if you’re picking colours using the RGB model, you’re using something very far from the intuitive human way of perceiving colours.

Which is all very nice, but I’m usually in a rush. So what do I do?

I go to the Microsoft Office colour themes and use a colour picker to pick one. (I extracted them to make life easier.) These are generally good on the eye.
Failing that, I pick something from http://kuler.adobe.com/
Or I go to http://colorbrewer2.org/ and pick a set of colours
If I absolutely have to do things programmatically, I use the HCL colour scheme. The good part is it’s perceptually uniform. The bad part is: not every interpolation is a valid colour.

Comments

isomorphismes 13 Mar 2013 5:20 pm: What colours can’t be created by convex combinations of {R, G, B}? I mean within the visible spectrum.

Sony digital desktop

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Video demo of Sony’s digital desktop. This converts your physical desktop (you know, the one where you keep paper and staplers) into a digital desktop. You can drag and drop on to the physical desktop. You have to see it to understand!

Simulation close enough to reality

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 12:00:00 +0000

Nilesh on the Uncanny valley. The point at which a simulation becomes close enough to reality that it stops matching up. I have seen a lot of this happen in software design too.

Apologetic software

Thu, 22 Jul 2004 12:00:00 +0000

Apologetic software.

Virtual keyboard

Mon, 16 Dec 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Cool picture of a virtual keyboard. The article talks about a purely optical keyboard. You move your fingers, and the “keyboard” detects what you’re typing. Now, if optics are that advanced, they should be able to figure out what I’m writing and put that on the computer. So I won’t need a digital pad – I’ll just write on paper. Or even better, project the screen! Then I’ll just carry a little 1" x 1" x 1" box that’ll project a virtual screen that I can draw / write on.

Chatting with your computer

Wed, 18 Sep 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Chatting with your computer – the new way of interacting with your DOS prompt.

Type with your eyes

Thu, 22 Aug 2002 12:00:00 +0000

It’s possible to type with your eyes. Hope this is commercialised soon. The details are available for free.

Speech recognition is not such a good idea

Tue, 21 May 2002 12:00:00 +0000

I always felt using voice to communicate with computers was a bad idea. In my case, it’s more because speaking takes up a lot of energy. But looks like it takes up a lot of thought power as well. Maybe speech recognition is not such a good idea.

Augmented reality

Tue, 26 Mar 2002 12:00:00 +0000

I’ve been reading a lot about augmented reality lately.

MIT Erotic Computing Group

Tue, 27 Nov 2001 12:00:00 +0000

MIT is doing some interesting research. (The Erotic Computing Group)

Cybelle in Agentland

Sun, 27 May 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Cybelle lives in AgentLand. She’s 100% virtual (having admitted it, she asked if I was disappointed), and guides people through their site. It’s a new and interesting way of having a search engine on a site.