AI is destroying our water reserves and spiking our electric bills.

It's best not to use it unless you are literally forced to do so by your job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No such thing as a "boomer in spirit." By saying this, you are admitting that you are simply using a term that designates an entire generation as an insult.

Not cool.

Most kids use boomer to mean out of touch


‘A person that is stubborn, stuck in the past, refuses to view another perspective and thinks they are always right due to their age rather than education.’

And that is ignorant and ageist.

Anonymous wrote:It’s been hyped up so much people expect to be amazed. When they use it falls so far below expectations, that they completely reject it.

Emerging technology is always like this. Remember the modems, slow, shrieking noise to connect? The first generation video conferencing set ups? The luggable laptop? The car satellite phone attached to the center console?

This. It’s a fine party trick for now. In 10 years or so, there definitely could be some utility.

So sorry you feel that way…better? I would rather say or type one word as a shortcut/adjective than to use 3+ words…hope you have the empathy to understand that.

No, the term is not a good way to describe fixed, narrow-minded thinking. Hoping some people can grow in their empathy.

My 79 year old mom LOVES chatgpt!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it odd that OP is so adamant on saying that people are infallible, but AI isn't. The tech bros have spent $40B on it and haven't made a profit. Remember the disastrous Meta live demonstration? Do you think Mark Zuckerburg allowed a bad prompt to be given live?

Huh? Microsoft has made a profit. nvidia obviously is doing extremely well. Google- also taking it in through AI driven ad boost. And of course Amazon and Azure. These are all AI driven product uses and hardware.

And no one said AI isn’t infallible but anyone who isn’t awestruck about what it can do is not using it correctly

Mmmkay.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-381-billion-rout-exposes-140007699.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHfXF7OYRp3W0SRsrt6NpGC7bTWRtDiFWphOvUInoztpR1CCL_AThUHQ75AWgIHJNatNgY8GGZHGmLnKrWbuwtf4VEdhxBIoeFagp_VTFlH9M4S9IshplZkPA9xw0mglvnREQF5FV3gl_OR4QSUAjJZutJxONsjNRxKhYXbDPghD

Anonymous wrote:No such thing as a "boomer in spirit." By saying this, you are admitting that you are simply using a term that designates an entire generation as an insult.

Not cool.

If the shoe fits…Some people give boomer in spirit vibes all the live long day. It is a very good way to describe fixed, narrow-minded thinking. We all know it doesn’t apply to every single person of the group.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it odd that OP is so adamant on saying that people are infallible, but AI isn't. The tech bros have spent $40B on it and haven't made a profit. Remember the disastrous Meta live demonstration? Do you think Mark Zuckerburg allowed a bad prompt to be given live?

Huh? Microsoft has made a profit. nvidia obviously is doing extremely well. Google- also taking it in through AI driven ad boost. And of course Amazon and Azure. These are all AI driven product uses and hardware.

And no one said AI isn’t infallible but anyone who isn’t awestruck about what it can do is not using it correctly

If using it correctly means you have to feed it perfect information, tweak the prompt until you know what you want, then review and correct the results... then it's not worth it.

Anonymous wrote:I find it odd that OP is so adamant on saying that people are infallible, but AI isn't. The tech bros have spent $40B on it and haven't made a profit. Remember the disastrous Meta live demonstration? Do you think Mark Zuckerburg allowed a bad prompt to be given live?

Huh? Microsoft has made a profit. nvidia obviously is doing extremely well. Google- also taking it in through AI driven ad boost. And of course Amazon and Azure. These are all AI driven product uses and hardware.

And no one said AI isn’t infallible but anyone who isn’t awestruck about what it can do is not using it correctly

I’ve seen:

70-year-olds using AI to draft legal letters brilliantly

And the letters were tested in litigation and won? Or they generated the letter and people said "wow that sounds really good!" because they were impressed by a bunch of jargon words?

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.

Well, I don't have to use it twice to hate it. I'll keep using my brain, which works fine. If you choose to outsource yours, I'll assume that yours doesn't.

Anonymous wrote:
This drivel you just posted is a perfect example of why ChatGPT is an emperor with no clothes. I wish Jeff would institute a policy that people who post on DCUM write their own words. You are wasting bandwidth and hogging up resources in Loudoun County Data Centers that could be put to better use.

I do have that policy. From our FAQ (which is linked on the left):

I like using ChatGPT or another AI system. Should I ask ChatGPT to answer a question and post the response here?

No. The value of DCUM and other forums is the input from actual humans. If posters wanted to get a response from ChatGPT, they would have asked it themselves. We will delete AI responses when we see them.

I don't delete the previous poster's AI response because it sort of proves the point of what is wrong with AI.

Please report any AI responses and I will remove them.

You said:
Someone is arguing on DCUM that boomers complaint after using ChatGPT once or twice that it failed to deliver good results and is not useful, what do you say to that and do you agree?

Answer:
That’s a really interesting DCUM-style debate 😊

Short answer: I don’t agree with the blanket dismissal, but I do understand where it comes from.

Here’s how I’d break it down:

1. Using ChatGPT once or twice is like using Google once in 1999
If someone typed a vague prompt like:

“Help me with my resume”

and got a generic answer, they might conclude:

“This is useless.”

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.

2. There is a learning curve (and that’s not generational)
This isn’t really about boomers. It’s about expectations.

Many people assume:

It should read their mind

It should know their situation

It should give a perfect, finished product in one shot

That’s not how it works.

It works better when you:

Give constraints

Give examples

Ask for revisions

Clarify tone, audience, format

The first interaction often is underwhelming because most people under-specify their request.

3. Some complaints are valid
There are legitimate reasons someone might be unimpressed:

They asked for something factual and got a confident but wrong answer.

They wanted deep domain expertise and got surface-level content.

They expected creativity and got generic output.

They tested it with something extremely niche.

If you only try it twice and both outputs feel generic, it’s understandable to think: “meh.”

4. The generational angle is a red herring
On DCUM (which, let’s be honest, loves a generational framing 😄), “boomers vs. everyone else” is easy bait.

But what actually predicts usefulness is:

Curiosity

Willingness to experiment

Comfort iterating

Understanding that prompting is a skill

I’ve seen:

70-year-olds using AI to draft legal letters brilliantly

25-year-olds who think it’s dumb because they asked one vague question

It’s not age. It’s how you use it.

5. Where I do agree with skeptics
AI is not:

A substitute for expertise in complex fields

A guaranteed source of truth

Always worth using for simple tasks

Automatically better than doing it yourself

If someone tried it for something trivial and saw no efficiency gain, their conclusion might be rational — for that use case.

My take
Saying “ChatGPT is useless because I tried it twice” is like saying:

“Excel is useless because my first spreadsheet didn’t help.”

“The internet is overrated because I couldn’t find what I wanted.”

It’s not that it’s automatically amazing.
It’s that it’s tool-shaped — and tools reward skill.

If you want a sharper debate-ready response for DCUM, I can draft one that’s:

Snappy and slightly snarky

Calm and analytical

Or politely devastating 😄