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Not everyone is using AI for everything

gabrielweinberg.com

451–460 of 565 posts

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who does a Google search gets a satisfactory looking answer as the very first entry. Google has search results still? I don't use Google much anymore (thanks Kagi), but this is what ends up showing for me, I don't even see any search results anymore: https://i.imgur.com/eHIA2Df.png It seems like it's 50/50 on page reload if the LLM-reply UI expands automatically or not, which covers my entire screen. I guess…

Google still has search results but they mostly point to AI generated blog posts filled with adverts.

> Google still has search results

They should investigate if placing these search results above the limit of the screen/canvas height might lead to more people seeing them.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digging with a bulldozer sounds like hard work. You mean a digger.

Language barrier (bulldozer is used as a placeholder in my native language) , I should have said heavy machinery

Cards on the table, after posting I had doubts about this and had to look it up! Executive summary: "digger" = hole, "bulldozer" = flattish, "steamroller" (or just "roller") = flat as a pancake.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#453

> AI has gotten so good that despite any misgivings, “everyone is using A.I.” In my experience, it's a mixed bag. I wrote this comment[0], yesterday. It reflects my current work, and how I am integrating an LLM. I have used it for two parts of my project: 1) The backend (PHP), and 2) The frontend (Swift) It has been a huge help, in both, but #2 is a cautionary tale. It really needs adult supervision, in developing na…

There's probably a lot more PHP code to regurgitate, while I'm guessing a lot of Swift apps are proprietary. That's the problem.. they aren't coding from principles, they're pattern matching their training data

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#454

> More than 30 percent of the US working-age population is using AI [meaning about 70% isn’t], an increase of 3 percentage points from the end of 2025 This makes me less bearish on the AI investments that are being made, if 70% of the working age population isn't using AI then there still is a lot of growth. The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed (yet)

What if I told you that 100% have exposure but only 30% have adopted? You’re assuming the issue here is lack of access, not lack of interest.

It might take a while for people to see how the model is useful to them, or to figure out how to make it useful or the capabilities weren't there ye. My mother tried ChatGPT in '23 and thought it was useless, she now uses it regularly, because it's improved and she knows how to use it better.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#455
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A truthful, nuanced, well reasoned answer will be well received by an employer with a culture you want to work in.

> A truthful, nuanced, well reasoned answer will be well received by an employer with a culture you want to work in. If you're into long shot betting AND your savings aren't running out while waiting to land a new job, that might be a good strategy

as a rule the interviewee should be assessing for goodness of fit, as well as the interviewer. If my simplified nuanced answer to why I limit my usage of LLMs was poorly received, I wouldn't want to take a job somewhere likely to make me miserable.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#456
Another data source showing the same trends consistently over the last couple of years:

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/nov/state-gen...

Interactive data tracker here: https://www.genaiadoptiontracker.com/

I'll note that despite this, most AI providers are very compute constrained (see: the skyrocketing backlogs of each cloud provier; Claude's 9's until a few weeks ago until Anthropic, along with Google -- of all companies -- renting capacity from Elon.)

That could be a material reason for the overall low adoption. I think the big AI players are carefully balancing multiple conflicting priorities with their limited compute: acquiring and keeping users with free or heavily subsidized tokens, while ensuring they can satisfy their paying customers' SLAs. If there was more compute they would probably invest more in marketing and pushing adoption further (and indeed, a Google exec was quoted saying exactly that after a big Gemini launch.)

Something else to consider: If only 10% of users use GenAI daily, that leaves a potential 45x growth minimum on the horizon (the remaining 90% of users x 5 weekdays, assuming everyone chills on weekends, and ignoring that agents use way more tokens.) Which is why every hyperscaler has been scrambling to build out more capacity.

The typical question at this point is, where's the payoff? Two points:

1. Despite this relatively low level adoption, AI company revenues are already spiking at unprecedented rates. (Not just the frontier labs, even the smaller startups, as reported by investors, enterprise customers as well as Stripe, their payment processor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730182)

2. The St. Louis Fed study above notes that there has been a ~1.89 percentage points increase in national labor productivity since 4th quarter 2022, which could be explained by their data on GenAI adoption.

They are careful to call out that causation is impossible to prove, but the possibility that GenAI may already be having a noticeable impact on national-level economic indicators only 3+ years since launch is wild.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#458
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. Have you considered just answering truthfully? Would you even want to work somewhere where you need to play a role and where they flip out when you say the wrong word you should've correctly guessed through mind reading? T…

I assume it's because he is seeking to pay rent, food bills, and other expenses through employment.

But it doesn't make sense to do a job you'd hate. Just be honest, land the job where you're happy.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it's because he is seeking to pay rent, food bills, and other expenses through employment.

But it doesn't make sense to do a job you'd hate. Just be honest, land the job where you're happy.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs comes into play.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it's because he is seeking to pay rent, food bills, and other expenses through employment.

But it doesn't make sense to do a job you'd hate. Just be honest, land the job where you're happy.

But no one will pay me to watch tv all day
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