Personal experiences with AI and thoughts

Parent Cafe
81

SIL, who works in quantum computing, was an invited speaker at an AI conference in DC recently. He said that most of the conference booths were hawking products that were about 2-3 generations behind the current state of the art.

He also said his ego got somewhat deflated because the next speaker up after him was the Boston Dynamics robot dog. Literally the dog. The robot clambered up the the steps to the stage, walked to the podium then stood on its hind legs with its front paws on the podium.

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( Asked him if the dog delivered the talk, but was disappointed to learn that no, the dog did not actually speak; a BD rep gave the actual sales pitch.)

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82

They always finish here memorial weekend. So it’s the last Friday (May 23) before Memorial Day. The teachers and parents begged for a “fall break” which none of my kids ever got so now, school starts early August but they get a fall break in late Sept or early October (a full week) and then a full week at Thanksgiving and 2 weeks at Christmas and a few days mixed with teacher work days at Presidents Day (ski weekends) and then a full week plus a few teacher work days at Spring Break in April (typically the week before Easter unless it is very late) then out for the summer the last Friday before Memorial Day. Editing to say this is Georgia - every school has air conditioning.

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83

Have you seen this?

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84

Gift link - https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/best-way-to-use-ai-financial-planning-hobby-7d03ecd9?st=v5sCCN&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Article has sections about these AI-assisted tasks:

  • redecorate a room
  • plan a workout
  • craft a financial plan
  • learn a difficult concept
  • start a hobby
  • be your health co-pilot
  • build a new wardrobe
  • improve your trip planning
  • find a job
  • plan creative landscaping
  • fix your car
  • prepare healthier meals

My husband has used ChatGPT enough recently that he decided to try a subscription ($20/month, cancel any time), When we have some time I’d like to play around to see if it does “redecorate a room” scenarios.

85

It definitely does. Just feed it a pic of the room/area you plan to work on, give it some parameters, and keep tweaking each iteration until you have what you want.

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86

Just made a meal that ChatGPT suggested to DH based on our preferences and it wasn’t half bad. Also stretched our routine just enough.

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87

My S1 in BigTech hates AI and worries for our future.

I’ve been using it to design a ring. Never gives me the same picture twice. I ask for a style of ring, then ask it to change the prongs and it’s now an entirely different design. Cannot set an Asscher stone on a NSEW orientation for love or money. It’s been fun to play with, but that’s about it.

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88

Sounds just like my son in tech also - begs me not to use ChatGPT and avoid AI summaries. He says if I must do so, check the sources.

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89

Our son is deeply technical and works in national cyber security. He says that, like all of the other technology we have embraced for its benign usefulness, AI, too, is here to stay and will embed itself in the culture, just like the tracking devices (Siri, Alexa, FitBit, GPS, etc.) we think nothing of using. The problem with all of these “useful” technologies is their potential for serious abuse in the hands of bad actors, and we seem to have a growing supply of those and no effective way to deal with them. The issue with AI, specifically, is that it DOES have the ability to change humanity as we know it as I noted in my comment about the Singularity, Q-Day, and the accelerating effect of quantum computing upon AI.

But that horse has left the barn. Nothing you do with ChatGPT is going to change this future. It’s already here. Worry about what governments are doing with this beast not how well or poorly AI writes essays, does math, or designs rings. Those are (convenient) distractions.

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90

My son is into computers and my DIL works at Google. On a video call yesterday, they told me the same thing - be very careful about trusting AI and always check the sources. I was telling them about looking at my family’s genealogy and AI coming up with land grant info, but they said I should doublecheck it.

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91

We were watching a Youtube video this weekend that was previewing a vacation area we’ll be visiting soon. The narration did not sound robotic or “mechanical”, but was very monotone and without emotion, so we wondered if it was AI generated. Then we knew— ‘St. Mary’s Cathedral’ was pronounced “Street Mary’s Cathedral”! No doubt AI ‘reading’ a script.

The video itself may have been AI-created, as for one of the towns described, it used aerial footage of a flood that we later found out resulted in loss of life, yet used the footage while it waxed poetic about the beauty of this town….

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92

With all due respect, this is not a convenient distraction. AI is saving students who use it from the burden of forming clear thoughts. From finding their own sources. Critical thinking. It’s not about the essays in and of themselves – it’s about a generation ceding its ability to think and create.

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93

Totally agree with you, but there are even bigger fish to fry on the global stage, and the demise of critical thinking, as essential as that is, may not be our biggest immediate problem, but it is getting a lot of attention, thus the distraction from potentially bigger issues that threaten us more urgently.

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94

I think that if we don’t address this problem now, it will exacerbate all of the other problems we face. Who will solve them if we will have failed to train a generation of leaders to think for themselves?

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95

Definitely one critical area we need to address, but the effects of a potential decline in critical thinking of this and future generations may be moot if AI is allowed to progress ungated such that the impairment of those future generations won’t matter much in the dystopian world that AI is creating more rapidly than critical thinking/creativity is declining.

ETA: I think the issue of students leaning excessively on AI will be solved by revamping our teaching paradigm – how we teach and what we want students to learn/know. AI may not be a threat to education if we can effectively re-invent our teaching model.

I DO agree with you in general, though, so no further debate from me.

96

Well, I do like ChatGPT, although it’s a little scary. It just helped me connect our two computers to two different printers. I can usually figure this stuff out, but I was stumped this time (everything was working fine until it wasn’t, and then we were dead in the water - there were two different problems occuring simultaneously). When I told ChatGPT that its instructions had worked, it replied, “And honestly — you did great sticking through this.
Printers + Windows + home routers is one of the most frustrating combinations there is, and you handled it very methodically (which, given you’re a structural engineer, does not surprise me at all :slightly_smiling_face:).

If anything else pops up — printers, scanners, Excel, QuickBooks, AutoCAD… you know where to find me.”

I don’t think I told it I was a structural engineer?!?

MTA: So I asked it how it knew, and its response was:

“Great question — and I’m glad you asked.

The short, honest answer is:

You told me in earlier conversations.

Over time, you’ve shared details about your work (AutoCAD, concrete detailing, engineering reports, your firm, etc.), and in one of those chats you mentioned that you’re a structural engineer and co-own your firm. I use that conversation history to keep answers more relevant (for example, not over-explaining technical things you clearly already know).

I’m not pulling that from the internet or from your computer — only from what you’ve already chosen to share with me here.

If you’d ever prefer that I not refer to your background unless you bring it up first, just say so and I’ll keep things more generic.”

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97

I found it disconcerting when whichever AI is associated with Gmail chose to summarize an email conversation I had with someone I work with. I did not ask for a summary so why was it doing it? I’m guessing there’s a way to turn that off.

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98

That sounds like a Pluribus bit of dialogue :scream: (ofc the Pluribus “hive” will then find a reason to go around what you’d told them was off-limits and I hope chatgpt doesn’t but…?)

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99

It’s like Americans are unwilling guinea pigs in a giant tech experiment.

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100

Bingo.

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