Close encounters with AI

 

To be honest I feel quite ambivalent about AI and largely avoid its use, where I can. I opt to ignore the AI information presented within search engines; I don't usually use it to create anything etc etc. I'm worried about copyright issues for instance, and how it's already replacing garden writers with extensive knowledge. Articles can be generated quickly, often with dubious content which is often published without fact checking first. I'm reminded of a central tenet from my time in IT; Garbage In, Garbage Out (aka GIGO), right?

However NAH recently benefitted from AI technology when a surgeon assisted by a robot using CT scan data peered deep into his lung and determined the small lump there is benign, thus avoiding him losing around a third of his lung. The latter operation was the preferred approach until the robot technique was developed and often the removed material revealed a benign lump rather than a tumour. We're quite relieved he didn't have to go through all that! I'm also sure my quick result obtained from my breast cancer screening last year was probably sped up with the  use of this technology too.

My crafting friends have also used it to answer some of my questions e.g. how to use PVA glue to stiffen a piece of crochet ready for hanging.

I can see good things can come by it, but I'm scared of the bad things, so I've stayed away from consciously using it myself - who knows how much I've been using it unconsciously? Quite a bit, I bet.

However, yesterday a number of my online friends played around with CHATGPT to create a fun characterisation of themselves. I resisted joining them pretty much all day, but eventually gave in to temptation thus proving I'm pretty shallow when it comes to the use of new technology. You can see the results above of me as a 'confident gardener in a blooming paradise' - CHATGPT's title, not mine.

How did I get the result? Surprisingly easy to enter the information, fairly long by comparison to generate the result which left me feeling pretty uneasy about the resources I'd used up in generating this piece of frivolity.

Here's the screen shots of what I entered...

As you can see I needed a bit of hand holding seeing it was my first time. which then lead to this next entry...

... which produced the result you see at the top of this post. NAH thinks it looks nothing like me and it's hilarious. He's also printed out a copy to laminate and put in our downstairs loo. Personally I love its positivity and I wish I could grow hair like that!

I still feel guilty about using it for something fun and frivolous though.

How do you feel about AI? Do you use it in your everyday life, if so, how?