The return of the button

Claude Code is moving away from the unstructured conversation paradigm toward structured input: limited user input that you can simply select (it even has numbers for quick selection: THIS IS ACTUALLY IVR!! :-)))))) )

Buttons and IVR are traditionally seen as something to move away from, relics from the past, that were all about friction, cloinkyness.

And now, Claude is reintroducing them.

Why? Exactly for that: to introduce constraints on what people can input.

Key concept in my own thoughts: in GenAI, just talking to it is way too unstructured. Annoying for people, because they need to know how to write to prompt effectively. Annoying for systems & security, because unconstrained, free text input can pose a security threat, or upend the original working of the system.

Example: parts of the system prompt must be user editable. But just offering that part of the system prompt as a free text input field makes them vulnerable for prompt injections. Also, have to be careful: unbridled changes may change the core working of the AI application.

Deliverables: a quick LinkedIn post and an article.