AI for Technophobes

[Steve Maskery]

My partner is the least tech-literate person I have ever met. It drives me mad. She does know:

How to write and send an email, but don't even think about CC or BCC
How to spend hours doom-scrolling Facebook
How to talk to her sister on Messenger
How to use Google to search for Useless Stuff.

I have yet to succeed in teaching her how to use Copy and Paste. After ten years. Yes really.

The other day she was asking me about AI. I don't know much about it myself, TBH. But she is into poetry, so I suggested that she ask Copilot to write a poem. I suggested she chose a theme (Henry VIII) how many words (300) and the style (Bob Dylan). We were both pretty impressed with the output,10 seconds later.

She then asked it to write a letter of termination to an emplyee, in the style of Bob Dylan's Baby Blue. It did. She was over the moon.

Sheila: "How can it do that so quickly? Is there a robot at the other end?"

Me: "Yes. You've seen those Chinese robots that can do backflips or run a marathon? Well there is a big warehouse with thousands of them in. But they each have 20 fingers on each hand, which is how they can type so quickly".

Sheila: "Wow"

Me: "Yes, but it is a very environmentally unfriendly technology, requiring enormous amounts of energy and water. Your poem has probably just caused the extinction of several species of earthworm".

It was quite some time before she became supicious. I then pointed out that she should not believe everything she is told, especially by AI. Or even me.

S

 

[Malc2098]

You little tinker!

 

[Lons]

Careful Steve or she'll start to think you're really an AI imposter.

 

[DaveL]

You little tinker!

Have you not met Steve?
His is definitely a big tinker

 

[Steve Maskery]

Have you not met Steve?
His is definitely a big tinker

Cheeky! But unfortunately factually accurate...
S

 

[Cabinetman]

I enjoyed that, most amusing thank you.

 

[Eric the Viking]

Maskery, you are disgraceful!

Fancy being prepared to destroy an entire species of earthworm just to tease your other half. And Dylan, to boot.

After that revelation I shall not donate another penny to your teaching Kickstarter. Those green aliens can jolly well learn how to scary sharpen their plane irons from someone else, such as Paul Sellers or Katz-Moses.

 

[Spectric]

I then pointed out that she should not believe everything she is told, especially by AI.

No one should believe anything at first because you find there is so much bad information that is wrong, misleading or just there to earn footfall and AI is now the weapon of choice for many scammers and dodgy web sites. Who will believe anyone and you even get these AI bots on the phone which means you are actually talking to a wall, they are as much use as a plastic saw.

Why do they use such misleading names, AI is artificial but not inteligent just like social media is really nothing more than unsocial media, we are over abusing the language and allowing to much interpretation. Here are some that are really annoying, you go into a cafe with the missus and get greeted by " hey guys" , you then have to clarify the fact that one of you is female so not a guy. Then what is this latest nonsense where people use unfinished sentences, "my bad" and you are left wondering what is the missing word, is it breath, back, luck or what. It seems to be the result of mobile phone slang to shorten things but in the process destroying any meaning. A better phrase is " Sorry my mistake" which is obvious to everyone. You get the feelng it could be some underworld slang from the gangs where they communicate in some code only they know..

 

[Windows]

I love a good rant. I think “My bad” was popularised in the ‘90s though.

 

[Guineafowl21]

I find it quite useful, getting a lot of fixit jobs from neighbours, etc. Recently, I asked it to find me a flywheel key and blade bolt for some old rusty mower, and it found them for me! Talk about doom-scrolling Facebook, I used to have to doom-scroll for spare parts.

Example 2: “spec me SWA for a 50A supply to the workshop, x metres away”. Boom; done. I did back-check the calculations, but it still saved time.

Example 3: “I’m planting courgettes in a tunnel; advise me on how to prevent blossom-end rot” and we got into a whole thread about improving root wetting, removing excess leaves and training them vertically to improve transpiration. My very own Monty Don.

 

[AJB Temple]

We use AI quite a bit for letter drafting. The drawback is that AI tends to throw the kitchen sink at everything and you can tell it's AI, which I see as a negative. We often edit down a lot. It is very good for doing Insta posts etc - which we use a fair bit in our business and business related social media. My wife has embraced it fully.

 

[TrimTheKing]

I find it quite useful, getting a lot of fixit jobs from neighbours, etc. Recently, I asked it to find me a flywheel key and blade bolt for some old rusty mower, and it found them for me! Talk about doom-scrolling Facebook, I used to have to doom-scroll for spare parts.

Example 2: “spec me SWA for a 50A supply to the workshop, x metres away”. Boom; done. I did back-check the calculations, but it still saved time.

Example 3: “I’m planting courgettes in a tunnel; advise me on how to prevent blossom-end rot” and we got into a whole thread about improving root wetting, removing excess leaves and training them vertically to improve transpiration. My very own Monty Don.

AI is/can be extremely useful, but is only as good as the training data and sources it uses to pull its answers. You should ALWAYS validate and fact check its responses, but as GF says this is often much faster than doing the initial research yourself.

For instance, I have learned a LOT about lawn care/pitch maintenance over the past couple of years that I've been volunteer groundsman for my football club (as well ad Club Secretary and manager of both my kids' teams...

We have recently invested in some serious machinery, funded by way of grants and club funds, and am working on getting a written schedule of works across the year to maintain and improve our pitches.

I have used ChatGPT to help with this, after prepping some comprehensive prompts to ask it to take into account sqm of grass, machinery we own, anything we may need to hire, and asked it to pull together a calendar of works across slitting, solid tine aeration, fertilising, herbicide, seeding etc. Tell me when and how often I need to do each, volume of products required at required feed rates etc.

The output is staggering, and the fact checking much quicker than Googling a million different sources to pull together the schedule from my own works.

Like any of these things, don't believe everything it tells you, don't expect it to be a magic bullet, don't expect it to solve world hunger (or by the same token create SkyNet and consume humanity) but use it as an extension to your own intelligence and it cfan me a massive timesaver.