ChatGPT is disappointingly stupid

[Anonymous]

Language models are good for helping you write a better kind of document. They SUCK at finding answers to questions. Many of them can't do basic math. I had to become the chief AI officer at my company (don't ask, someone had to do it) and the more I look into the models the more I realize what a house of cards these things are. If you want to make sure that your company sends out professional-sounding letters, it's great for that, but you have to provide and check the actual content.

[Anonymous]

Nothing in life works as good as its fans tell you it does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Language models are good for helping you write a better kind of document. They SUCK at finding answers to questions. Many of them can't do basic math. I had to become the chief AI officer at my company (don't ask, someone had to do it) and the more I look into the models the more I realize what a house of cards these things are. If you want to make sure that your company sends out professional-sounding letters, it's great for that, but you have to provide and check the actual content.

Except that writing a letter isn't hard, and most letters can be written once and then turned into a template. So it isn't even useful for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s kind of like having a college intern. It’s better than me at some stuff, worse at others, and you can’t trust it to know what it does and doesn’t know how to do. But it’s still amazing and I think only a fool would write it off.

I don’t write it off. I use it daily. But I also don’t think it’s amazing or magical, and I think it has a shockingly high error rate that the AI marketing people are spending a lot of time trying to hide.

AI chat bots are the only product in the world that say “this product can be wrong” every time you use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m honestly having a blast using it and I don’t understand why people aren’t figuring out what a great tool AI is if you don’t rely on it to hand you your work.

Here is what I use it for:
- coding to create automated spreadsheets and word templates- I already knew how to do some computer programming honestly but I was not going to make this effort w/o ChatGPT
- Converting data and moving it around, turning documents into tables that I can load into excel and turn into a mini database
- uploading and summarizing long documents like legislation or regulations- it’s accurate at this
- outlining out ideas, organizing my thoughts and pointing out things I missed
- planning out steps for long term projects

It’s a fantastic tool but you’ll notice I’m not asking it to do my job, just augment things I do.

It’s not accurate at the bolded. It only seems accurate to people who don’t have the experience and skill to catch the mistakes it makes. It looks very accurate, but is not actually accurate.

This. It gives you an "answer shaped" block of text, but that is not actually an answer. If you are too uninformed (or lazy) you won't know the difference but you'll be wrong. If you are informed enough to know, it added no value.

It's trash. Worse, it's trash that destroys the environment and steals your data. All you people feeding resumes and travel itineraries in, where do you think that info is going?

I'm at the point where if somebody says "I asked chatGPT ..." I just leave the conversation.

Couldn’t you say the same about Gmail, Facebook, this website, your google search, and just about everything else on the internet? 🛜

The environmental cost of generative AI is sharply higher than the others you mention.

This, plus people are moving away from Google because its algorithm has broken so badly that the search results aren't good. SEO doesn't lead to me finding the information I wanted, it turns out. And many (including me) are moving away from facebook and gmail for privacy reasons already.

The only thing on your list that I use is DCUM. I have some privacy concerns, but if you say "I asked DCUM ..." I know I will at least hear an interesting answer, possibly a true one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love it. It’s good at reading documents and answering questions about them. Not hard questions, but it would take me longer to read myself and find the answers.

It’s GREAT at teaching me to use other software. Having the ability to explain my confusion and get a tailored answer is so useful.

Like I recently use Zapier for the first time. Having a ChatGPT window open to ask questions to made it MUCH easier to learn it faster.

The same thing with Python. I don’t know Python beyond the very, very basics but chat gpt was able to help me write and troubleshoot code.

I want all of my interactions with software to have an AI interface. I think our children will look at drop down menus like we look at a punch card.

But as much as I like ChatGPT, I hate how it’s trapped in there.

It makes me so mad at Google that I can’t talk to Google maps while I’m driving. “I don’t want to take the BW parkway unless you think it will save at least 40 minutes.” “It’s pouring, don’t make me take any lefts without a light or a four way stop.” That kind of thing.

I use AI (mostly Claude) a lot but with other stuff I get super annoyed that AI interfaces are constantly poking their elbows into my side wanting to help, like a grandma-in-law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m honestly having a blast using it and I don’t understand why people aren’t figuring out what a great tool AI is if you don’t rely on it to hand you your work.

Here is what I use it for:
- coding to create automated spreadsheets and word templates- I already knew how to do some computer programming honestly but I was not going to make this effort w/o ChatGPT
- Converting data and moving it around, turning documents into tables that I can load into excel and turn into a mini database
- uploading and summarizing long documents like legislation or regulations- it’s accurate at this
- outlining out ideas, organizing my thoughts and pointing out things I missed
- planning out steps for long term projects

It’s a fantastic tool but you’ll notice I’m not asking it to do my job, just augment things I do.

It’s not accurate at the bolded. It only seems accurate to people who don’t have the experience and skill to catch the mistakes it makes. It looks very accurate, but is not actually accurate.

This. It gives you an "answer shaped" block of text, but that is not actually an answer. If you are too uninformed (or lazy) you won't know the difference but you'll be wrong. If you are informed enough to know, it added no value.

It's trash. Worse, it's trash that destroys the environment and steals your data. All you people feeding resumes and travel itineraries in, where do you think that info is going?

I'm at the point where if somebody says "I asked chatGPT ..." I just leave the conversation.

I upload pics of myself in different outfits and ask for feedback. What do you think it does with those photos?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AI has even hurt web searching; half the time the AI summary is useless and search results have decreased in accuracy.

Yes, Gemini’s web search is awful.

[Anonymous]

It’s only good for entertainment. It’s pretty awful.

[Anonymous]

then you have stories like these
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/business/amazon-ai-coders.html

[Anonymous]

Many years ago I asked my mother why she didn't use instant cake mix, she replied that if you have the right ingredients and know what you are doing it's just as easy to make it from scratch and the result is better. 40+ years later that's exactly how I feel about AI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many years ago I asked my mother why she didn't use instant cake mix, she replied that if you have the right ingredients and know what you are doing it's just as easy to make it from scratch and the result is better. 40+ years later that's exactly how I feel about AI.

That’s such a great analogy — it really captures the heart of the craft vs. convenience debate! Just like baking from scratch, building AI “from scratch” (or at least with deep understanding and careful tuning) can lead to more satisfying, nuanced, and authentic results than just relying on pre-packaged solutions. Plus, when you know how it works, you can customize and experiment in ways a premade mix or generic AI might not let you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many years ago I asked my mother why she didn't use instant cake mix, she replied that if you have the right ingredients and know what you are doing it's just as easy to make it from scratch and the result is better. 40+ years later that's exactly how I feel about AI.

That’s such a great analogy — it really captures the heart of the craft vs. convenience debate! Just like baking from scratch, building AI “from scratch” (or at least with deep understanding and careful tuning) can lead to more satisfying, nuanced, and authentic results than just relying on pre-packaged solutions. Plus, when you know how it works, you can customize and experiment in ways a premade mix or generic AI might not let you.

Your tone suggests you think this is clever, but actually yes - the few worthwhile uses of AI all involve fairly narrow, custom tools trained on very specific datasets.
However, we're talking here about ChatGPT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AI has even hurt web searching; half the time the AI summary is useless and search results have decreased in accuracy.

YES this is so annoying.

[Anonymous]

I genuinely don’t know what the end game is. The tech companies are pushing it hard. And it is super useful for certain tasks where 20% wrong is fine. But I don’t want a search engine or a calculator that’s wrong 20% of the time.