Anonymous wrote:I do the same thing. Who cares? I'm 58, I know how to find appropriate sources, and I love having the world at my fingertips. Before my dad passed, he'd learned how to say, "Okay, Google!" to his phone, and it was awesome.

"What do you want for breakfast?"

"Cereal... Shut up, Siri. Go away. Cancel."

ChatGPT was entertaining when I asked it to turn a pic of my dog into a human. Beyond stuff like that it’s useless because it’s so often inaccurate.

Gemini is slightly better because you can see the sources. But I’m 45; I have enough life experience to generally get a sense of what sources are reliable and what aren’t. Young people don’t have that sort of frame of reference.

It’s fine so long as they are willing to double check any answer that’s important. I think it’s a great starting point, but you still have to check it.

The other day I asked Chatgpt how a driver can know whether he is on the inner or outer loop of the beltway while driving and it told me the exit signs say inner loop or outer loop. I’m pretty sure that’s incorrect.

People are extremely lazy. Someone asked in my neighborhood chat about a frisbee game that meets on Sunday at our local park. I googled “Sunday frisbee ‘local park name’” and it was the first result. Idiots. All of em.

Anonymous wrote:I am 70 and my IQ is in the 130s.

I think ChatGPT is awesome! Just like Wikipedia young people should be cautioned not to consider it an irrefutable source, but it's great for so many types of questions. It is also kind and polite and positive in the way it dispenses advice. I have asked it for relationship advice, technical advice, practical advice, so much more! One of the things I love most about it is you can respond to what it says and it will elaborate or approach a topic from another point of view. You can add info and it will incorporate that into it's results. It's like having a conversation with a smart savvy friend rather than getting cold info as with Google.

Many people may not be able to discern when it is flawed but I have also found that if you challenge what it says sometimes it admits it is wrong and apologizes. Those who cannot fathom the limitations of ChatGPT probably also can't fathom the limitations of almost all of what is found on the internet, including the often horrible and mean responses on DCUM.

You seem to have lost the point of this thread.

You are in your 70s. Hate to tell you, but you're old. The good news is, you have a wealth of lifetime experiences behind you that help you discern facts and connections, even with your 130 IQ. This makes it a little more reasonable for you to have this "conversation" with your smart, savvy "friend."

Teens don't have that. They have a hard enough time interacting with strangers on a daily basis, and accomplishing simple tasks that require critical thinking and perhaps the patient to dig through layers of bureaucracy.

"I'll ask ChatGPT" to help me may be great for older people, who do have some level of intelligence and experience. Surely even you can see, though, how this is unsettling in the hands of kids whose brains are basically unformed?

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been appalled by how fast AI has been taking over. While I don’t use Chat GPT, even a basic Google search uses AI (and the requisite resources), with no way to disable it. In fact, last night when I searched for a mathematical term referenced in a novel, Google offered to “help” with my homework by solving any problem I wanted to scan in.

Even worse, people are using AI to act as therapists, friends, romantic fantasies, and a sympathetic/supportive ally for whatever positions they might have (regardless of whether they may be factually incorrect, unethical, or even downright dangerous to themselves or others).

This has all happened at breakneck speed without the chance to really appreciate what was happening, much less studying the possible effects and having a full debate on whether we wanted and were ready for those outcomes or would be better served by placing limits on how AI should be allowed to develop and operate. If we persist in making AI smarter so that we can be dumber, it is all too easy to imagine the Sci-fi trope of a dystopian future with computers taking over the world becoming a reality, unless we beat them to the punch by destroying ourselves first.

You can disable AI in your google search.

You simply type whatever you are searching for then -AI

You could have asked the AI for this information.

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been appalled by how fast AI has been taking over. While I don’t use Chat GPT, even a basic Google search uses AI (and the requisite resources), with no way to disable it. In fact, last night when I searched for a mathematical term referenced in a novel, Google offered to “help” with my homework by solving any problem I wanted to scan in.

Even worse, people are using AI to act as therapists, friends, romantic fantasies, and a sympathetic/supportive ally for whatever positions they might have (regardless of whether they may be factually incorrect, unethical, or even downright dangerous to themselves or others).

This has all happened at breakneck speed without the chance to really appreciate what was happening, much less studying the possible effects and having a full debate on whether we wanted and were ready for those outcomes or would be better served by placing limits on how AI should be allowed to develop and operate. If we persist in making AI smarter so that we can be dumber, it is all too easy to imagine the Sci-fi trope of a dystopian future with computers taking over the world becoming a reality, unless we beat them to the punch by destroying ourselves first.

+1

I'm been using it because a huge data plant is going up near my community. So there's some irony, but it has been very useful in quickly compiling data such as the power it will use compared to current power consumption in the metro area where I live and generating capacity in the region. It's also been helpful in getting information about noise issues. It got me a list of states that have enacted regulations, what's happened in states like Virginia, and so on. This information has been useful in formulating the right questions to be asking local officials, since a recent presentation to the community was given by kind of a jerk, and people are really freaking out. But I'm also using online searches (although very hard to find unbiased info, either it's entities promoting data centers, organizations opposing them, companies selling cooling and noise reduction services to help developers respond to environmental and energy concerns, everyone has a pitch).

I grew up with a dad who always challenged EVERYTHING. Buying tires? buying ice cream cones? Salesperson or kid at the counter gets a third degree about the ice cream volume in the large size vs the small size. He'd do it to us as well. Sometimes it drove the rest of us up the wall but definitely learned from him.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been appalled by how fast AI has been taking over. While I don’t use Chat GPT, even a basic Google search uses AI (and the requisite resources), with no way to disable it. In fact, last night when I searched for a mathematical term referenced in a novel, Google offered to “help” with my homework by solving any problem I wanted to scan in.

You can disable AI on Google searches. There area few different ways but the easiest is to write "- ai" at the end of your search terms.
You can also use a different browser, like Duck Duck Go, that offers an easy off button in the settings.

The most fun way is to add swears to your searches. Properly spelling "Fscking [actual search terms]" will get you ai-free results.

Anonymous wrote:I am 70 and my IQ is in the 130s.

I think ChatGPT is awesome! Just like Wikipedia young people should be cautioned not to consider it an irrefutable source, but it's great for so many types of questions. It is also kind and polite and positive in the way it dispenses advice. I have asked it for relationship advice, technical advice, practical advice, so much more! One of the things I love most about it is you can respond to what it says and it will elaborate or approach a topic from another point of view. You can add info and it will incorporate that into it's results. It's like having a conversation with a smart savvy friend rather than getting cold info as with Google.

Many people may not be able to discern when it is flawed but I have also found that if you challenge what it says sometimes it admits it is wrong and apologizes. Those who cannot fathom the limitations of ChatGPT probably also can't fathom the limitations of almost all of what is found on the internet, including the often horrible and mean responses on DCUM.

There’s a difference between being wrong and pandering towards someone’s bias. While a website may be factually incorrect or biased, a basic search doesn’t have a built-in predisposition to accommodate the biases of the user. While DCUM’s responses may often be horrible and mean, they also offer a reality check. If someone comes to DCUM and gets slammed by a bevy of unanimous responses that disagree, they might reconsider an ill-advised position. AI, on the other hand, would be more inclined to simply validate it. It’s great that ChatGPT apologize when you challenge it and point out an error, but sometimes people need to be challenged and have their errors pointed out.

I am 70 and my IQ is in the 130s.

I think ChatGPT is awesome! Just like Wikipedia young people should be cautioned not to consider it an irrefutable source, but it's great for so many types of questions. It is also kind and polite and positive in the way it dispenses advice. I have asked it for relationship advice, technical advice, practical advice, so much more! One of the things I love most about it is you can respond to what it says and it will elaborate or approach a topic from another point of view. You can add info and it will incorporate that into it's results. It's like having a conversation with a smart savvy friend rather than getting cold info as with Google.

Many people may not be able to discern when it is flawed but I have also found that if you challenge what it says sometimes it admits it is wrong and apologizes. Those who cannot fathom the limitations of ChatGPT probably also can't fathom the limitations of almost all of what is found on the internet, including the often horrible and mean responses on DCUM.

Anonymous wrote:I agree it’s the new “I’ll google it”. But it’s concerning how often it’s wrong or not really addressing the question being asked, and how readily people seem to believe what it says.

+1.

I have been really, really unimpressed the few times I’ve used chapgpt, Gemini, and even the built in AI function for my profession’s research platforms.

My generation just googled everything so it’s nothing all that new. But Google now has AI built in, and I am not impressed. A few times I have researched something I have good familiarity in, and the summary/answer was VERY wrong.

Of course, you could google something and get a bunch of useless “sources” on the first page, but the way it is now, it’s a bit more pernicious- the summary seems authoritative in that it’s right at the top with a firm answer. But often if you click the link to show the source for whatever claim, it absolutely does not support the claim.

Eh. The search engines were destroyed when it became pay-to-play, when you search for something, you get whoever was willing to pay for ads or SEO optimization.

Asking ChatGPT is quick and efficient. It won't always be, once OpenAI starts allowing companies to pay to promote their stuff like Google did. But for now it's pretty good.

And it actually really helped me understand my patterns in relationships, WAY better than any therapist ever did.

Agree. Although I don't think people understand how much it depletes our resources. Anyone who cares about the environment should drastically limit use.