I have begun relying on AI and I don’t know how I feel about it.

[Tusktusk]

So far this month I have used AI to:

Analyse my colours (thanks MN) and suggest outfits

Create a menu of packed lunches around my dietary requirements and preferences, complete with a shopping list

Plan a holiday itinerary

Save me hours and hours of work and stress by suggesting really useful ways to overcome very particular work difficulties, having been thrown into an out of my comfort zone situation. I have used AI for this on a daily basis this week

Tonight, instead of posting my current family dilemma on mumsnet I chatted about it with Claude. The responses were really good. Wise, thoughtful, non judgemental, practical, understanding… like the best mumsnetters.

Am I starting to rely on it too much?

What have you been using it for?

You must find a way to live with your cognitive dissonance.

Maybe Claude can help you work through it.

I've used it to find me an ottoman of the right dimensions to fit my camping toilet in.

So you'd rather we still had men with red flags walking in front of cars if you don't want technology? Or would prefer no cars at all?

And none of those pesky modern MRI scans, or vaccinations!

Ha ha ha.

Ah, this takes me back to the "State of Fear" threads during Covid. Fun times.

I like to think we are heading for a post scarcity socialist utopia, like Star Trek or the Culture novels.

the alternative is the terminator.

one thing is certain, we are not going backwards.

@CapitalAtRisk It's impossible to think critically without data, and since you don't seem very interested in finding any facts for yourself, I'm not overwhelmed by your critical thinking. FYI, calling up one webpage costs very broadly, on average a minuscule 0.0000065 kWh.

I’m cool with that. Never been up to date with anything. Proper Luddite I am.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy the company of all those farriers and tanners , switchboard operators , lamplighters and typesetters

And translators, graphic designers, bookkeepers, paralegals, software coders etc etc etc.....

Artists, authors, musicians, people who work in many professions handling knowledge, people who work in admin roles….

I'm repeatedly shocked at how people can’t see where this is going and continue to think AI is the best thing since sliced bread. Mind you AI probably has a lot in common with your average loaf of sliced bread. Full of crap, designed for the lazy, unsatisfying content, likely to lead to problems in humanity

Why bother though? AI won't need humankind so why would it keep them alive for no reason?

New research by a team at Stanford shows the risk of using AI for therapy, including encouraging delusional thinking, discrimination, and dangerous responses to people in suicidal crisis, giving them info on e.g. the tallest local buildings.

That is darkly funny, in a Black Mirror way.

Makes sense that it would do that. Just look at Malgorithms in Private Eye!

I think CharGpt is the best thing since sliced toast. I’ve written a book, that has been through a copywriter and a Beta reader (someone who reads the book as a reader would.) both came back with minor changes, but nothing much.

But just out of interest I gave the book to ChatGpt, whjch said the equivalent of “nice book, shame about the side order of flab that’s turning it into a lumbering dinosaur”

Wait. What?

ChatGpt pointed out where I’d written this sort of thing (not real text, and wildly exaggerated “

“The man with the gun burst into the room. It was a very nice room furnished in an 18 century Roccoco style with William Morris wallpaper and a carpet inscribed with strange eldritch symbols. Two red padded chairs with scrolled arms were positioned at 45 degrees to watch a Bakelite tv tuned …”

You get the idea, the action is slowed down by unneeded detail. ChatGpt didn’t rewrite this for me, but it did look at the result after I’d done the rewrite and agreed it was still coherent.

Try running it through Claude, as well. Claude is brilliant for analysing text.

A copywriter? Do you mean a copy editor? Do you not see it concerning as an artist that you are blindly accepting a machine's judgement over your own? Fo you think The Great Gatsby would have been improved by running it through the language flattening machine?

Language flattening would be taking my example and replacing it with “the man burst into a room with two chairs and a tv”. The point here is that my example is inappropriate where it is. It’s breaks up the natural flow of the action.* *After some gun fire and a merry quip might be a better place for more exposition.

AI takes the average of all discourse. By definition it is not cutting-edge in its use of language. I call that flattening.

I tried it the other day for some example questions for an exam I'm taking, for revision. When I asked it for the answers, it gave me an incorrect answer and I had to point out to it why it was wrong.

I do use it but I'm mindful of how much I do - much like how I am much more careful about purchasing "fast fashion" - occasionally I feel ok about it, but I don't do it for everything.

I'm sure people thought the same at the start of the industrial revolution!

They thought the same when comuters came in then smartphones.

So what jobs will need doing? Batteries for the matrix? We can do that possibly although ai will be able to design better ones no doubt.

"They thought the same when comuters came in then smartphones."

Which haven't been an unalloyed benefit to society!