To ask what you’ve used AI for today?

That’s a result of idiots using AI as far as I’m concerned. If you write good prompts and know your field you can use AI to structure responses and then run through them yourself to check for errors/change the tone to your liking etc.

AI is incredibly useful for people who know what they’re talking about and know how to use it.

Of course it’s not capable of making an idiot sound like they know what they’re doing and anyone stupid enough to claim complete ownership of an AI response is definitely an idiot.

AI is a useful tool.

Just couldn’t get started. So gave it some bullet points and it added some other relevant points, and expanded the wording into better English.
I did make some slight tweaks, but that’s much easier than when you are starting with a blank page.

i gave it, payroll analyst, experience with x system, requirements gathering, stakeholder mgt etc etc

Came across a limit of AI recently. I’ve been using the voice version on chat gpt plus and I asked it if it could talk me through a yin yoga workout and time the poses. It said it could.

So it suggested a first pose and said “I’m setting the timer and will let you know when the time is up”. So I got into position. Time passed. Chat gpt said nothing. After a while I realised that it must have been more than the 4 minutes promised. So I said “how long has that been?” And it said “that’s about a minute, but we can move on if you like”

Tried again a few times- same thing.

Eventually I asked it why it wasn’t telling me the time. Turns out this is beyond its capabilities- it can’t run a timer but it could say “I’m setting a timer” as that’s the right sort of thing to say 😭

I literally have a masters in machine learning and work with these algorithms on a daily basis. I know how they work.

It's very, very easy to spot output from a LLM, especially if you know the tone/ style the person sending you the email or document they have used AI to generate usually communicate in and even not, there is a definate AI-ness to output from these systems that is easy to spot when you know what to look for.

Plus the fact that the output is usually riddled with errors when you ask them for help with anything that isn't generic as fuck, and they are incredibly easy to fool into giving out completely incorrect information.

They aren't ready for what people think they are ready for, not yet.

Oh so naive people!
I can guarantee that as you are all on your phones you will have used AI today.
Taken a photo? AI is used to focus and to get best lighting etc.
Done a Google (or other) search? AI
Asked Siri or Alexa? AI
Checked your weather app? AI
Looked at your news feed? AI
Online shopping? Navigation? Facebook/Instagram?
Netflix? Your health app (like step count)?
Email? Online banking? All use AI technology.
Driven your car? Unless very old model it uses AI. Sent a letter or parcel? It’s AI that reads and converts the addresses for routing.
Called customer service? AI is routing your call.
And of course AI is used in farming, logistics, shop stock monitoring, medicine, investments…
And of course, Mumsnet uses AI for data analysis.

Because I already knew. I was seeing if AI knew.

Not my experience with Claude whatsoever. Even free AI is available that doesn’t work like this. There absolutely is AI that can do what you’re looking for and would not be identifiable as AI.

Can you expand? What did it do better than you could? What did you tell it and what came back

I agree.

The work I do needs me to think stuff through, mull over ideas and create persuasive arguments. It's the human writing and thinking that gets to the good stuff. ChatGPT spews out bullet points in seconds that are always like the most route one basic ideas. Or sometimes just completely random invented bullshit.

A colleague asked ChatGPT to create a simple map recently and it literally made up the names of fictional London boroughs!

Maybe in a year or two, it will be different, but right now it's useless for what I would need it to do.

And don't use it for search! It's not a search engine! It doesn't care that what it tells you is true or not!

Wording emails to difficult colleagues

This made me laugh, im tempted now to try it on my dog 😂

But how do you know it's right?

Now that would be a great development!

I haven't used it at all today and, amazingly, there are quite a few days when I manage to get on without it at all. At the moment I use it on occasion, mainly for work (once or twice a week?) and the outcome is variable in its success.

To check if it could tell what type of Trust a Trust Deed was referring to from one paragraph. It could.

to start a job description for me

I will have to change my username after this, but as I’m blind, I use an app called Be My Eyes. It uses AI to describe images to blind people in a lot of detail, and it’s an absolute lifesaver for us.

🤣🤣
To help process the end of a relationship. My God it's good.

I asked it to write a funny poem for a leaving card.

I asked it to give me a presentation outline on a certain topic.

I present to public sector organisations on the subject of AI.

Essentially the message is, AI wont take jobs, people using it will.

Honestly, this is just not true and is said by people who are not up to date with the technology. With the right prompts you really wouldn’t be able to spot AI output.

To help write a technical specification.

To give me paint colour options for panelling in my hall (I uploaded photos and told it the various colours I wanted to see).

Nothing, it actually makes me sad how quickly it’s taken over. So many people are using chatgpt now!

Start by signing up to ChatGPT - You shouldn't trust everything it tells you, you'll need to fact check facts and there will be times where it's entirely missing context that you'll need to provide other it'll spout intelligent sounding nonsense at you. But once you get good at prompting it, it's fabulous for a number of things.

Here is it's response to your post.

Absolutely, AI can help in this scenario—and with significant potential. Here’s how to break it down and get started in a way that balances automation, cost, and immediate relief:
🔍 The Problem

• Repetitive, manual tasks: Copying data from forms into Outlook calendar entries.
• Always behind: Two staff working full-time, yet unable to keep up.
• Overworked: TOIL is accruing but unused, suggesting a burnout risk.
• No budget for extra headcount.

1. Extracting data from forms (structured or semi-structured):
2. If the forms are digital (Word, PDFs, online), AI can parse and extract relevant info (name, date, time, purpose, contact info).
3. If handwritten or scanned, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tools can help, possibly combined with AI to clean and validate inputs.
4. Creating Outlook calendar appointments automatically:
5. This can be done using Microsoft Power Automate (low-code, budget-friendly).
6. Scripts or workflows can watch for incoming forms (emails, SharePoint, etc.) and auto-create calendar events based on extracted data.
7. Reducing cognitive overhead:
8. AI can help classify or prioritize appointments (e.g., urgent, follow-up, cancelled).
9. Assistants like Microsoft Copilot (if available in your tenant) can generate summaries, suggest best time slots, and flag conflicts.

• What form types are used (Word, PDF, email body, web form)?
• How is the data received? (Shared inbox? Uploads? Scans?)
• What fields need to go into the calendar entry?
• Are there standard templates or patterns?

• Trigger: “When a new form/email arrives in Outlook or SharePoint”
• Actions:
• Extract form content (e.g., using AI Builder Form Processor if PDFs)
• Parse relevant data fields
• Create an Outlook Calendar event with extracted data

• Use ChatGPT or Copilot in Word/Outlook to summarize a form and suggest a calendar event
• Paste the form in and prompt: “Create a calendar appointment from this info”

• Track how much time is saved per appointment
• Use feedback from the booking clerks to refine the form extraction and scheduling logic
• Consider creating “error” or “review needed” queues for ambiguous or messy forms

• Email-based scheduling assistants (e.g., Calendly + Zapier or x.ai-style tools) if the appointments can be self-booked
• Use GPT-powered summarizers on large form text blocks, especially if they need interpretation
• Create a Power App front-end to standardize data entry and reduce complexity

1. Map the process (where do forms come from, what do they trigger?)
2. Try Power Automate with AI Builder to auto-extract and calendarize
3. Use Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT to assist with summaries and drafts
4. Review, iterate, and measure time saved
5. Scale gradually, even if some parts stay manual at first

If you’d like, I can help you sketch out a sample Power Automate flow or a GPT prompt that would work with a real example of one of the forms. Would that be useful?

This again??

DuckDuckGo doesn’t use it in searches.