Against the assistant model.
The assistant waits to be asked. The operator already started. A short polemic about the right verb for what we're building.
An assistant assists. The verb is responsive. It implies someone in charge — a principal — and an agent who waits to be useful.
An operator operates. The verb is initiative. It implies a system you trust to run unattended, to notice things, to act before being asked, and to tell you about it after.
The difference matters because the entire industry has chosen the first word and quietly accepted everything that comes with it: a chat box, a waiting state, a turn-taking metaphor, an interaction model lifted wholesale from customer support.
We think the more useful framing — and the harder one — is the second. Build for the case where the agent is the one with momentum and you, the human, are the one being kept in the loop.
Everything else follows from that one choice.