Aibu - using AI?

[finsberry]

Im using AI for a lot of things and have become very dependent on it. Here are some examples

• putting ingredients in and asking for recipes
• translation
• filtering potentially triggering news stories like the r* academy that I don’t want to google
• Frequently for work
• for general quick questions
• occasionally to rewrite emails/ messages when the situation is sensitive

Aibu to think everyone is using it to this extent? I am using multiple times daily and pay.
yabu - not using it
yanbu - using it

I am a manager in the nhs. I use it all the time.

my job has a very high workload and I never get everything done .

AI saves me huge amounts of time on tedious tasks, freeing me up to use my brain in other more complex tasks.

it’s a tool like any other - good for some things but not all things.

the posters who say it will somehow make us thicker or less able to think are speaking from fear.

I had a long debate/ deep dive with it the other day about the insulation in my extension I am building. This was part of my general research on a building project. I now know a huge amount more than I did and have been able to easily weigh up different options and choices.

without it I would be just making guesses and trying to work out which trades person to believe - bearing in mind I haven’t got time to do a physics a level or work out all the maths myself.

Exactly this. I’ve heard of people relying on it to make life decisions. It’s madness. Why don’t people want to use their brains any more? Goodness knows what our children’s generation will do when lots of job are gone forever.

A big difference. Google is more about finding facts, and using your own brain to use those facts. You generally need to think about what search terms to use in Google to produce good answers. AI removes the vast majority of the human brain needing to think.

I can always tell when something has been written by AI. It's so bland, and frequently inaccurate.

Honestly, if you can't draft a sensitive email or compose documents for work without using AI, you're in the wrong job.

I had a long debate/ deep dive with it the other day about the insulation in my extension I am building. This was part of my general research on a building project. I now know a huge amount more than I did and have been able to easily weigh up different options and choices.

But how do you know you can rely on it? I tried to research a science topic on AI recently and found it came up with details of research papers that are purely fictional.

You think it's worth spending £20 a month just to photoshop your friends into memes?

It takes all sorts ...

It’s true, it’s not perfect and I I know it makes mistakes. didn’t use it in isolation.

I was asking it to look at amounts of surface areas , u values, different insulation types- these are non continuous things and I was checking its facts . I was also googling things. But it helped a lot. It also suggested things I hadn’t thought off.

my point is that like a good tool it helped me. I needed to guide and use the tool correctly- it’s like google maps. It makes mistakes and sends people the wrong way but it’s still useful and I’m sure everyone uses it -

when something new comes along there is always a period when it’s over used and used in the wrong way- before we settle with it and use to correctly. AI is no different

I never thought I'd pay for it, but after having a trial of the premium version and seeing how much more you can do with it, I definitely get value for money just from doing daft stuff to amuse myself, yeah.

My nephews use it when they visit to make cartoons of them in spaceships, and silly songs that they can keep. I'd say it'd be worth it just for that as well.

Yesterday I used it to get a 20% off a pair of trousers I wanted to buy, and my DH made dinner and put into Co Pilot how to make a steak on a Michelin star restaurant level.

So, rather than dumb down my brain, we have just smashed the best steak we ever ate, and I have saved £30.

Rather than think it is the devils handwork, I am embracing it to enhance my life.

It’s here to stay and I’ve got mixed feelings. On the one hand it feels just wrong, on so many levels. On the other, it’s absolutely amazing - just mind blowing. I remember when mobile phone were thought of in similar ways and look at us now.

I’m currently using Chat GPT a fair bit. I’m still not a mindless idiot (so far).

I would hate to think that we're shepherding new graduates into workplaces where they will actively be deskilled or never learn basic skills that set you up in fundamental ways for the world of earning your living or even simply living in collaboration with others. Emotional regulation under the banner of learning professional manners of speech, for example. In many ways emotion is expression. You need to inhabit those manners to have them become part of you. Copying and pasting isn't a learning process.

Also, surprised bosses haven't decided to sacrifice short-term genAI-related profits in favour of keeping senior people coming along the pipeline. Bit of a basic food chain own goal, no? And if it isn't, aren't we really in trouble?

Also, the argument that we'll eventually learn how to use AI properly and settle down with it doesn't seem very convincing. Pre-genAI translation tools have taken people's jobs and are resulting in poor translations being sold, to name just one narrow example. And millions of people are struggling with totally normalised smartphone addiction. And children are being permitted to roam freely online to encounter stuff that even adults can't cope with. That's been going on since the 90s. We have no ability to put the problem back in the box. So I really have no optimism about humans' ability to self-regulate, nor for those in charge to renounce profits in favour of the little people.

Absolutely this. And the main issue is that once you've used it for a few weeks or months, you lose the ability to even see the brainpower you've lost, so it's all just sunshine and roses as our thinking capacity shrinks and the bottom level of employees have no way of getting training or experience in their workplace because it's all just handed to Claude/ChatGPT/etc.

[Duplicated post]

Jesus Christ. https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=how+to+make+a+steak+on+a+Michelin+star+restaurant+level

Ta-dah! Much lower environmental impact.

People really do love those beautiful clothes on the emperor, don't they?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/apr/21/how-to-avoid-ai-online-job-recruitment-scams

I suppose some will argue that humans have always scammed each other and it's not an AI problem. 🙄

If i am writing a complain email i write what i need to write then gpt it to be a bit more tactful. Its very good at turning my blind fury into "regretful and disappointed but assertive" which I think gets a better response!

I only really use it at work, I don't have any use for it at home

Don’t use it and I refuse to. I prefer to use my brain instead of ending up with the mental equivalent of the fat people on floaty chairs in WallE .

at home for a lot of stuff I’ve struggled with in the past like, meal plans or shopping lists, I’ve used healthcare based ones for health stuff and at work I use it pretty much all day as I work for an ai company.

I work in tech industry and we are actively being told to use it, for everything in every department. From analytics, software development, reporting, prototypes, finance, marketing!

I have recently seen people get in trouble for not using it, it’s seen as wasting time to do something manually.

The output we get is extraordinary, what it can produce in 2 hours would take me a week. But we are the minority using it in such ways, most people are just using for everyday things, if at all.

If you work in an industry where AI can be used, you should. As someone said “AI won’t steal your job, but someone who knows how to use AI will”

Totally agree @Lyd8 (also in tech here - it's a game changer!)

I do find it really helpful when I need to compare and consolidate things like finding a car or a holiday. So much easier than looking on all the comparison websites and then the reviews etc...

I work in law and there is a real reluctance to use it professionally because it isn't accurate and totally up to date. Nor can it understand the technical aspects always. There have been examples of lawyers relying on AI and then finding out that caselaw they've quoted from AI is false or AI has references repealed legislation. Obviously the lawyer should be checking what AI says, but then why not just do it yourself anyway if you still have to check it.

The Sandie Peggie case springs to mind! That was shocking

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/29/meet-the-ai-jailbreakers-i-see-the-worst-things-humanity-has-produced

Thought this might be of interest.