Is AI for everybody?

My Son is stirring me about being a Luddite. He was explaining MS Copilot to me and when I replied "Ah yeah, so what" he fired back with this.



He obviously doesn't realise that I can change my will at any time 😁.

My Mrs just started a new job with a fairly tech forward company as a senior accountant. The low level accountants at this firm that used to handle the data entry and low level work are all gone, replaced by AI which takes the raw invoices, reads them and inputs all the data.

It still makes mistakes in account codes, and occasionally numbers but because the AI lets you track everything it has done back to the invoice more easily it’s actually far easier to find and fix mistakes and they are more accurate than the humans ever were anyway.

It’s going to continue at pace making a lot of entry level tasks redundant.

I’ve had a lot of students bring me python “code” recently that doesn’t work, asking for help — I teach a data analysis class for scientific calculations and we use python. I go over basic code structure and always emphasize it is important to understand how to code an algorithm from scratch using basic structures (loops, logical structures, etc). In every case, they used an AI system to generate code for a problem they wanted to solve, and they output was garbage — and rarely even came close to how I would program it.

I told each to go back and start from scratch, then we could talk. But I wasn’t about to try to modify the garbage that the AI generated.

I have dipped my toe into using off-the-shelf generative AI, but I'm sure I could do much more with it. So far, I have found a few good use cases:

- Coding. I have used it to translate code from one language to another. It never ran correctly without tweaking/de-bugging, but it was a good start. I also used it to generate bits of code for tasks I wasn't very familiar with. Again, it didn't run correctly, but it helped me find the right functions to use and demonstrated syntax, greatly accelerating the process.
- Generating text for silly busywork that is required by my employer or a funding/regulatory agency. For example, I had ChatGPT draft a part of a strategic plan for a unit that I was leading. These strategic plans are all just variations on a theme, so the AI did a great job of writing a typically useless plan, which was perfect for the task. Why spend time and energy writing something that nobody will ever really read?
- Sometimes, when I see a particularly silly question on a watch forum, I type it into ChatGPT, and it spits back a ridiculous content-free answer, that is often completely wrong. Then I paste the response into the thread (not on OF, of course!).

On the other hand:

- It's very clear to me that I am receiving a lot of emails written by AI, and we are rapidly approaching the point where my AI will be having conversations with your AI. This will permit the volume of email communication to increase exponentially, but nothing will actually be accomplished.
- I've noticed that our communications "experts" are using AI to generate press releases and then sending them to the technical experts to edit. Maybe this is actually a good thing, but it makes me wonder why we need them at all.

Damn kids. Where’s my slide rule? 😁

Me🤦

I don’t know why but as someone who used to be very tech forward I’ve begun to lose interest. I have no desire to use AI and irrationally don’t like it. I know plenty of people use it effectively and it helps them save time but I just can’t bring myself to care about it.

My students try to use it for cybersecurity with hilarious results after I tell them not too.

I have them do their own research using google not take short cuts.

I'm trying to decide if this is my approach. I work in media production, mostly doing doc-style content with real people. I'm almost 40.. and I keep going.. should I see about having Chat GPT chop up this transcript for me to speed up the edit? Or, can I just wait it out for another 10-15 years and avoid this stuff?

In reality, I think I'll need to invest some PD time learning these new tools soon to see where it can help me be more productive. I'm just not convinced it's quite there yet.

What I do currently use:
- AI noise reduction / audio sweeting tools are incredible.
- content aware removal and noise reduction for photos is already game changing.

I do not have the time for AI as entertainment.

Have been working with the fundamentals for over 40 years. I have programs what convert one code frame to another. So there is a bit of pattern matching happening. I have not tried this yet with the generative stuff. Mostly I am de-compiling assembly which takes a lot of interaction.

Has anyone pointed an AI at bestfit and related catalogs? Then used it to sort through random listings of parts to identify them?

Physically this would be more like a robotic sorter. Dump the parts in the hopper and it identifies them and packages them.

Having played around with mechanical dolls, I find that the Uncanny Valley is real. Most of the recent stuff I have seen is really creepy and looks like it will become dated really quickly.

AI as we know it in the form of chatbots is just companies making up for not wanting to pay for entry level positions. Yet, they are annoying their customers in the meantime. Usually the AI searches and summaries are useless. Now they are stealing facial and vocal patterns. Something needs to be done to reign this in before we do have a SkyNET situation going on, but it will be like WALL-E more than terminator. As much as I hate government regulations, esp in a global situation, the way it's handled now is untenable.

Some of my students use AI to try to do their research and writing. The quality of the work produced is abysmal, and it is easy to tell that it is AI. AI cannot quote and cannot cite its sources. The writing itself is almost like reading something translated from English into another language and back to English. As a result of this uptick in cheating, that is what it is, I have had to be much more thorough when I describe what constitutes plagiarism because these kids don't understand that having an AI write a paper is the same as paying a service to write one.