i’ve used it fairly consistently for the last year or so. i didn’t actually start using it until chatgpt 4 and when openai offered the $20 membership
i think AI is a tool. like any other tool, your results vary depending on how you use it
i think it’s really useful for specific intents
example, as a fancy search engine. yesterday I was watching Annie from 1999 with my girlfriend and I was curious about the capitalist character. i asked chatgpt the following question
in the 1999 hit movie annie, who was the billionaire mr warbucks supposed to represent? were there actually any billionaires in the time period? it’s based around the early 1930s
it gave me context. it showed examples of the types of capitalist the character was based on. and it informed me that the first billionaire was in 1916.
very useful for this type of inquiry.
other things i like using it for are to help coding. but there’s a huge caveat here. some thing it’s very helpful for… and some things it’s abysmal for.
for example i can’t ask it “can you help me write a nice animation for a react native component used reanimated”
because the response will be awful and won’t work. and you could go back and forth with it forever and it won’t make a difference. the reason is it’s trained on a lot of stuff that’s outdated so it’ll keep giving you code that maybe would have worked 4 years ago. and even then, it can’t hold too much context so complex applications just won’t work
BUT certain things it’s really good. for example I need to write a script for work. i use fish shell but sometimes i don’t know the proper syntax or everything fish is capable of
so I ask
how to test, using fish, if an “images.zip” file exists in $target_dir
it’ll pump out
if test -f "$target_dir/images.zip"
echo "File exists."
else
echo "File does not exist."
end
which gives me what i needed in order to place it into the script i was writing.
or for example if you want to convert a bash script to a fish script (or vice versa), it’ll do a great job
so tldr:
it’s a tool. it’s how you use it. i’ve used it a lot. i find great value in it. but you must be realistic about its limitations. it’s not as great as people say- it’s a fancy search engine. it’s also not as bad as people say.
as for whether it’s good or bad for society, i think good. or at least will be good eventually. was the search engine a bad thing for society? i think being able to look up stuff whenever you want is a good thing. of course you could make the argument kids don’t go to libraries anymore… and maybe that’s sorta bad. but i think the trade-off is definitely worth it
I was in the same boat a while ago when I had to use React for remaking a UI (was reworking the whole backend). I’ve never tried writing something in JS/TS, so it was super helpful having Copilot guide my hand. Took me a day but had a beautiful little interactive window by the end of it!
I’m in the same boat. Chat gpt is great for little bits of code where you forgot how to do X Y or Z, especially when there’s a lot of nuance.
Or if you need to ask it a hyper specific question as Lin as there’s been 5 people out there asking the 5 pieces of your question, it will combine them into the one answer you want.
Also it sure ain’t perfect, and anyone who thinks it will wholesale replace any skilled job is an idiot. It can assist someone and make them more efficient, but it won’t replace them.
i’ve used it fairly consistently for the last year or so. i didn’t actually start using it until chatgpt 4 and when openai offered the $20 membership
i think AI is a tool. like any other tool, your results vary depending on how you use it
i think it’s really useful for specific intents
example, as a fancy search engine. yesterday I was watching Annie from 1999 with my girlfriend and I was curious about the capitalist character. i asked chatgpt the following question
it gave me context. it showed examples of the types of capitalist the character was based on. and it informed me that the first billionaire was in 1916.
very useful for this type of inquiry.
other things i like using it for are to help coding. but there’s a huge caveat here. some thing it’s very helpful for… and some things it’s abysmal for.
for example i can’t ask it “can you help me write a nice animation for a react native component used reanimated”
because the response will be awful and won’t work. and you could go back and forth with it forever and it won’t make a difference. the reason is it’s trained on a lot of stuff that’s outdated so it’ll keep giving you code that maybe would have worked 4 years ago. and even then, it can’t hold too much context so complex applications just won’t work
BUT certain things it’s really good. for example I need to write a script for work. i use fish shell but sometimes i don’t know the proper syntax or everything fish is capable of
so I ask
it’ll pump out
which gives me what i needed in order to place it into the script i was writing.
or for example if you want to convert a bash script to a fish script (or vice versa), it’ll do a great job
so tldr:
it’s a tool. it’s how you use it. i’ve used it a lot. i find great value in it. but you must be realistic about its limitations. it’s not as great as people say- it’s a fancy search engine. it’s also not as bad as people say.
as for whether it’s good or bad for society, i think good. or at least will be good eventually. was the search engine a bad thing for society? i think being able to look up stuff whenever you want is a good thing. of course you could make the argument kids don’t go to libraries anymore… and maybe that’s sorta bad. but i think the trade-off is definitely worth it
I was in the same boat a while ago when I had to use React for remaking a UI (was reworking the whole backend). I’ve never tried writing something in JS/TS, so it was super helpful having Copilot guide my hand. Took me a day but had a beautiful little interactive window by the end of it!
I’m in the same boat. Chat gpt is great for little bits of code where you forgot how to do X Y or Z, especially when there’s a lot of nuance.
Or if you need to ask it a hyper specific question as Lin as there’s been 5 people out there asking the 5 pieces of your question, it will combine them into the one answer you want.
Also it sure ain’t perfect, and anyone who thinks it will wholesale replace any skilled job is an idiot. It can assist someone and make them more efficient, but it won’t replace them.