It's not about being fast, quick or easy but about real, true and not fake.

That story is pretty cool. Not the story itself, but the fact that it generated that.

I'll add that is a big leap beyond my cool wildlife pics.

I use it every day.

I needed to find an old gasket an old, old piece of equipment. I could search the internet and might get lucky finding what I need...eventually. AI will search the internet 100,000X faster than I can and return the part I'm looking for in 5 seconds.

I needed to write job descriptions for a plumbing mechanic and an HVAC mechanic for positions we have open. AI searched the internet and gave me a really good combination of hundreds of job descriptions. I had to tweak it a little but that was much easier than me writing one from scratch and missing something important.

I needed to know what size column would support a particular load - AI gave me the answer and three pages of calculations on shear, buckling strength, and other stuff to back it up.

I wanted to build an electro-fishing machine from an old crank telephone magneto. I searched and searched for info on what voltage and current was effective. AI found the info and gave me a brief summary in seconds.

I'm getting older and words aren't as easy to find in my brain - Dr. said it was likely from having covid and not just age - so I ask AI all the time: "What is the word that means X but is used mostly when talking about Y?" AI immediately gives me 5 words that are better than the one I was looking for.

I'm not a great writer. Facts and numbers - I'm good. Words - not my thing. I had AI write a letter of recommendation for an employee who was looking for another job. I listed the things he does for us and AI wrote a better letter than I could. I had to tweak it but having a letter to start with is so much easier than staring at a blank screen

For me, AI does what I could do but 100X faster.

But.....

As good as AI is as a tool, it's going to be just as good as a weapon.

You can ask it to write a materials list for a 40x60 pole barn and it will tell it to you, to include how many screws you will need. I haven't tried yet, but i suspect if you say write it to building code for xxxxx zip code it will do it. Assuming that info is somewhere on the www..

It really all about the prompts you give it.

You can take a document written in legalese and ask it to convert it into layman's terms that will do it.

Ol dad

AI will replace a lot of jobs, if I was choosing a career I'd be careful.

For those of you using AI, how are you doing it? Where do you go to ask your questions?

Say I wanted to know who bought vacant farmland between 35 and 165 acres in Lewis County, Missouri in 2024? Who sold it, who bought it, what date and how much they paid?

Where would you go to find all that?

In science fiction and popular culture, there are a few examples of how Hollyweird and some other futurists have portrayed this. Plenty of examples, but one that comes to mind is Iron Man in the Marvel series. Tony Stark was already smart, but made much smarter thru AI. First it was Jarvis.........then in later movies, Friday. He asked questions and they have him answers. They went on to help him make stuff, run diagnostics and gave him instant answers to complex problems and questions.

AI taking over the world faces a bigger problem. Where will AI get the electrical power to run itself if not for humans building and running the power plants?

Although some of that is considered public record, AI may not be able to provide it. For instance ownership name and sale dates may only be accessible over the world wide web via a subscription to the assessors website. Therefore it would not be able to access it to provide the information. On the other hand if it was listed on Zillow or a brokerage website then it is possible for AI to locate it.

Ol dad

This has been a really fun conversation to read. I am inclined to agree with the many who say that, like any other technology, AI will be either good or bad based on the objectives of the user. However, having had a fair amount of experience with humans (myself included), I have a fairly negative view of human nature and our ability to wield power responsibly, and so while I think AI may be a boon in some cases, I think it will be a bane in many more. Glory and ruin, just like the rest of the human experience, just a new way to realize both.

To those who'd say "move on or get left behind": are there not places that you don't want to go? Are there directions in which our society is headed, destinations that they want to reach to which you'd say, "I think I'd rather be left behind."? Generally, people are happy to see "progress" in society, but it is certainly possible to make progress in the wrong direction, isn't it? (For example, most of our modern culture views trapping as backwards, old-fashioned, and unnecessary. All of us here, as a community of trappers, are happy to be left behind in this case. Right?) Now, I don't really think that we have any way to stop humanity's hunger for newer and more powerful technology, but that doesn't mean that I must participate in it willingly. I also don't think that there's a viable way to disconnect from society altogether (aside from retreating to the woods and becoming a self-sufficient hermit, which may be fun, but would be just as irresponsible as blind trust in any and all new technology), so navigating this situation will require wisdom and discernment on the part of the individuals or communities involved. That puts us back at the previous paragraph...

The advent of AI is just the latest in a long chain of human technological advancements. Many would argue that the general trend here is one of humans evolving, moving on to newer and better ways of being. I rather think I'd call this a chain of human devolution. Progress, yes. But progress that actually leads us away from being truly human. I don't think we're moving toward a better way of being, I think we're really moving along a path that leads to non-being. Let me explain. Modern society is a result of three revolutions. First is the financial revolution of about 500 years ago with the invention of double-ledger accounting. This moved the primary measure of wealth (which provides for and maintains our basic well-being and sustenance) away from the realm of tangible goods that could be made or obtained through human work, and into the realm of intangible numbers on a ledger (nowadays not even on paper, just numbers on a screen). The second revolution was the industrial revolution of 200ish years ago. Here we moved our source of power (the ability to do work) away from food and bodies (of humans and animals) toward fuel and machinery. The most recent revolution is computational, where we have traded the storage of knowledge and wisdom in human minds for access to information on computer systems. AI is just the latest step in the computational revolution (probably...I think...), where we aren't just storing information on computers, we're trying to outsource the very act of thinking itself to computational machines. We seem to think that the best way to live as humans is to replace all of our basic human functions with machines! The best way to be human is to stop doing all of the things that humans do, to completely replace ourselves! If humans exist in order to use our minds and bodies in a tangible world to do work that benefits us and our communities, then perhaps replacing our minds, bodies, and tangible wealth isn't the best way to be human.

One last thought. Many are worried about humanity becoming enslaved to our own inventions with the advent of AI. But...aren't we already there? Don't most of us in the Modern West spend our entire waking life slaving away in order to make enough money to buy and maintain the technological inventions that have replaced us? All of those inventions that do our work for us (cars, lawn mowers, combines, dishwashers, electric bills), that think for us and keep us entertained (TV, subscriptions, smart phones, computers), that store our wealth and protect our well-being (mortgages, insurance, bank account numbers, stock market investments) - all of them, are they not a result of our own technological progress? Are our lives, even our entire society, not built around the desire to obtain and maintain them? No, friends, we are already enslaved. In our endless quest for a better life, we have sacrificed living itself.