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 use it all the time at work, and indeed design specialised and custom on-premise AI agents for my job. I ca tell you all the ins and outs of deploying Kimi K3 on llm-d, or building an autonomous ambient agent on OGX and Langchains.

I have literally zero use for it outside of work - none whatsoever and I can’t wait for the AI bubble to burst.

It's not asking them to decide the colour, it's asking what their room might look like with sage green. It does a mock up, and then with teal, and then with butter yellow or whatever. Saves you having to do testers and whatnot.
Loads of people aren't sure, until they paint it.

Yes, AI might suggest that Garnet Red would look great, but again, that's the same as your friend Susie saying the same thing 🤷 you would agree or not based on your own thoughts.

Honestly some people are so anti AI it makes me think they're the same people who go "pah! Dishwashers, what a pointless thing. I can wash dishes more quickly!!"

What...you'd forget that AI suggested that a navy blue suits your skin tone? But wouldn't forget if a magazine article did the same thing?

If you want to waste your time and money trying to paint a wall butter yellow, and then to discover you don't like it's feel, so paint it sky blue, to realise it makes your room look barren, and then finally settle on sage green....go for it.

But I'll just give AI a photo of my room and ask it to show room in those colours,so I can get a good idea of what it would look like. Without committing time and money....Then I can make up .my own mind from there...

I use it in work for research on scopes for internal audits, I use it to review proposed test schedules and then to review outcomes and audit reports. It’s a handy tool to use alongside my own work / knowledge.

I am concerned for the safety of those who use AI bots for counselling or personal advice...

Concern is one thing. Assuming that people who use AI for advice have somehow stopped thinking for themselves is another.

You seem to be starting from the assumption that using AI means uncritically accepting whatever it says. It doesn't. I can ask it for information, challenge its answer, ask for alternatives, check what it tells me elsewhere and then make my own decision, exactly as I can with advice from another person.

And given how confidently you've made several inaccurate claims about how AI works, perhaps curiosity would be more useful than concern.

Nope.

No really.

You're looking for inspiration and something you like from IKEA, hoping for the best that it will look nice and what you want.

You can literally get AI to use a photo of your room and says "decorate this with stuff from IKEA" then tweak and go "I don't like the lamp, choose a more delicate one", "swap the art work to something nautical", then get it to produce a shopping list for me so I can go and buy it.

You could even get it to order the stuff.

OK, not sure that different colours are what were talking about but how is it selecting the "this" that is shows you in a colour that isn't blue?

I don't think any of us know enough about how the AI deciding how to respond to questions yet to be embracing it so readily

I don't understand why you don't already know what you like.
Why do you need to ask these questions?

You already know if you want the room red or teal, and you can already see what each one looks like if you close your eyes.

It's a waste of time asking all these questions.

??

Embrace it, it isn't going away.

Have you ever used it?

Isn't this just a fear of making mistakes?

I don't have this fear with small things, I enjoy the creative process and learn more about myself when I change course.

I know what I like.

But it doesn't mean what I like would look nice when it's on the wall.

absolutely LOADS of people think "oh I love sky blu, I'll paint this kitchen wall a sky blue, it will be lovely I'm sure." Then they do it, ....and hate it once it's up, because it's made their kitchen look sterile and then paint over with a different colour....

It's not wasting time asking "show me this in yellow/blue/green"

What's wasting time is going to the shops, selecting and buying testers, painting the wall, deciding what you think you like, getting the paint, prepping and painting the wall, looking at the next day and nit liking it after all, and then having to think again.

Not for stuff like 'what colour should I paint my room'.

Obviously yes at work. It is useful for some tasks but is nowhere near as creative as an average human. It makes errors I have to correct, I make fewer errors!

Spending time and money making mistakes that are entirely avoidable seems like madness.

Like spending your time washing dishes by hand when dishwashers exist.

You seem very worried about wasting time!

I like the creative process and have never yet regretted a colour. I've definitely got better with practice. I can't interpret the likely effect in an image as well as in my mind anyway, because it's flat and colours look different on screen.

I do, occasionally, but I keep it from people that I do, especially Gen Z and Millennials, because they are really judgy and preachy. They buy loads of tat online, and lots of clothes that are made in cheap-labour factories, and they travel extensively by plane, and have a new £1200 phone every 18 months, with a £60 a month contract, but throw shade on people for using ai now and again.

.

Which is great for you.

But some of us don't have an eye for design etc.

It diagnosed my mum’s cancer. Well it gave me about 4 options and it clearly wasn’t the other 3. So when she actually got diagnosed I knew what the doctor was talking about (it was an obscure one). It also told me she needed to go to the doctor and was very specific about “today or tomorrow” but she already had an appointment, she’d already guessed but I hadn’t until that point.

I don’t use it and it’s banned in my house so the dc even adult ones can’t have chat gpt etc. if they need a task doing I do it for them if they really can’t (eg email complaint) but I won’t contribute to the destruction of the planet. AI data centres are dangerous.

Learn to use it effectively and you'll change your mind.

Good place to start is the book How to talk to AI by Jamie Bartlett.

But if you don't want to use it outside of work then obviously that's your choice, but don't humansplain AI to those of us who can get the best out of it.

Giving something a try is not madness, it's fun. Being unafraid of mistakes is good.

(Don't see what dishwashers have to do with AI, they are a functional item, they are not replacing creativity.)

I find the environmental impact deeply disturbing. I dont want to live in a world with wall to wall data centres so I only use it if I have to (in work sometimes). I hope frivolous use of it becomes morally inexcusable, preferably before we lose all our countryside and water sources.

AI is a functional tool too.

Dishwashers replaced the need to stand and wash things up by hand, saves water and cleans dishes better.

AI can replace manual tasks too. Like... Creating a list of revision topics based on the.cirriculum, showing what a walk would look like in various colours so you don't have to try testers, finding l/collating local places to visit without you having to look yourself at 8 different websites and noting interesting ones, and then looking if they're close enough by/easy to get to.etc....