Technology

Count me in!

I’m a software engineer and GitHub Copilot as an AI pair programmer has vastly improved my productivity. Also, I use ChatGPT extensively to help with miscellaneous stuff. Apart from these two, I don’t really find other AI implementations useful.

I use chatgpt for things like debugging error codes but I have to be explicit with as much detail as possible or it will give me all sorts of inapplicable crap

Yeah? Well I fucking love it on my iPhone. It's summaries have been amazing, almost prescient. No, Siri hasn't turned my phone into a Holodeck yet but I'm okay with that.

I need AI summaries a lot less than I would prefer a smart mail filter to actually remove all the spam email and texts.

Can it generate weird porn locally?

The only thing I want AI (on my phone) to do is limit my notifications and make calendar events for me. I don't want to ask questions. I don't want to start conversations.

I want to open my phone and have 1 summary notification of things I received and things to do. I want the spammy ones to just be auto filtered because I never click on them.

I'd also love if I could choose when to manage all of these notifications with my AI assistant. The only back and forth I'd like is around scheduling if I need to make changes.

The only Galaxy AI feature I find even a bit amusing is Portrait Studio, which can turn a photo of someone into an AI generated comic or 3D picture. But only as long as it remains free, it's not something worth paying for.

I was excited to see what it could do on my iPhones but so far I have not liked anything. The notification summaries are useless, for instance.

I do wonder if AI is being used in the background in ways I don’t see, but I doubt it.

I think the article is missing the point on two levels.

First is the significance of this data, or rather lack of significance. The internet existed for 20-some years before the majority of people felt they had a use for it. AI is similarly in a finding-its-feet phase where we know it will change the world but haven't quite figured out the details. After a period of increased integration into our lives it will reach a tipping point where it gains wider usage, and we're already very close to that.

Also they are missing what I would consider the two main reasons people don't use it yet.

First, many people just don't know what to do with it (as was the case with the early internet). The knowledge/imagination/interface/tools aren't mature enough so it just seems like a lot of effort for minimal benefits. And if the people around you aren't using it, you probably don't feel the need.

Second reason is that the thought of it makes people uncomfortable or downright scared. Quite possibly with good reason. But even if it all works out well in the end, what we're looking at is something that will drive the pace of change beyond what human nature can easily deal with. That's already a problem in the modern world but we aint seen nothing yet. The future looks impossible to anticipate, and that's scary. Not engaging with AI is arguably just hiding your head in the sand, but maybe that beats contemplating an existential terror that you're powerless to stop.

Outside of some education and medical scenarios, I have yet to hear of any truly useful AI.