I am so frustrated by every boomer (in spirit, not necessarily in age) complaining they ‘tried AI/chatgpt’ once or twice

[Anonymous]

Every one, OP?

Didn’t chat tell you not to over-generalize?

[Anonymous]

Eh. I agree with boomers (millennial in tech that uses AI a lot). To me, it's most garbage, some diamonds in the rough, some time saving. I call ChatGPT my dumbest employee and it is.

[Anonymous]

I am a gen xer and I work with twenty somethings and I am shocked at how bad they are with aI. Many of them never use it and many misunderstand it or give up easily. It does countless things for me and right now I have a team of agents running designing a range of code, documents and other items (images I have not figured out mostly but wait 6 months). My kids, who are teens, don't know how to use it either. I find usage is more tied to how much you understand computers vs age. This is weird because most tech advances are very age dependent and adopters are younger. But honestly, my mom who is a boomer is pretty good with aI even if she claims she doesn't know how to use it. she writes presentations for her book club, writes letters of recommendation with it and shops really well. It is so not a boomer problem.

[Anonymous]

They most likely already know how to write so why would they need to use it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

But AI tools are highly sensitive to:

How specific the prompt is

Whether you give context

Whether you refine the output

Whether you iterate

The people who get the most value treat it like a collaborative tool, not a magic oracle.

The problem with this is that if you're reasonably intelligent, it's much easier to just do it yourself. I imagine AI is helpful for people who can't think for themselves or write at all, which is a sizable enough cohort.

I have to say I disagree with this. Uniformly, the very smartest people I know are the ones most impressed by, and most able to get value out of, interacting with AI. It’s not always right; the prose usually leaves something to be desired; you have to double check anything materially important. But: it’s fast, fast, fast; it basically has memorized the entire internet and vast quantities of other data; it has a different perspective on a lot of issues that can shake loose important insights in the back and forth (a simulated perspective, yes, but that doesn’t make it not useful); and just interacting with it often forces a person to frame their own thoughts more clearly than they otherwise would, in an interface many times faster than interaction with a human colleague and without the need to manage the many other issues that are in play when you talk to a real person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They most likely already know how to write so why would they need to use it?

Because it takes the 20 minutes to do 5 min of work,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They most likely already know how to write so why would they need to use it?

Because it takes the 20 minutes to do 5 min of work,

What are you going to do with that time saved?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They most likely already know how to write so why would they need to use it?

Because it takes the 20 minutes to do 5 min of work,

Every time my coworker sends me “here’s what ChatGPT came up with,” he proves how little he cares, how unimportant his project is, and how expendable he is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But AI tools are highly sensitive to:

How specific the prompt is

Whether you give context

Whether you refine the output

Whether you iterate

The people who get the most value treat it like a collaborative tool, not a magic oracle.

The problem with this is that if you're reasonably intelligent, it's much easier to just do it yourself. I imagine AI is helpful for people who can't think for themselves or write at all, which is a sizable enough cohort.

I have to say I disagree with this. Uniformly, the very smartest people I know are the ones most impressed by, and most able to get value out of, interacting with AI. It’s not always right; the prose usually leaves something to be desired; you have to double check anything materially important. But: it’s fast, fast, fast; it basically has memorized the entire internet and vast quantities of other data; it has a different perspective on a lot of issues that can shake loose important insights in the back and forth (a simulated perspective, yes, but that doesn’t make it not useful); and just interacting with it often forces a person to frame their own thoughts more clearly than they otherwise would, in an interface many times faster than interaction with a human colleague and without the need to manage the many other issues that are in play when you talk to a real person.

There it is. AI solves very specific kinds of problems, one of which is not wanting to deal with humans. Another is not having learned to organize your thoughts and consider whether your questions to others are clear. People who don't have those problems don't see value in it. People who do have those problems can't imagine why the others don't love this tool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But AI tools are highly sensitive to:

How specific the prompt is

Whether you give context

Whether you refine the output

Whether you iterate

The people who get the most value treat it like a collaborative tool, not a magic oracle.

The problem with this is that if you're reasonably intelligent, it's much easier to just do it yourself. I imagine AI is helpful for people who can't think for themselves or write at all, which is a sizable enough cohort.

I have to say I disagree with this. Uniformly, the very smartest people I know are the ones most impressed by, and most able to get value out of, interacting with AI. It’s not always right; the prose usually leaves something to be desired; you have to double check anything materially important. But: it’s fast, fast, fast; it basically has memorized the entire internet and vast quantities of other data; it has a different perspective on a lot of issues that can shake loose important insights in the back and forth (a simulated perspective, yes, but that doesn’t make it not useful); and just interacting with it often forces a person to frame their own thoughts more clearly than they otherwise would, in an interface many times faster than interaction with a human colleague and without the need to manage the many other issues that are in play when you talk to a real person.

DP. The “entire internet” is riddled with errors. If humans can’t take the time to write something, it signals to me that it’s not worth my time to read it. When I read something and detect AI (and I can tell), I stop reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They most likely already know how to write so why would they need to use it?

Because it takes the 20 minutes to do 5 min of work,

Every time my coworker sends me “here’s what ChatGPT came up with,” he proves how little he cares, how unimportant his project is, and how expendable he is.

Lol. I am finding it eerie when people send me AI-influenced e-mails. I'm always wondering whether they needed a crutch or why the message warranted AI.

I have learned how to create similar messages but have no reason to send them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But AI tools are highly sensitive to:

How specific the prompt is

Whether you give context

Whether you refine the output

Whether you iterate

The people who get the most value treat it like a collaborative tool, not a magic oracle.

The problem with this is that if you're reasonably intelligent, it's much easier to just do it yourself. I imagine AI is helpful for people who can't think for themselves or write at all, which is a sizable enough cohort.

I have to say I disagree with this. Uniformly, the very smartest people I know are the ones most impressed by, and most able to get value out of, interacting with AI. It’s not always right; the prose usually leaves something to be desired; you have to double check anything materially important. But: it’s fast, fast, fast; it basically has memorized the entire internet and vast quantities of other data; it has a different perspective on a lot of issues that can shake loose important insights in the back and forth (a simulated perspective, yes, but that doesn’t make it not useful); and just interacting with it often forces a person to frame their own thoughts more clearly than they otherwise would, in an interface many times faster than interaction with a human colleague and without the need to manage the many other issues that are in play when you talk to a real person.

This doesn’t contradict what PP said. Think about it.

[Anonymous]

Can't wait for boomers and genx to go dead they are the two worst ignorant generations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But AI tools are highly sensitive to:

How specific the prompt is

Whether you give context

Whether you refine the output

Whether you iterate

The people who get the most value treat it like a collaborative tool, not a magic oracle.

The problem with this is that if you're reasonably intelligent, it's much easier to just do it yourself. I imagine AI is helpful for people who can't think for themselves or write at all, which is a sizable enough cohort.

I have to say I disagree with this. Uniformly, the very smartest people I know are the ones most impressed by, and most able to get value out of, interacting with AI. It’s not always right; the prose usually leaves something to be desired; you have to double check anything materially important. But: it’s fast, fast, fast; it basically has memorized the entire internet and vast quantities of other data; it has a different perspective on a lot of issues that can shake loose important insights in the back and forth (a simulated perspective, yes, but that doesn’t make it not useful); and just interacting with it often forces a person to frame their own thoughts more clearly than they otherwise would, in an interface many times faster than interaction with a human colleague and without the need to manage the many other issues that are in play when you talk to a real person.

There it is. AI solves very specific kinds of problems, one of which is not wanting to deal with humans. Another is not having learned to organize your thoughts and consider whether your questions to others are clear. People who don't have those problems don't see value in it. People who do have those problems can't imagine why the others don't love this tool.

That’s a little dismissive. Take one recent use case of mine: i was getting ready to give a big presentation. I asked Chat GPT to grill me to ensure I was ready for it beforehand by coming up with the toughest questions it could. We did this for like two hours. You can’t really impose on another human to spend this much time practicing with you, and some of the questions were tough. At least in my experience, the quality of one’s thoughts improves when subject to this sort of adversarial testing. The result, improved human performance: better preparation and a better presentation than I would have made without interacting with AI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They most likely already know how to write so why would they need to use it?

Because it takes the 20 minutes to do 5 min of work,

What are you going to do with that time saved?

Right. Isn’t it your job?