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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3197 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 6, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Figured this is a good place to ask about "AI". I'm putting that in quotes because a lot of things that are called AI aren't actually. But here I'm referring to any tools that are marketed as AI. Let's put this out there first, I don't trust AI. I don't trust it with my personal data, I don't trust it to get things right, I'm annoyed with how ubiquitous it's becoming in online articles and internet comments. I think a lot of companies are way over-hyping their products.

And yet at my workplace, there was a webinar called "how can AI work for you". And there's this whole lineup of self-described experts in the industry trying to sell it as a productivity tool - like actual, reputable sources. So I'm thinking, I'm 100% a Luddite, I've never been an early adopter, but maybe I should be taking it seriously.

Yet despite all the breathless copy about how AI can do absolutely anything, I've found actual, tangible examples thin on the ground. So I thought I'd ask the Mottizens - are you using AI and how? Has it made your workflow better? Give me your success stories!

If it helps, we can say I'm in facilities management. So I do scheduling, purchasing, administrative stuff, light tech support, process write-ups, document management, and I have a stuffed tasklist of both recurring things and current one-time projects I'm working on.

I wanted to check one of the settings/capabilities on a robotic manipulator arm, but didn't know which menu it was buried in or how to access it. I knew that the procedure was laid out somewhere in one of four(ish?) manuals, each of which are 600+ pages. I asked copilot, and it gave me the correct step-by-step instructions on the first try.

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