Wondering why people run every aspect of life through ChatGPT

That’s my take - no friends.

Also I don't think using AI means I am not good at my job - it is just for most of the use cases that can currently be applied to my job, I am better than AI or at least I would need to thoroughly QA and maybe even rewrite everything it produced - making it little more use to me than a very poor or inexperienced human employee.

I have very elaborate prompts for the parts of my job that an LLM can do and they work fine (though they don’t actually save that much time as I’ve been using VBA macros I wrote to automate them for years already). The rest of my work can’t be done to any significant degree by an LLM and bringing its output up to a decent standard takes longer than just doing the work from scratch.

@Saltycaramelkiss I think there will be benefits to me like doing consistency checks etc.. on final documents. I used it earlier this year to check 6000 template responses to a consultation from a campaign group to see if they were really all the same (if they weren't we woudl have to treat them as different responses). But as @APatternGrammar said, for writing and summarising documents the process is the point - it is how you learn and develop your thinking.

I think people don’t want to listen to other people’s problems these days. I used it today because my ndn has done something really shitty. I would have gone round there all angry but as it is chat gpt has given me another avenue to hopefully resolve the issue without them being bastards to us forever. I could ask friends or work colleagues but it’s a boring thing.

Of course you have been doing this a long time to a high degree. But have you actually started using it properly ? Shaping the prompts and honing in ? You could get through double if not more of the same work possibly if you wanted to . That's not the only point - but a big part of it. That doesn't mean you are not good at your job and I think some people feel that's what it signals. Of course of there are parts of your job you love doing and don't want help with that's totally fine too

I also find that people who don’t do my job (that involves long technical documents) identify completely different aspects that could be done by AI to people who do do it. Reading the documentation and working out which parts are key is part of acquiring and understanding the information and it can’t really be cut out. Other uses of AI completely prevent you from getting into a flow state with your tasks, which is a huge part of job satisfaction for many.
But mostly it’s just not good yet. I asked it for a list of 50 one syllable words — more than half had 3 syllables. I asked it whether there were over the counter medications I could take in pill form that would have the same active ingredients as Lemsip — it told me Lemsip was outlawed last year because one of its ingredients was carcinogenic.

I tend to use it like a superannuated Google search at the moment - which horrified the poor Microsoft trainer, and I am sure is probably like using a rolls royce jet engine to power a lawnmower.

@APatternGrammar Interesting. Most of my job is writing and reading documents. We are having mandatory co pilot training at work currently. Sitting through yet another hour of a (not at all biased) Microsoft trainer extolling the amazing benefits of getting it to draft an email or summarise a document for you (but don't forget you need to draft the prompt carefully and need to check and recheck the results !!!!) I thought - but I can do all of these things quicker and better myself.

I know how to quickly extract key information from a complex document, I know how to write emails and papers for different audiences. Engaging with this frustrating, patronising machine that may well get a fair bit of it wrong will not make that part of my job any easier or quicker.

Not the person you’re replying to but what makes me uncomfortable is the enormous environmental cost of AI. I don’t want to “play around with it” if doing so wastes water and electricity for something I don’t need, as well as contributes to global theft and mimicry of art. It is not cost free!

I had a meeting this week about a presentation my team manager had askes me to do to heads of service. Based on a recent project I completed. I was surprised that the manager had ran my project through AI to 'get the salient facts' and then presented these to me. I asked her why didn't she just ring me or have a face to face conversation, I would have told her. Worrying how dependant peoe are on AI.

We're being made to start using AI assistants at work. Far from what the OP describes, it's become clear that most of my colleagues think ChatGPT et al are going to kill them in their sleep.

A chisel could be used to carve David from a block of marble, it could also be used kill somebody.

Exactly, I think people are being really bloody weird about this. Cars are incredibly useful when used properly but they have also killed and maimed many people but we dont ban them all because when sensibly used they make life easier.

I feel like when any new technology comes in there is always a doomsayer predicting the apocalypse of humanity because of it and yet here we still are.

Because when given the right instructions it can do amazing things.
It’s just a tool, and like any tool you need to learn how to use it so it.
A chisel could be used to carve David from a block of marble, it could also be used kill somebody.

Yes - relying on ChatGPT to curate your taste for you just reinforces conformist behaviour. Haven't we all had those moments where we think, well this sight might be very popular but I just don't like it? Or no one seems to talk about this place, but I think it's lovely and underrated?

Your own taste is what makes you an individual. Can't imagine wanting to give that up.

This is actually terrifying.

Do you mean to say that if chat gpt had said something like "force her to drink lots of milk to wash it out of her system" or "get her to take several strong laxatives" or even "if she's taken x amount then get her to take y amount of paracetamol to counteract it" you would have blindly listened?

What would it have to say to you for you to think "Hang on this doesn't sound right?"

If you wouldn't listen to the first person off the street who told you what to to why would you listen to what is essentially a glorified search engine. Chat gpt isn't a distillation of all the best doctors and medical textbooks - it collates ALL the info on the Internet, including things that are completely wrong.

Because, despite the promises of big tech, we are lonelier and less connected than ever. Honestly I think it's all so fucking stupid. I was hiring recently and the number of AI written covering letters was shocking. It's lazy, it's derivative, it's watering everything down to mind-numbingly average slop where nothing actually means anything anymore. And people are doing this, willingly? God help us

I use it as a therapist. It is very able to reflect, mirror, and reframe what I say in a way that helps me to understand and have perspective.

If you understand that AI is a mirror, then you can work out how to use it in a way that is helpful to you. I also find it useful to helping me to organise my thoughts.

I do despise AI writing style and would never use it for that, or for making art. I quite enjoy Monday's personality, though. Basically takes the piss out of you.

I didn’t say it wasn’t?

It’s great if you enjoy that and have the time to create an itinerary that maximises the trip. Not everyone does, and asking ChatGPT doesn’t remove the human element - as you point out, even the boring bits of being on holiday and the smell of jet fuel are part of the (human) fun!

You're right, to he extent that I've noticed others - online and people I know IRL - who seem to be outsourcing decisions and thought processes in this way. It's worrying, because ChatGPT and similar generative AI systems aren't "thinking engines" but rather systems for putting words together with semantic awareness, based on the training set.

At best an AI bot is going to give you some kind of synthesis of general knowledge/stuff people say online about a particular topic. But what happens when the internet is full of nonsense generated by AI agents, and those same AI agents are using all these outputs as their basis for future outputs?

I have a vague sense that the whole thing could drift worryingly, further and further away from anything a sensible and sensitive human would have come up with.

@ChequerToRed "an LLM is just a very clever idiot prone to wild flights of fancy if not kept in check. They can’t do things as basic as counting and have no concept of the abstract."

Genuinely curious - why would you want a clever idiot that needs keeping in check anywhere near your work / creative pursuits / anything? Why would you add that layer of hassle to your life?!

It might not be something some people are keen to share.

But do we actually free up time to spend on things that matter more? Or does that time just get filled up with more rubbish?

For example, most people who care about nutrition enough to have a meal plan enjoy researching and learning about health. Most people who enjoy travel like learning about an area by reading about it and planning their own excursions, or they enjoy the spontaneity of a good wander around. ChatGPT only benefits you in these scenarios if you value an empty "optimization": I want to see the things people have agreed are best in Lisbon in the two days I have.

And what do you spend the time on that you don't spend learning, thinking, trying stuff out, discussing with other people? Are those the things we should be spending our time on?

A few weeks ago there was a thread in a local Facebook group about objections to a planning application that had suggested draft responses, clearly AI written. The points were so general as to be useless and in some cases didn't apply to the specific situation.

I'm sure someone better at prompting could have revised it to something decent but so many people were like "this is great!" It really did make me question people's comprehension skills.