What does AI actually do for us?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
My employer is pushing hard for us to start using AI in our daily work. They've made investments in the IT aspect of it and now they are heavily investing in training us all in how to use it. But no one is clear on how exactly this can help us with even the most basic things, much less imagine how it will revolutionize anyting. Is this just me getting old and not knowing how this tool can improve things, or do the rest of you also not understand how this is supposed to increase our productivity and make our lives better?
|
Anonymous
| You're training AI to do your job. |
Anonymous
| It steals your job at work and your soul at home. |
Anonymous
Fair enough, but HOW? Currently, it can't do much of anything to even help me stay organized, much less do my job. |
Anonymous
|
I think the best uses of AI are very role-specific. I don't, for example, use AI to write (I like my own thoughts, thanks very much). But I do a lot of work in data visualizations and AI has saved me SO much time in creating new visualizations in a variety of platforms. It's my idea, it's my plan (and I do extensive QC checks on the data to make sure it's not hallucinating things) but I don't need to click all the buttons in Looker to make it go.
So, what kind of work do you do? People may have ideas where it can help. |
Anonymous
|
What do you do for work?
My husband is an electrical engineer and AI will basically take over his job in the near future. Luckily he's very senior with a ton of institutional knowledge and contacts but the fact is the work that used to take him months now takes him a day. For computer-related things like coding, AI is the future. I'm a lawyer and I have used it for legal research (Bloomberg has an AI assistant that can be helpful for pinpointing citations), to process large amounts of data (it is very good at reading trust documents, partnership agreements, etc.), to generate slides for webinars (I like to keep my slides very high level and have people listen to what I'm saying rather than just reading what's on the screen), etc. Maybe if we know what you do we can help you come up with some ideas. Also, if you're looking to start out, I'd suggest going to Claude and asking some questions. I use my talk-to-text feature so I don't have to type (faster) and also because it's easier for me to just say what I'm thinking than to try to find the best way to word it. It ends up feeling somewhat conversational and while I have corrected it A LOT, I still find it useful for organizing thoughts, narrowing down issues. |
Anonymous
| It just depends on what your job is. |
Anonymous
AI is not meant to “make YOUR life better,” OP. AI is meant to replace you. Meaning: you will not have your job soon. If you have a position which can be done remotely, AI can do your job. |
Anonymous
My position can be done remotely some of the time, not all the time. AI at it's current state can't even make my job easier much less replace me. SO I guess we are all just test subjects being forced to train our replacements. |
Anonymous
| At my office the productivity gains aren't believable, they have created an environment where people are rewarded for making false claims. I imagine that it's the same elsewhere. Project teams that are struggling are bragging about their AI usage. These are the same people who were so sure that Agile was the solution to their problems. I'm not sure if management is that gullible or if they are willfully touting this bunk, probably the later. |
Anonymous
|
OP, I struggle to find ways to incorporate AI into anything. At a dinner, someone told me she uses AI to help gain ideas for travel plans, such as places to stay, visit, eat, etc. AI is supposed to be good at summaries, but I don't trust it for professional work. And I won't upload my own content to the AI servers because it then becomes usable in the AI model without concern for your copyright. I say that, but then it is a lie, because I uploaded one of my papers and I asked it to evaluate the argument. I also had 10 other people look at the paper. But I took 1-2 good tips from the AI feedback. I don't want to do that. I was just nervous and worked a long time on it.
The thing I found helpful today was that my daughter is having trouble in algebra and can't always write out by hand. I used AI to take my crappy photos and spit out a text document of her homework so that we could do it on the computer without me having to retype the whole thing. Her school does mostly paper homework and does not post assignments online. I think that was a good use of AI. It saved me an hour and a headache. And 10 swear words at her teacher for not adhering to her 504 plan. |
Anonymous
|
My job as an attorney is uniquely unsuitable for AI, so I really never use it at work.
I use it occasionally to provide high level overviews of non-work topics. One of my kids has recurrent ear infections, so recently I asked Claude to give me an idea of the likely options will we have before his ENT appointment in a few weeks. |
Anonymous
I'm an attorney as well and there are things AI can help you with. What kind of law do you practice? I will often get incorrect or incomplete answers if I ask specific questions, but if you go in expecting that and push back it can be useful. One thing it's great at is document review, for example. |
Anonymous
I’m a prosecutor. Most of my job is conducting grand jury investigations. Grand jury materials, which include basically anything we receive pursuant to a subpoena, cannot go into AI. |
Anonymous
Exactly. Now you are catching on. The U.S. economy has long been largely a “service economy,” as opposed to a manufacturing economy. Many, if not most, services can be automated and/or replaced by AI. You don’t have to like it. But, you are required to adapt to it. That might mean you will lose your job. |