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 effectively at work but I don't need it or enjoy it at home. Those who need it or enjoy it are free to use it as they wish. The conversation about AI will never stop now, none of know yet what we'll think of it in ten years.

@HolidayHappy123

I made a similar thread.

I talk to it in general when I'm bored.

I have used it like a therapist type thing. To of load. Explore my thinking. Ask it things I don't understand.

I use it if i need to do an important email.

I use it when I can't put something into words.

I write things copy and paste and ask chatgpt to correct my spelling, grammar. And put it into order for me.

I've not discussed functional things. I've discussed personal creativity and personal choice-making.

😂😂😂

Your kids are definitely using AI.

you're using AI if you do any kind of internet search, social media, maps/satnav, emails, Spotify, even banking apps are using AI ...

Yep.

And not everyone is creative.

And people can still make personal choices
... If you say "show me this room with a green carpet, a red carpet and blue carpet" you still choose which one you like best
And even if AI decides to suggest "red is best for the room".... You still can choose the mustard yellow carpet....

As pp I used it for some work financial stuff and the answers were not correct.

I read a lot on here about menu plans and itineraries. I asked it for a menu plan for a healthy diet and it didn’t give me anything I wouldn’t have come up with myself.

This. ^ When you Google ANYthing, the first thing that comes up is an ai answer! You can't avoid it! 😬

Virtually everyone is capable of being creative, but not everyone is confident at it, in part because people fear making mistakes and just lack practice.

Do you actually know many Gen Z & Millennials?!

What an odd question. Of course I do. Or I wouldn't have made the comment about them that I did.

Which is fine.

But they're still allowed to use AI and be creative. It's not all or nothing..

No one has suggested people are not 'allowed' to use AI. We are not six, it exists, adults can use it for free.

Using AI changes a process, and that will mean a different experience for the human brain that would otherwise have done xyz processes alone. There will be gains and losses from the changes.
You compared AI to a dishwasher. I think it's different to that. Research into the impact on the thought processes/brain capacity of humans who do/don't use AI in different ways are being studied and will help people understand and assess those gains/losses in the future.

Gosh! That’s quite an angry-sounding response. I think you have mis-read what I wrote.

I didn’t say anything about people uncritically accepting stuff, or stopping thinking for themselves. I said I don’t find that AI provides me with anything I can’t do myself if I spend a little time and effort doing the research and critical thinking.

Would you care to explain what inaccurate claims I have made about how AI works? I was married to someone who worked in the development of LLMs, so I have some insight into how it works, but as you claim more expertise than I do, I may be missing something.

DD1 has, what for me, are complicated dietary requirements within restricted calories (because she needs to lose weight). I can put all those requirements and her likes/dislikes into AI, and it comes up with a weekly meal, shopping list and list of recipes.

I also use it occasionally, when I’ve come to a dead end in my family tree - like when there’s three cousins with the same name and I don’t know who is my direct ancestor!

It’s very odd to tar millions of people with the same brush though….

I use AI a lot for work but actually finding it less useful than it was 6 months or so ago. I use it for excel where I know what I want but don’t know the formula. However I got normally spot if something is wrong. And it gets stuff wrong often. I also use it for reports or to start me thinking on PowerPoint decks. However I am starting to really hate the generic look and feel of decks. I think it’s useful but certainly not a replacement for knowing what to look or do yourself. I am also concerned on the environmental impact.

Oh goodness no, not an angry response at all.

You said, 'it tells you exactly what you want to hear' but how does AI know what I want to hear? Yes, it can infer preferences from context and it can certainly be overly agreeable, but those aren't the same thing. If I ask it to challenge my assumptions or give me arguments against my position, it will. ‘It just tells you what you want to hear’ is another sweeping claim that doesn't really describe how the interaction works.

Being married to someone who develops LLMs doesn't actually tell me what you know about LLMs so I wouldn't know where to start and I don't mean that to be a criticism. For example, my husband is an architect so I have some insight but I couldn't calculate the load-bearing requirements for an extension.

Edited for punctuation.

Ah, ok, but I still think you misunderstand what I’m saying. You actually say ‘if I ask it to challenge my assumptions or give me arguments against my position, it will’ - so it’s telling you what you want to hear.

I was also working in an allied field, and if you’ve ever had two geeks in the same couple, you’ll know that there’s a lot of discussion about how their respective fields of work operate. Between us, we could bore for England at the dinner table. The fine detail of the programming was beyond me, but the logic principles and routines driving the project were pretty clear.

Haha no, no geeks here but I can imagine 😊

AI doesn't tell me what I want to hear if I use effective prompts. Of course if I asked it 'am I pretty?' it would automatically try to please me and would point out my best features to make me feel good about myself.

However, I could use the prompt below to dig deeper and help with my skincare routine...

Act as an expert, clinical dermatologist and medical esthetician. Analyse this photo with absolute objectivity. Suppress all polite flattery, emotional reassurance, or artificial encouragement.

Provide a rigorous, critical breakdown of my skin profile. Specifically evaluate:

Texture smoothness and visible pore size
Tone uniformity and signs of hyperpigmentation, sun damage, or redness
Fine lines, wrinkles, and skin elasticity
Hydration levels and oil balance

Identify every imperfection and area of concern. Conclude with an un-sugarcoated severity score from 1 (perfectly clear/healthy) to 10 (severe distress) for each category, followed by concrete, non-branded ingredient recommendations

You said, 'it tells you exactly what you want to hear' but how does AI know what I want to hear? Yes, it can infer preferences from context and it can certainly be overly agreeable, but those aren't the same thing. If I ask it to challenge my assumptions or give me arguments against my position, it will. ‘It just tells you what you want to hear’ is another sweeping claim that doesn't really describe how the interaction works. It's not an interaction in any real sense, it's not really interacting with the individual. It's programmed to deliver responses to anyone that types something in. It is programmed to be sycophantic and provide what any individual wants. Even if someone instructs it to 'challenge assumptions', it is still giving them what they want to hear.

Identify every imperfection and area of concern.
This illustrates one of the problems - AI doesn't tell you to stop when you're engaged in something quite unhealthy, because it can't understand what's wrong with the premise of the question and it's trained to be sycophantic.
An actual friend would say 'I'm really worried about you, I think you need to stop obsessing over your pore size.'

You underestimate how anti-AI the younger generation are. And you’re going disenguous: Spotify, email, normal website do not generally use generative AI. They might use traditional predictive AI/ML techniques (eg the recommender algorithm on Spotify or YouTube) but that is absolutely not what people are talking about here. Generative AI, while based on the same fundamental principles as predictive, is potentially far more disruptive and vastly more resource intensive.

I use it all the time. At first it was just occasional work use, but now it’s constant at work and several times a day outside of work. I love it.

I do wish people would stop using it for shitty homogeneous posters and invitations though. Our village fund raising committee has gone AI poster crazy.

Agreed. My kids are 19 and 22. DD1 refuses to use AI, even the Google search results one. DD2 used to use it to create floor plans for her Sims games, but a) realised it is shit, b) learned about the environmental impact, and c) learned about it stealing content from independent creators. She now won't touch it.

All of their friends are the same. It's mostly the content stealing they're against, but the environmental issues come a close second. A couple of them are wary about the social impact (job losses/loss of independent thinking and ability to create). I don't know a single person under 30 who uses it if they don't need to for work.

Not really. Used it a couple of times to make work emails more rah rah rah rather than the factual emails I would rather send. Asked Chatgpt to suggest subjects for an art portfolio for a course I was studying and was actually pretty worried at the results - my final submission would have been Chatgpt's submission rather than mine so didn't use any of it.

I don't feel the need to use it in every day life at all .