Do you use AI?

[HolidayHappy123]

Thought it might be interesting to chat about how people are using AI….

I am encouraged to use a specific AI programme at work that is specific to my sector, but I find it to be quite inaccurate and I haven’t found a way to use it that I am confident with.

I used Chat GPE to make our holiday itinerary into quite a cool poster and I’ve just asked Claude to build an itinerary for our Xmas holiday - the first attempt is pretty much the same as the itinerary it took me about 2 weeks to come up with.

Interested to know how others are using AI and what works/doesn’t work?

I think you're confusing using something to help you think with handing over responsibility for your thinking. I can ask ChatGPT for ten opinions and reject all ten. I can challenge it, ask it to argue the opposite case, check its information elsewhere and ultimately make my own decision. The choice is still mine.

And surely that's true of almost every source of advice? Friends, therapists, books, Google, doctors, forums. We take information and perspectives from outside ourselves constantly. That doesn't mean we've stopped knowing who we are.

As for therapy, I wouldn't use AI as a substitute for professional mental healthcare, but talking something through, having your assumptions challenged, spotting patterns in your thinking or simply putting your thoughts into words can be therapeutic. Whether the AI itself experiences or understands what it's saying isn't actually necessary for those things to be useful.

I promise you I remain perfectly capable of making my own questionable decisions. ChatGPT merely gets a front-row seat. 😊

But why do you need ten opinions in the first place?

People with great wisdom don't have to do all this, do they? It's not adding anything, it's just degrading the ability to process quietly inside the head.

I can barely operate my ancient iPhone. I’ve never used AI, spoken to Alexa or Siri, and I need to buy from the person in the shops. I have no idea about social media apart from Facebook (haven’t used it in years…) or scrolling Insta (just deleted it from my phone). I feel like an absolute dinosaur. But I also long for analog life. It’s all just so “busy” now!

No, I’ve never needed to and don’t want to.

Why don't you?

Don't you ever ask anyone for advice, ever? Never read around?

I recently used Claude for possible diagnosis for a medical condition for my horse and it gave a series of possible diagnoses from most to least likely. It was spot on. The important thing is to write specific prompts that ensure it only uses recogised medical sources and ask it to reference the conclusions so you can refer to the source data to check it. It also said it wasn't a vet and I should consult one to confirm diagnosis and build a treatment plan. I shared the output with my vet and he was really impressed. After £400 worth of scans it turns out that Claude was right.

Today in fact. Buying a new car, used it to compare different models and sum up the pros and cons and then used my brain to work out which suited me best. It also gave me a useful comparison with which to negotiate the price. Yes I could have spent 3 hours on auto trader doing the same thing. But I’d rather not.

I find it odd to not make the most of technology when it is available and useful.

I find it odd to add to the destruction of the planet when you can achieve the same result using Google if you spend a couple more minutes reading.

I use it at work because we have to! We have a bespoke programme as well as co-pilot which we use for summarising plans, taking notes, idea generation etc. My younger routinely colleagues use it to write emails which I don’t do.

At home I use it for recipes, and travel itineraries.

Not a lot different to actual mh services then have you ever rang the crisis team before its actually shocking what they get away with

Great resource for repetitive work, I use it to help structure communications, or format raw into useable data. Saves me lots of time.

Dropped into it this week our complex batch job scheduling with 10s of thousands of rows and details of job links, dependencies, threads, SLAs etc and asked it to compare several dates to tell me where the issues where and once trained it can come up with details of the issues on any particular day and ideas worth pursuing within a few minutes.

Yes it is not accurate and I take 100% responsibility for validating its output . It still needs a human for that.

I’ve found it really useful for helping me refine documents I’m drafting at work. I’m getting more to grips with where it can help and how to prompt to get the most helpful answers, and where it’s just too generic (or wrong).

A colleague used to generate a lot of documents and it was very obvious and ended up taking a lot of time to unpick what was useful and what was just bollocks.

For everyday life, I like using it as a bit of a sounding board for things that are worrying me. I find it really reassuring for that….but I’m aware that that could be AI just telling me what it thinks I want to hear!

Using AI is nothing like asking a human for advice, or reading a chosen source, or researching, or getting expert input.

It is devoid of lived experience, human context, emotional understanding, nuance. It only has capability to offer sludge. The term 'AI slop' is accurate!

For everyday life, I like using it as a bit of a sounding board for things that are worrying me. I find it really reassuring for that…
This 'reassurance' is not necessary - instead of feeding the feeling that you need to be reassured by an algorithm that doesn't understand you, it would be better to exercise your own powers to build them up bit by bit.

I don't NEED to ask for ten opinions, but I can if I want to.

Okay, really simple example...

You want to paint your living room. You already have your own taste and ideas. You ask your friends which colour they prefer. Some say green, some blue, some cream. You listen to their reasons and then choose green because you prefer the green and as your friend pointed out, it goes with your sofas.

Did asking other people for their opinions remove your ability to think? Of course not. You gathered information and then made your own decision.

AI is another source of information and perspective. I can ask it for suggestions and choose one or do something completely different.

And 'people with great wisdom' generally become wise precisely because they expose themselves to ideas, information and perspectives beyond their own. Thinking entirely inside your own head without ever seeking outside input isn't wisdom. It's just like having a very small focus group.

Good question. For me, it’s just never occurred to me. There hasn’t been a situation in which I can’t do something myself. AI etc would probably help but I don’t think about it at all. I just do things as I’ve always done.

I used it recently to give me a good skincare routine as I have no knowledge of this stuff

I don’t engage with AI. I have sufficient real-life intelligence to do /find out all I need, and I choose to continue to exercise my brain cells, personal communications and research skills. I have no real objection to people using AI where it has proven value to them, particularly where specific fields have tailored AI for their own context, but but all it offers me is a faster way to get less satisfactory or inaccurate information. I am concerned for the safety of those who use AI bots for counselling or personal advice, because an automated system that tells a person with problems what they want to hear can be unhealthy or dangerous.

Why would you need to ask someone else what colour to paint your room?

If I was painting a restaurant I might do market research or consult an expert.

But why would anyone else's opinion on colour be relevant at all? My response to colour is inherently personal.

And 'people with great wisdom' generally become wise precisely because they expose themselves to ideas, information and perspectives beyond their own. Thinking entirely inside your own head without ever seeking outside input isn't wisdom. It's just like having a very small focus group. No, it really isn't. Do you think the great thinkers throughout history all constantly twittered on asking for ten opinions on this, that and the other? People expose themselves to far more thought growth by reading a good book quietly and thinking hard than by conversing with an algorithm.

I think it is different, if you're browsing the catalogue yourself you're seeing all the options and weighing them against each other

The AI is selecting what it shows you and that may it isn't necessarily and unbiased choice

Agreed, I generally learn more by trying, getting it wrong, and trying again. If I'm stuck on a problem I can either read around, research and try different solutions and usually learn a lot on the way to the right answer, or I can ask ChatGPT, I'll get the answer, but I won't learn anything and will probably forget what the solution was before I next need it, whereas if I've learned it myself, I'll remember it the next time I need it.

All the time. The more you use it the better it gets.
I use it for work, and it saves me a tremendous amount of time.
I talk over health and personal issues with it.
It's so great for general life admin. I needed a cheap second phone, told it what for and budget and it found something suitable.
Got a light come up on the car, send it a picture, Wtf is this.
I've so been digging into local history which it's been really helpful with.
You have to keep an eye on it, especially with the work stuff, as every now and then it comes out with crap. But genuinely it's already making a massive difference to my life, and it's still only in the toddler stages of development.

You've convinced me. From now on I'll make all decisions entirely inside my own head, starting with the decision to stop conversing with you and file your previous opinions in the round receptacle 🤣

No its not if you say show this in blue it will show you it in blue.