Do you use AI?

With due respect, most of what you wrote has little to do with what I'm talking about with exception to your last two paragraphs.

In that you say AI won't take the "actual work" in which you refer to physical labor. Thinking that is very naive. At this stage it isn't there yet, but given how many companies like Boston scientific are working on robotics, take a look how advanced they are. It will be like aviation every year they'll produce better more effective robotics.

Once they have that nut cracked, all work from big industry will defunct and the owners of the AI model and systems will be in control.

I know this is bleak outlook, but if you look at history of two competing groups it doesn't end well for one of the two.

See my other post, I actually concur that jobs will be lost.

Many experts believe AGI is around the corner (1-5 years).

Sure it is, together with viable nuclear fusion energy.

I have been watching what's happening with robotics, and as someone who works with intelligent beings, I am constantly surprised at how tech evangelists celebrate them being "advanced" when I'm yet to see a single one complete a seriously complex task in the real world. Every demonstration I've seen so far has been set up in an environment carefully curated for the purposes of the demonstration.

I'm sure there will be more and more progress … but given that we're about 2000 years into the development of "computers" of one sort or another, and over 200 years since Monsieur Jacquard invented the first programmable computer to help weave his fabrics, and Penneys still needs cheap manual labour to feed the Irish fast-fashion habit, I don't see an end to those jobs any time soon.

And that's the nub of it: robots and the IT/AI that drive them are expensive, so sure, yeah, rich Westerners will buy half a dozen different, expensive-to-run models to carry out a dozen different tasks and be delighted with the situation - same as they buy a clatter of kitchen gadgets when they could manage all of them with a decent knife. But the millions of non-rich people around the world will still employ polyvalent humans to do the same work at much lower cost, or buy the output of even poorer people who provide them with cheap crap to make them feel like they're doing okay in life.

Now I do think that Ireland's economy (and Ireland's workforce) are at risk, but that's because of having too many eggs in that one basket. On my travels over the years, I've frequently come across regions that have collapsed spectacularly because they were too invested in one glorious industry, ignoring all signs that the world was changing around them. That's one of the reasons I opted out of living in Ireland, and every trip "home" reinforces my belief that I made the right decision.

I understand why some people are sceptical and don’t trust it. I don’t use it for factual information.

I use ChatGPT (enterprise grade) from time to time in my professional work to augment and enhance my skills; whether for writing, exploring ideas/approaches, or exploring certain proposed decisions in my free time before they are made. My skills in these areas were already strong, but using the LLM has augmented them.

I use it very selectively. I don't use it to replace my professional judgement or experience. My work is high stress and carries a lot of responsibility, but AI helps me maximise time efficiency and reduces aspects of work pressure.

It hasn’t led me wrong thus far. In fact, I’ve noticed I’m using AI somwhat less recently because the areas I mentioned above have improved with practice, experience, and time. That being said, I recognise this won’t be the case for everyone depending on how it’s used, some people will not develop skills in a similar way, and could even allow their skills to degrade over time, becoming over relient on AI.

AI is just that a tool that is now here to stay. No different to the internet, google, calculators, a thesaurus etc. You don’t have to use it. But it helps with lots of things.

In my spare time, I like to write. AI doesn’t write for me. That would completely defeat the purpose and enjoyment of writing.

What it can do is help me to edit and polish things a bit. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.

Do you mind if I ask what for? That's more than what one would pay for a streaming service.

Maintaining some God awful undocumented brittle code at the moment. Any one who worked on it has gone.

Using a couple of paid for AIs to make sense of it, reverse engineer it, document it, search all the internal random documents and MS Teams chats, figure out dependencies ...and link back to the code.

Not just one large code base, but across multiple code based too.

Yes, it's shockingly good. I know AI is good for generating stuff. Lots of tools can generate stuff, but maintenance of large code bases is hard.

But here we are. An extremely useful tool for maintenance. You still have to understand what it's generating and take it with a grain of salt. But the amount of donkey work it removes is astounding.

Google Gemini -.fast becoming my favourite search tool. It’s federated search style in the algorithm is top notch.

I often wondered can my musical tastes be narrowed down and summarised. Why I dislike one band or even song v another. I listed the bands I found bland, boring, annoying.

I got a detailed discussion of chord progression etc. I like certain styles and approaches. Thought my tastes were scattered. But are apparently are rigid and there are definite patterns, beyond the chord progressions.

After some back and forth it figured out - I like Storytelling,non theatrical voices. Grit real vibe. Then the AI listed songs I “might like” one after another. It was great song, love that one. Bit amazed by how accurate it got.
I kept the summary as a guide so now it will find “new” bands if the humour took me.

I use it a lot at work now and I like it.

But im convinced now that 70% or more of youtube is AI at this point. There really needs to be a disclaimer on every article or video so that you can just filter out anything using AI to produce content, because it really is **** content.

I was watching a documentary about the winter olympics yesterday and about 15 mins in I realized why I wasnt enjoying it. It was an AI voice. I only noticed that when it pronounced medal as Meeedal in an english accent at one point. All the photos and videos it showed of Athletes beginnings and training were AI and not of the actual athletes. I just switched it off and blocked the channel. I have so many channels blocked now because as soon as i notice AI content I block it.

It has ruined the internet already tbh.