From Computational to Conversational Notebooks

Abstract: Today, we see a drastic increase in LLM-based user interfaces to support users in various tasks. Also, in programming, we witness a productivity boost with features like LLM-supported code completion and conversational agents to generate code. In this work, we look at the future of computational notebooks by enriching them with LLM support. We propose a spectrum of support, from simple inline code completion to executable code that was the output of a conversation. We showcase five concrete examples for potential user interface designs and discuss their benefits and drawbacks. With this, we hope to inspire the future development of LLM-supported computational notebooks.