How are people using AI to help with everyday life?

[Question12458]

How is your household utilising AI to your benefit? Looking for some inspo

I’ve been using ChatGPT (paid) for 2 years, this week I spoke to somebody who’s got a 2nd brain. (Collects all data from multiple sources) and is totally customised to them. Totally opened my eyes to what we can achieve

I don’t care what other people do. But I’m saying it will destroy any creativity and human interaction with the internet. It just steals and regurgitates.

That’s depressing. I can see the benefits of using it for data analysis etc (which isn’t part of my job) but I write better than AI does! And I understand my subject better too. The enquiries we get which are written using AI really show that AI doesn’t understand the complexities of research.

How?

You've just regurgitated what the robot told you to say!

Anyone can do that.

I could do that with no knowledge of the job.

You've found a way of creating bland, machine-supplied answers which ultimately are of no use at all to employers because anyone can create them.

So they will have to create new ways to test candidates which actually test candidates' abilities.

I don't. But someone needs to keep having children to keep the species going, so this is an odd argument to me.

Haha I could have written this!

I deal with a lot of people who for various reasons are not very confident writers, and I can completely see that AI would be useful to help them put together a formal email. However, I find I get a lot more useful information and insight out of a badly written massive paragraph someone typed out themselves than the kind of generic legalese that MLMs will come out with for someone who doesn't have the knowledge/experience to know which parts are unnecessary or irrelevant.

Totally the same, lots of these posts remind me of comments people made when the internet was brand new.

And to be fair, they had a point. While the internet has been a brilliant thing in many ways; it’s pretty bad for the planet, and social media and internet porn have both caused very significant problems for humanity.

AI seems likely to cause problems for the environment, and for human intelligence, communication, creativity and resilience. It’s completely valid for people to be extremely concerned about it, and people mocking us/calling us Luddites or whatever doesn’t change that.

I have quite a few rare auto immune diseases and it’s more helpful than a doctor and kinder.

Have these awful parents all taken time out their day purely to irritate you?
Or are they perhaps seeking answers to missing provisions?
I know an increasing number of mainstream SEND parents using AI to convey the queries they are not getting answered any other way. The fact that many schools have placed barriers to communications with class teachers & SENDCO’s just drives this trend, whilst we all know that teaching teams are limited on free time, this shouldn’t mean that parents are not provided with updates needed.
Just making the point that working with parents is so much easier than the cat & mouse game so many are forced to navigate…
I don’t doubt some communications are to you minor or pointless, but often a little response / info goes a long way…
(I don’t use AI but am sad how easily spotted it becomes in such emails these days)

In a general sense, yes, we have to accept that technology develops and our lives change. But in a specific-to-me sense, no. If I was sacked and replaced at work by an AI agent, I wouldn't be so breezy about it! And in my industry that's a real risk.

I think it’s a real risk in lots of industries, but we’ve been through plenty of these events before where automation replaces workers, it’s just life. Employment has (thus far) adapted to new conditions. Think of how different the working world is now compared to 40years ago.

I think there’s plenty to be concerned about with AI, but it’s part of a bigger picture where technology comes in, is adopted and changes how we do things. It’s not an anomaly in that sense.

AI is incredibly useful. I use Copilot to

Troubleshoot software glitches that would previously have had me trawling through pages of Microsoft/Reddit suggested answers in search of an effective solution

Identify emotional patterns in tricky situations

Offer sensitive feedback on creative writing - it's very good for this, with insightful comments on revisions

Refine my training plan (running etc) and measure progress in detail

Also other random stuff like identifying an unusual pebble found on a beach!

As someone who has to read and answer some of those emails and letters people get AI to wrote to organisations.... I really wish peope wouldn't.

Everyone has seen massive increase in verbose, badly written and often down right wrong letters nd emails. It's really tedious having to try and extract the relevant detail from the acres of badly written robot wank. And oh my god tbe bullet points. Make it stop!

I avoid it whenever possible. When I use Google search it is the top of the list and is often obviously incomplete and sometimes wrong - but you can't turn it off.

Yes. It's wasting a huge amount of public sector time now I understand. And you will end up with the public sector deciding to get AI to write the response and then really what is the point any more ?

If you search and put -AI at the end it turns it off but you need to do it for every search

I have this irrational fear if I leap down the AI rabbit hole my brain will not function as it does now.
I can research my own information perfectly easily , why is there a need?
It’s the same way I don’t want to forget important phone numbers just because my iPhone remembers them for me…
Agree wholeheartedly at the poorly written messages being so easy to identify too…

How is it terrible for the environment?

But Google gives AI as the first reply now.
Do you still use Google?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_AI

I'm personally irritated that the growth of data centres has led to memory cards being three times the price they were last year. Thankfully I don't need a new phone or computer any time soon.

I use DuckDuckGo purely because you can configure it to be very stripped down and omit distracting things like AI summaries. That's more of an accessibility thing for me though.

Using a robot to critique your human creativity is possibly the dumbest thing I've read so far on this thread.

It has no insights. It has no sensitivity. LLMs are literally "the kind of things people might say next in this kind of situation" machines.

Exactly, it is a probability machine. It has no original insight or creativity.

I sometimes use it to do more complex searches or tidy up or shorten a document I habe writen. I have also found it quite good at making dull, wordy powerpoint slides a bit cleaner or better presented.

No I haven't.
I have inputted my unique personal statement written by me and about me which included specific clinical scenerios that I have experienced of decades of clinical practice across several specialities, followed my multiple verbal answers inputted by me in every attempt.
All it does is put those thoughts in order, gives both positive and negative feedback and help me get me to 'regurgitate' my OWN personal epxeriences, thoughts and feelings using a recognised STAR format expected in interview.
It's then helped me practice them over and over in a reasonable mock up of an interview rather than feeling like an idiot stood in front of a mirror, which has only ever made my crippling interview anxiety (paranoia) a million times worse in the past, or in writting which never worked, i've never struggled with getting my thoughts down coherently on paper, it is turning them into a coherant sentence under pressure of a full interview panel that is my problem.

Have you tried it? It was considerably more useful to me than a couple of professional editorial assessments.