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Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

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Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

#1

Post by dottjt »

I briefly used ChatGPT when it came out and played around with it and thought it was cool, but I haven't really touched it since, nor have I really felt the need to.

Is there something I'm missing here? How can I use it enhance my life? I guess I kind of see it like a really smart assistant, but it's like Google already serves that role, and does it even better.

I guess my issue with AI is that it ultimately only provides one perspective, whereas the great thing about Google is that I can search for many multiple different perspectives on the same topic. I dunno.

Re: Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

#2

Post by urlwolf »

This is a very good question, and I'm sure you will get valuable answers.

My take:

- More efficient than search engines at obscure problems, like configuring an unix tool. Help that you can ask 'explain step by step'

- It expands the range of topics you can read scientific papers in. You just ask it any topic or keyword you don't understand

- Good summaries of text that is valuable, but not worth reading in detail

- Translation

- Code generation/bug fixing. I don't use it this way but other s will tell you whether/how much their coding life improved this way

Re: Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

#3

Post by tlb »

I never use it for getting answers, for the reasons you mention. A Wikipedia article has a lot more depth than any of the chatbot answers, and is more trustworthy.

Github copilot is slightly useful for creating boilerplate code. But I try to code in ways that avoid boilerplate in the first place.

Image generators are great if you need custom images and can't draw.

If I felt the need to write formal business emails with greetings and full paragraphs I might use it for that. But I mostly just send a few sentences, which saves everyone time and feels more on-brand for me.

Re: Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

#4

Post by cyanydeez »

urlwolf wrote: post #2

This is a very good question, and I'm sure you will get valuable answers. My take: - More efficient than search engines at obscure problems, like configuring an unix tool. Help that you can ask 'explain step by step' - It expands the range of topics you can read scientific papers in. You just ask it any topic or keyword you don't understand - Good summaries of text that is valuable, but not worth reading in detail -…

It's kinda sad that Google _used to_ be capable of solving obscure problems.

Re: Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

#5

Post by llmblockchain »

I find an LLM is a great way to replace questions that would ultimately end up with me scrolling through a Stackoverflow answers.

For example, "How do you do X in Golang?"

It's also great for translation-like questions like, "Given this cURL command, can you generate a Go function...", or "Can you port this Ruby code into Go", etc.

Re: Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

#6

Post by reportgunner »

Try phind[0] - it works without login or payment and provides sources to its claims, I switch to it when I can't find something via standard web search but it has not helped me yet. I am still convinced that AI is better than web search only in Layer-8 related queries.

[0] https://phind.com

Re: Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

#8

Post by pizza234 »

It helps for a lot of things that would otherwise require searching the web and/or scrolling long pages: pronounces, grammar, general (and even somewhat specific) history/science/arts concepts, draft formal text, improving phrasing, simple/direct technical questions.

However:

- it requires some level of fact checking

- it subtly reduces my personal retaining of information for technical concepts

- (in my personal experience), it largely fails on highly technical questions

Re: Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

#9

Post by jve »

Entering unknown knowledge domain on subject. AI helps get up and running way faster introducing you to terminology and what to follow up (search) afterwards. Helps grasp concepts faster.

I'm strong at PowerShell but haven't touched Hyper-V VM creation - I wanted to automate it. So I asked some questions on how I want my VM configured and it gave out a great starting point of powershell commands and parameters I need to use.

Re: Ask HN: I don't use AI. What exactly am I missing out on?

#10

Post by Loggias »

cyanydeez wrote: post #4
urlwolf wrote: post #2

This is a very good question, and I'm sure you will get valuable answers. My take: - More efficient than search engines at obscure problems, like configuring an unix tool. Help that you can ask 'explain step by step' - It expands the range of topics you can read scientific papers in. You just ask it any topic or keyword you don't understand - Good summaries of text that is valuable, but not worth reading in detail -…

It's kinda sad that Google _used to_ be capable of solving obscure problems.

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