Timers are set for a duration. Alarms are set for a time. Which makes sense btw, you can’t set an egg timer to 9:15 either, you set it for, say, 21 minutes (if it’s 8:54 right now). And you don’t set your alarm clock for “in 6 hours”, you set it for 8:00.
It’s a bit arbitrary, but this is exactly where I feel models such as Gemini or ChatGPT can actually improve things, because they can more readily leap from the keyword “timer” expecting a duration to that you actually meant “alarm” from the rest of the input, you just said timer instead.
The point is all timers are alarms, the end result of a timer going off is an alarm. If I’m cooking and I realize the rice has been on for about 7 minutes so it should finish up at 9:15, then that’s how I’m thinking about it, not doing the math to figure out what the specific number of minutes is between now and 9:15. That’s the goddamned robot’s job.
“Set a timer that goes off at 9:15 am”
*It proceeds to lecture me on the difference between an alarm and a timer, also, sets neither. *
Ah, I think the wording confuses it.
Timers are set for a duration. Alarms are set for a time. Which makes sense btw, you can’t set an egg timer to 9:15 either, you set it for, say, 21 minutes (if it’s 8:54 right now). And you don’t set your alarm clock for “in 6 hours”, you set it for 8:00.
It’s a bit arbitrary, but this is exactly where I feel models such as Gemini or ChatGPT can actually improve things, because they can more readily leap from the keyword “timer” expecting a duration to that you actually meant “alarm” from the rest of the input, you just said timer instead.
Yeah I understand, I got the lecture from Siri.
The point is all timers are alarms, the end result of a timer going off is an alarm. If I’m cooking and I realize the rice has been on for about 7 minutes so it should finish up at 9:15, then that’s how I’m thinking about it, not doing the math to figure out what the specific number of minutes is between now and 9:15. That’s the goddamned robot’s job.