Asklemmy

Money. It's always about money. But more seriously, I also wonder what's the point since all my interactions with GenAI have been disappointment after disappointment. But I read Dev saying that it's great at creating drafts

I use it for coding, mostly as a time saver. Generally as I'm typing, it will give a suggestion that's functionally the same as what I was going to type anyway so I hit tab and go to the next line. It's able to do this accurately for around 80% of the total lines that I'm writing and going from writing full lines to writing 0-3 characters + tab on most of those lines makes a massive speed difference. It's especially great for writing one off scripts when I'm doing something that's not even a coding project, but there's some tedious file juggling involved. Writing a script completely by hand for that often would take slightly longer than just doing the task manually, and as I said, it's a one-off. But writing the script with copilot often takes as little as 10% of the time which is really nice.

Even in cases where I don't already know how to solve a problem (particularly a problem involving specific integrations) it can often be faster to ask it how to solve the problem and then look up the specific functions, endpoints, etc it uses in the docs rather than trying to find those doc entries directly with a search. And if it hallucinates a function that doesn't exist in the docs then I tell it that and it often successfully corrects itself. When it fails more than once I've generally found that there's a high probability that the SDK/API/etc I'm looking at doesn't have anything that does what I need so it's time for me to start rethinking my approach

Outside of coding, I also use stable diffusion to generate images of D&D characters I'm creating instead of image searching and settling for something kind of close to what I was picturing.

I also regularly use SD when I stumble upon some art I'd like to use as a desktop wallpaper, but can't find at high enough resolution. I just upscale it and proceed. Sometimes I'll have something at the wrong aspect ratio and use generative fill to extend the edges of the image to the desired aspect ratio, those parts of the image are nothing special, but the important part is the original image and I just need some filler to prevent it from abruptly ending before the edges of the screen.

One last case is if I need to put together a tediously long document, I generally find that having it generate a first draft with the right structure and then iterating a bunch on that comes more easily than starting with an empty page.

Best use is to ask it questions that you're not sure how to ask. Sometimes you come across a problem that you're not really even sure how to phrase, which makes Googling difficult. LLM's at least would give you a better sense of what to Google

simple tasks you can verify yourself and you're just rolling dice for some time saved. everything else is kinda shit

For coding it works really well if you give it examples like "i have code that looked like this .... And i made it to look like this .... If i give you another piece of code that's similar to the first can you convert it to the second for me". Been great to reduce the amount of boring grunt work so I can focus on the more fun stuff

Never used it until recently. Now I use it to vent because I'm a crazy person.

I don't use it for anything. I have had no involvement and it will stay that way.

I use it for parsing through legalese or terms and conditions. IT IS NOT PERFECT. I wouldn't trust it ever over a lawyer. But it's great for things like "Is there anything here that is extra unusual or weirdly anti-consumer or very bad for privacy?". I think it's great for that.

People here are just "it will take jobs it's inherently evil". They said the same about Photoshop, and computers before. I think there are evil uses for it sure, but that doesn't mean that it has no valid usages

I use it for providing a text summary of YouTube videos that I can parse quickly. Because everything has to be a gorram video these days.

Just today I needed a pdf with filler english text, not lorem. ChatGPT was perfect for that. Other times when I'm writing something I use it to check grammar. It's way better at it than grammarly imo, and faster and makes the decisions for me BUT PROOF-READ IT. if you really fuck the tenses up it won't know how to correct it, it'll make things up. Besides these: text manipulation. I could learn vim, write a script, or I could just copy "remove the special characters" enter -> done.

I use perplexity for syntax. I don't code with it, but it's the perfect one stop shop for "how does this work in this lang again" when coding. For advanced/new/unpopular APIs it's back to the olds school docs, but you could try to give it the link so it parses it for you, it's usually wonky tho.

My understanding is that it will eventually used to improve autocorrect, when they get it working properly.

Programming quick scripts and replacement for Google/Wikipedia more than anything. I chat to it on an app to ask about various facts or info I wanted to know. And it usually gets in depth pretty quickly.

Also cooking. I've basically given up on recipe sites, except for niche, specific things. AI gets stuff relatively right and quickly adjusts if I need substitutions. (And again, hands free for my sticky flour fingers).

And ideation. Whether I'm coming up with names, or a specific word, or clothes, or a joke, I can ask AI for 50 examples and I can usually piece together a result I like from a couple of those.

Finally, I'll admit I use it as a sounding board to think through topics, when a real human who can empathise would absolutely be better. Sadly, the way modern life is, one isn't always available. It's a small step up from ELIZA.

The key is that AI is part of the process. Just as I would never say "trust the first Google result with your life", because its some internet rando who might say anything, so too should you not let AI have the final word. I frequently question or correct it, but it still helps the journey.

I have personally found it fantastic as a programming aid, and as a writing aid to write song lyrics. The art it creates lacks soul and any sense of being actually good but it's great as a "oh I could do this cool thing" inspiration machine

The winter storm was set to arrive while I’m traveling, and I needed to drip our faucets to avoid our pipes bursting. I didn’t want to waste water from a dripping faucet for more than a week, so I asked duckduckgo AI to calculate how much water will 1 drop a second accumulate and if it will overflow on a standard baththub with the drain closed. I can do the math myself, but it’s easier for AI to do it.

art. It's a new medium, get over it

So what’s the point of it all?

To reduce wages.

Instead of using tech to reduce work and allow humans to thrive and make art, we use tech to make art and force humans into long hours of drudgery and repetitive bitch work just because CEOs like to watch other people suffer I guess.