Technology

ChatGPT is basically like a really good intern, and I use it heavily that way. I run literally every email through it and say "respond to so and so, say xyz" and then maybe a little refining, copy paste, done.

The other day, my boss sent me an excel file with a shitload of data in it that he wanted me to analyze some such way. I just copy pasted it into gpt and asked it, and it spit out the correct response. Then my boss asked me to do something else that required a bit of excel finagling that I didn't really know how to do, so i asked gpt, and it told me the formula, which worked immediately first try.

So basically it helps me accomplish tasks in seconds that previously would've taken hours. If anything, I think markets are currently undervalued, because remarkably, fucking NONE of my colleagues or friends are using it at all yet. Once there's widespread adoption, which will pretty much have to happen if anyone wants to stay competitive once it gains more traction, look out...

Yeah, and Wikipedia is one of the most useful sites on the net, but it didn't exactly result in the entire web becoming crowdsourced.

The poem about AI that often gets posted says "What are you trying to avoid? The living [of a life]?"

And yeah, that's what it's for, dodging shit you don't want to do. I gotta produce some useless bullshit that no one's going to read or care about: AI.

I don't even mind AI art for things like LinkedIn posts, blogs like "What is warehouse management?" or "Top 10 finance trends in 2025" - SEO spam that no human will read. No one wants to write it, read it, or care about it- its just a x kb file to tell Google to look here.

One time, I needed to convince my boss's boss that we needed to do something, and he wanted it in writing. Guess who wrote the proposal? And far more eloquently than I could have alone, in the time allowed. It required some good prompts, attentive proofreading, and a few drafts. But in the end, it was quite effective.

Those pupils will really thank you when they grow up and there isn't enough fresh water because all the data centres are using it up far faster than it can be replenished.

https://utulsa.edu/news/data-centers-draining-resources-in-water-stressed-communities/

Eh, my best coworker is an LLM. Full of shit, like the rest of them, but always available and willing to help out.

Though the image generators are actually good. The visual arts will never be the same after this

This is easy to say about the output of AIs.... if you don't check their work.

Alas, checking for accuracy these days seems to be considered old fogey stuff.

The part that is over hyped is companies trying to jump the gun and wholesale replace workers with unproven AI substitutes. And of course the companies who try to shove AI where it doesn't really fit, like AI enabled fridges and toasters.

This is literally the hype. This is the hype that is dying and needs to die. Because generative AI is a tool with fairly specific uses. But it is being marketed by literally everyone who has it as General AI that can "DO ALL THE THINGS!" which it's not and never will be.

Computers have always been good at pattern recognition. This isn't new. LLM are not a type of actual AI. They are programs capable of recognizing patterns and Loosely reproducing them in semi randomized ways. The reason these so-called generative AI Solutions have trouble generating the right number of fingers. Is not only because they have no idea how many fingers a person is supposed to have. They have no idea what a finger is.

The same goes for code completion. They will just generate something that fills the pattern they're told to look for. It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong. Because they have no concept of what is right or wrong Beyond fitting the pattern. Not to mention that we've had code completion software for over a decade at this point. Llms do it less efficiently and less reliably. The only upside of them is that sometimes they can recognize and suggest a pattern that those programming the other coding helpers might have missed. Outside of that. Such as generating act like whole blocks of code or even entire programs. You can't even get an llm to reliably spit out a hello world program.

Even if they plateaued in place where they are right now it would lead to major shakeups in humanity's current workflow

Like which one? Because it's now 2 years we have chatGPT and already quite a lot of (good?) models. Which shakeup do you think is happening or going to happen?

See now, I would prefer AI in my toaster. It should be able to learn to adjust the cook time to what I want no matter what type of bread I put in it. Though is that realky AI? It could be. Same with my fridge. Learn what gets used and what doesn't. Then give my wife the numbers on that damn clear box of salad she buys at costco everytime, which take up a ton of space and always goes bad before she eats even 5% of it. These would be practical benefits to the crap that is day to day life. And far more impactful then search results I can't trust.