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

That’s quite an extreme reaction. Once upon a time people couldn’t see how an office would function without a fax machine. Then there were people who said computers would never take off.

Things have always changed in the workplace but I’m not worried about my job. The job I do now didn’t exist even 20 years ago. As jobs become extinct, others take their place.

There’s no need to feel terrified about technology. You’re using it all the time. Whenever you do any online banking, use your mobile phone or order your food shopping online, AI is involved. You don’t have to embrace it if you don’t want to, but there are plenty of us who do, and find it helpful and exciting.

Depends what else you do doesn't it?

This month I'm at two conferences, one of which I'm presenting at, then in the States for a week, standing up a new onboarding process with the team, running two houses 300 miles apart and catching whatever urgent requests pop up in the middle of it. (And yes, I'm using AI to deliver all of that)

I enjoy these things. They give me challenge and purpose. Counting calories and meal planning when there's no need is unnecsseary context switching, and a waste of brain cycles that could be going on something I actually want to be doing!

What a nasty post. Yes, I actually had a stroke after being on dialysis due to kidney failure and get mental fog and fatigue quite easily. And I find this reduces my stress in working out what goes with what.

I also use it to plan meals with what’s in my fridge. Another thing that I used to be able to do with ease and since struggle with.

AI has opened my world and made me feel like a normal person who can function better in life.

Yeah, fuck the environment, right? As long as it makes life a little bit easier for me

Social media wasn't a problem in moderation either. At first, it was a great way to bring people together across distance and keep family and friends connected.

But it didn't stay that way, because the tech companies couldn't stop themselves seeking out profit. They designed algorithms to keep you on the app longer, and influence your mood and opinions. They turned a blind eye to cyber bullying and harmful content. We started out with Facebook and MySpace, and we've ended up with the normalisation of OnlyFans, and ten second TikTok reels frying our attention spans.

I do see that there are places where AI has valid uses. But I'm really suspicious of the hype, and I do think companies are trying to drum up demand and increase reliance, so they can recoup their own exorbitant R&D costs. They do not care about the impact it will have on society if we all learn to switch off our brains and let AI do our thinking for us. They welcome it, because it makes us good little sheep easier to advertise to. It's not being terrified of technology. It's looking at the lessons of the very recent past and being justifiably wary.

This thread - "how can I find even MORE uses for AI in my own home?" - doesn't seem at all genuine to me. It's screaming market research.

It's quite useful for deep company research, especially if it's complicated by lots of parent companies and especially if you are looking at ethical choices/issues (always check the source). And for pivot table assistance as I'm terrible at those. I never use it for anything personal. And as someone who sees a lot of job applications, well, my advice is don't use it for this although no one is listening.

A person doing a task has a far greater environment impact than an AI. They both drink lots of water, the AI doesn't fly half the way around the world to sit on a beach on its holidays, the AI doesn't create a bag of waste a week with its lunch rubbish.

I don't. It struggles to get a Google answer correct.
I can scribble my own schedules and write my own emails.

Yeah, humans are really wasteful @HelpMyBlackLabradorVotesReform . It’s not an either/or situation though, is it? The humans who frequently fly (which is by no means everybody) and create loads of waste will continue to do those things while also using AI and therefore using even more resources. Or are you saying that if we get AI to do everything, people will no longer fly to go on holiday or create waste? I don’t really understand your logic, but as an aside, who on earth is creating a whole bag of waste in a week just from their ‘lunch rubbish’? What rubbish?

We don't wonder at all. We know exactly what they are playing at.

It is a case of join in and keep your job for a little while before we all get replaced.

Or refuse it and lose your job now.

Being too busy isn’t the same thing as not getting ‘joy’ from something. There’s so much day to day stuff that isn’t joyful but has to be done anyway.

But yes, if someone is much busier than the average person, I can see how AI can be useful.

Before AI ...

Dear SENCO,

That sounds great. It's good to know he's totally fine once in.

Thx.

And now...

Dear SENCO,

Thank you for your response. While I appreciate your reassurance that he appears "totally fine" once inside school, outward presentation should not be treated as reliable evidence that a child is not experiencing distress, particularly where masking may be a factor.

Please could you confirm, in writing, how the school intends to meet its duties under the Equality Act 2010, the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Code of Practice, including what reasonable adjustments will be implemented to support his emotional regulation, transition into school and access to education.

I would also be grateful for copies of all relevant policies, the name of the person responsible for monitoring these measures, a proposed review date and the minutes of any meeting at which somebody has used the phrase "resilient young man."

Should an appropriate support plan not be forthcoming within five working days, I reserve the right to escalate the matter to the local authority, Ofsted, the Department for Education, the European Court of Human Rights and, depending on how the afternoon goes, the United Nations.

Kind Regards

Concerned Parent

I love this too. It taught me algebra because I could keep going back and asking "yeah but why?" and "I don't get it!)

I'm not. I prefer to use my own well-trained brain - when I tried experimenting with it, it told me such ridiculous things that I don't trust it at all. I also profoundly believe that smart things are deskilling us and making us over all stupider, to the benefit of some very dodgy characters who are promoting these technologies.

As little as possible!

I dictate to it what I am putting in my freezer after a shop and what I take out while I'm cooking, and it keeps a running log of whats in the freezer so I can meal plan easier.

My DP has a complex health issue / injury recovery situation going on at the moment and I have used it to log his symptoms and changes and update it with what doctors say etc and it has kept a really useful running commentary really on how things have unfolded, and I like to read back on the earlier discussion and I see how far he has come and what an improvement there has been, and it has helped piece together the picture of symptoms and helps me make sense of it.

I use it to quickly work out exact time periods between two dates / times, which is something I have to do for my job quite a bit.

It's staggering that you think that's a valid argument.

Don’t use AI at all if we can help it! Why would we?

Right, so I'm sure you’re also your own doctor, lawyer, accountant, mechanic, interior decorator, chef, researcher, and apparently walking encyclopedia too? 😂 Using AI doesn’t mean I don’t have a brain. It means I know how to use a tool. Congratulations on choosing to do everything the slow way and mistaking inconvenience for intelligence.

This was exactly my thought

It’s frightening. You’re basically teaching the bloody thing how to do your job. I do understand that it’s a tricky situation to take a stand on though - it’s happening in my dh’s office too.

Perhaps the AI will realise the same and kill us all off.

AI use and the way people are relying on it now reminds me of maps.

In times gone by everyone had an AA map in their car and could use it to work out routes. Now there are many people who cannot use a paper map. If their Sat Nav is broken or offline they are stumped. If they go out for a walk and their phone battery dies, they are lost.

And I worry that AI is similarly deskilling us under the guise of 'taking over the boring jobs and outsourcing the thinking about the mundane'. What happens then, a generation down the line, if AI becomes unavailable? Or, even worse, makes itself unavailable so we realise how much we need it.

It helps me work out what I need to do in steps that are easy and understandable. It’s been hugely helpful in my life.

AI will certainly not be free in the future. At the moment its harvesting the data provided, photos, files, emails etc but its incredibly expensive to run and as its integrated with social media etc now that data is fed in without people having to actively upload it. So they will start charging for it as they already do for business users.