The AI thread

[PVA]

It's being discussed on the politics thread related to the jobs market, but thought it might be interesting to make a separate thread.

How are you using it?

Is it making your job easier? Saving you time?

I've started using it a lot at work recently. I use Claude and tbh it's been fantastic. Saves me a shit load of time writing reports and quotes etc. Used it to make a flyer for a new product we're launching. And made a little dashboard for tracking the work we do to better understand the types of job/different categories of customers etc etc.

It's saved me lots of time but also thousands of pounds.

I appreciate as per the politics thread there are obviously downsides to it and it's very easy for people to over rely on it.

 

[Sick Boy]

I use it for workflows to improve productivity with very strict guidelines but most people trust it too much and are becoming overly reliant on it.

I don’t like how it’s everywhere and making everything worse though.

 

[Ccfc_Addy]

I'm currently going through an extended saga taking a tradesman to small claims court. I get ChatGPT Pro through work and it has been an utter godsend, it's made what would have otherwise been an extremely anxiety-inducing and stressful process so much more manageable. I use it to help me unpack complicated situations at work too, but as said above I'm careful not to just stick whatever it says into email or formal record because it does get things wrong.

The one thing I cannot stand is AI art. It is so depressing to me how widespread it is now and how reliant society is becoming on it, to me you might as well advertise your business or event by smearing a fresh turd on blank canvas.

 

[Sick Boy]

To add, something that makes me uncomfortable is the impact it’ll have on the open web - I think a lot of content will end up behind paywalls and gated communities due to the lack of incentives to create content that’s just repurposed by AI.

Then there’s the issue of a monopoly like a Google essentially being a gatekeeper of information, which is also very concerning.

 

[Otis]

It's making my life harder. Giving so many wrong answers to things for me.

 

[chiefdave]

It's making my life harder.

Same. I spend time pretty much every day dealing with people who want us to 'add AI to my system' or something similar but have no idea what it is, what they want it to do or what outcome they hope to achieve.

Thats before you have the same conversation over and over again about opening up your companies confidential information to a third party service you have no control over with some vague promise that they won't do anything you don't want them to with your data.

Then there's the people who like to tell you you're doing your job wrong because the way you're implementing something, which from experience you know works, is not the way AI is telling them. Normally when you're dealing with this AI is telling them something you know won't work.

 

[Sick Boy]

It's making my life harder. Giving so many wrong answers to things for me.

You can remove it from the Google search results by adding -ai.

 

[chiefdave]

Then there’s the issue of a monopoly like a Google essentially being a gatekeeper of information, which is also very concerning.

Google is currently in the process of rolling out a complete change so your only option now when you search will be ai generated content, the links to actual websites will be pushed further and further down.

So what happens then? A lot of websites rely on pre click revenue streams. When those clicks dry up the websites will disappear. New websites won't come online at the same rate as who is going to all that trouble when search engines no longer drive traffic to your site.

You end up with a handful of sites controlling what the vast majority of people see.

 

[Sick Boy]

Google is currently in the process of rolling out a complete change so your only option now when you search will be ai generated content, the links to actual websites will be pushed further and further down.

So what happens then? A lot of websites rely on pre click revenue streams. When those clicks dry up the websites will disappear. New websites won't come online at the same rate as who is going to all that trouble when search engines no longer drive traffic to your site.

You end up with a handful of sites controlling what the vast majority of people see.

I work in the industry and it's been in the works for at least a couple of years now. Most websites will end up behind paywalls/grouped together subscriptions and there won't be the open web as we know it now, IMO. No idea what Google's plan is when there's a lack of content being created and we're reliant on AI content being trained on AI content - probably AI content based on ads!

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

It's making my life harder. Giving so many wrong answers to things for me.

What things

 

[Sick Boy]

What things

They all get basic facts wrong, hallucinate data and just make stuff up.

 

[chiefdave]

They all get basic facts wrong, hallucinate data and just make stuff up.

Do You Have Bixonimania?

Be wary of AI medical advice. AI chatbots can misinterpret good research and can be scammed into believing fake studies.

www.psychologytoday.com

 

[wingy]

The Pope concurs, history is going to tell us the implementation of all of it, I mean previous stuff going back sixty years or more was only ever going to change the world for the worse, I keep saying it, human satisfaction!

 

[Nick]

I use it, it works wonders.

It needs to be embraced for people to use it to it's full potential and to be used properly.

People seem to think it's just for image generation but it saves hours and helps with repetitive tasks.

 

[wingy]

I use it, it works wonders.

It needs to be embraced for people to use it to it's full potential and to be used properly.

People seem to think it's just for image generation but it saves hours and helps with repetitive tasks.

So you're happy to use something that competes with you on an individual basis to exist?

 

[covcity4life]

I use it a lot. Used it in a recent job interview too when they left the room lol. And yes I got the job

Also experimenting with AI video at mo. It's fun but too expensive to have as a hobby for now

 

[Nick]

So you're happy to use something that competes with you on an individual basis to exist?

It's not going to kill me.

I can use it to help speed up tedious shit while I get on with the actual work.

 

[rob9872]

It's being discussed on the politics thread related to the jobs market, but thought it might be interesting to make a separate thread.

How are you using it?

Is it making your job easier? Saving you time?

I've started using it a lot at work recently. I use Claude and tbh it's been fantastic. Saves me a shit load of time writing reports and quotes etc. Used it to make a flyer for a new product we're launching. And made a little dashboard for tracking the work we do to better understand the types of job/different categories of customers etc etc.

It's saved me lots of time but also thousands of pounds.

I appreciate as per the politics thread there are obviously downsides to it and it's very easy for people to over rely on it.

I’m in a similar boat. I’ve been using AI tools more and more over the past few months, and the impact has been pretty noticeable. For me it’s mainly been a mix of admin automation, drafting documents, and quick data analysis. Anything that used to take ages because it was repetitive or just mentally dull is now something I can get through in a fraction of the time.
It hasn’t replaced the thinking part of my job, but it has taken a lot of the friction out of it. I still edit everything it produces, but starting from a decent draft is miles better than staring at a blank page.
I agree with you on the downsides. It’s very easy to lean on it too heavily, and I’ve already seen people treating AI output as if it’s automatically correct. It’s a tool, not a brain. But used properly, it’s hard to deny the efficiency boost.
Curious to see how others are using it too — feels like everyone’s finding different ways to slot it into their workflow.
If you want, I can also craft a shorter, more casual, more formal, or more humorous version.

 

[chiefdave]

So you're happy to use something that competes with you on an individual basis to exist?

Meta fired a load of people after those same people had trained their AI replacement

 

[chiefdave]

It's not going to kill me.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

I'm currently going through an extended saga taking a tradesman to small claims court. I get ChatGPT Pro through work and it has been an utter godsend, it's made what would have otherwise been an extremely anxiety-inducing and stressful process so much more manageable. I use it to help me unpack complicated situations at work too, but as said above I'm careful not to just stick whatever it says into email or formal record because it does get things wrong.

The one thing I cannot stand is AI art. It is so depressing to me how widespread it is now and how reliant society is becoming on it, to me you might as well advertise your business or event by smearing a fresh turd on blank canvas.

Turd on Canvas would probably sell for millions.

Mind you there is precedent. Some artist put his shit in tins and sold it for the equivalent weight in gold. I think Warhol had an artwork made from people pissing on a canvas as well.

 

[Flying Fokker]

I'm currently going through an extended saga taking a tradesman to small claims court. I get ChatGPT Pro through work and it has been an utter godsend, it's made what would have otherwise been an extremely anxiety-inducing and stressful process so much more manageable. I use it to help me unpack complicated situations at work too, but as said above I'm careful not to just stick whatever it says into email or formal record because it does get things wrong.

The one thing I cannot stand is AI art. It is so depressing to me how widespread it is now and how reliant society is becoming on it, to me you might as well advertise your business or event by smearing a fresh turd on blank canvas.

The art suggestion is pretty out there. Tell me how you get on.

 

[Marty]

I don't use it that I'm aware off, the closest I get is when Google puts it at the top of a search, but I never look at it now after it gave me completely duff info on something I know about.

 

[Sick Boy]

I use it, it works wonders.

It needs to be embraced for people to use it to it's full potential and to be used properly.

People seem to think it's just for image generation but it saves hours and helps with repetitive tasks.

Agree with this - most of the time people are using it wrong.

 

[Skybluefaz]

I use copilot in VS Code.
Or I did, Microsoft are massively increasing the cost 1st June.

Sometimes it's great.

Sometimes it tells me 1 is equal to 0.

Restaurants using it for food pics really fucking grinds my gears.

The web is fucked too. Google is going to eat itself.

Give me the old Web back.

I switched to using duck duck go and Arc browser a few weeks ago on my mac (Arc is shit on Windows) just to try and distance myself from Google a bit after listening to https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/enshittification

I feel like AI has devalued coding I guess and that's pissed me off.

We had a client sent some vibe coded shite into us to 'put on their website'.

Was a horrendous long JS file full of their pricing models etc, all stuff that should be server side.

I think in a year demand for developers might swing back as vibe coded apps start to break and the cost of AI tools increases.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

If it could strictly be used for monotonous, tedious work that doesn't require creative thought, sure. But it's being used to stop people thinking for themselves and the environmental impact of the data centres powering it is horrendous.

On balance I think it's bad for society.

 

[Sick Boy]

I use copilot in VS Code.
Or I did, Microsoft are massively increasing the cost 1st June.

Sometimes it's great.

Sometimes it tells me 1 is equal to 0.

Restaurants using it for food pics really fucking grinds my gears.

The web is fucked too. Google is going to eat itself.

Give me the old Web back.

I switched to using duck duck go and Arc browser a few weeks ago on my mac (Arc is shit on Windows) just to try and distance myself from Google a bit after listening to https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/enshittification

I feel like AI has devalued coding I guess and that's pissed me off.

We had a client sent some vibe coded shite into us to 'put on their website'.

Was a horrendous long JS file full of their pricing models etc, all stuff that should be server side.

I think in a year demand for developers might swing back as vibe coded apps start to break and the cost of AI tools increases.

Yeah, DDG is way superior. If I have to use Google for personal searches, I use search operators to strip out all the crap.

 

[nicksar]

I'm retired but I do use Google A.I. to check things out now and then but it does throw up a fair few wrong answers....which I point out to it,and often get a (sort of) apology.
My overall take on it is will make the current generation of Kids growing up very lazy.

 

[SBAndy]

Been brainstorming a business idea on Claude over the last couple of months. It has on occasion spat out nonsense, but as long as you have reasonable intelligence (i.e. able to spot something that doesn’t look quite right) and a basic understanding of the subject matter, it’s very helpful.

 

[chiefdave]

The Grayson Perry doc that was on C4 recently, and will be on catch up, is worth a watch. Even if you only watch the first few minutes for the crazy American woman. I'll say no more so as not to spoil the fun!

 

[andrew.roberts]

Absolutely against AI generated music, it's just wrong on so many levels.

 

[chiefdave]

Absolutely against AI generated music, it's just wrong on so many levels.

It's going to get way worse shortly.

Spotify Technology and Universal Music Group have agreed to launch AI-powered fan-made covers and remixes tied to artist consent and payment.

Same with podcasts

Spotify is introducing AI-generated personal podcasts that deliver daily briefs or deep dives into topics.

 

[Skybluefaz]

Absolutely against AI generated music, it's just wrong on so many levels.

So frustrating that I can't just tell Spotify to never show/play any ai slop music

 

[CCFCSteve]

I have been shocked/amazed at what it can do (I’m not really a techy though). As some have alluded to it’s all about accuracy of prompts and at least currently*, having a good enough grasp of the content/subject matter to check and challenge it. This is why it maybe works best as time saving tool for older experienced people but an over reliance on it by younger inexperienced can be dangerous

Ive no doubt it will end up doing some truly amazing things though and is already accelerating advances in medicine but it’s also equally concerning. Fuck knows what I’d be thinking about work etc if I was a teenager

*this will become less important over time as it’s teaches itself

 

[Nick]

I have been shocked/amazed at what it can do (I’m not really a techy though). As some have alluded to it’s all about accuracy of prompts and at least currently*, having a good enough grasp of the content/subject matter to check and challenge it. This is why it maybe works best as time saving tool for older experienced people but an over reliance on it by younger inexperienced can be dangerous

Ive no doubt it will end up doing some truly amazing things though and is already accelerating advances in medicine but it’s also equally concerning. Fuck knows what I’d be thinking about work etc if I was a teenager

*this will become less important over time as it’s teaches itself

Yeah, I have found you need a good grasp on how you want something to be done properly and then can go from there with it.

It also works wonders to get started with things, even the "I want to do this, Im struggling to get started, what shall I do first"