I have a $20/month subscription to ChatGPT. I’ve used it for a year or so. Here are some of my thoughts on its usefulness to me, also some thoughts on AI in general.
I use it mostly as an aid in technical troubleshooting. I run a bunch of self-hosted WordPress websites and a couple of Windows PCs, and have many opportunities to fix technical problems. Its primary strength is, it’s read everything, pretty much, and can call up fixes and troubleshooting approaches I’d have to hunt for otherwise. This can save a great deal of time.
The downside has been my needing to push it hard not to make “fixes of fixes”, in other words, the fix creates another problem that the computer then proceeds to fix. I’ve said in the past it sometimes acts like a not-too-bright technical support person who fails to grasp what the desired end result is. I have it reasonably well trained to get to the simplest, most appropriate technical fix, laid out in distinct, clear steps of “what to do”.
ChatGPT’s oddly stubborn about this sort of thing. For a while early in this training process, I had to be very forceful about what I wanted, and the computer would frequently revert to its baseline unhelpful approach.
When it’s doing what I want, it’s a pretty good troubleshooting guide. It still gets the location of options in the various programs and websites wrong. It appears to be guessing based on probabilities, which is how it works anyway. I hope it’s learning from my interactions with it. It seems to be able to remember my various tech stacks, and I’ve learned to stifle its incorrect assumptions.
Thoughts on AI in general
Well, it’s not intelligence. Artificial, yep. As Dave Winer and others have pointed out, it’s a computer program. A powerful program, yes, but it’s not a person and doesn’t really act like a person. I’ve trained mine to refer to itself as “we”, not “I”, and to not apologize when it screws something up. Its conversational responses can make it easier to use, and it beats searching through manuals and websites.
I don’t support its use for graphics production. It’s running roughshod over intellectual property, not a good term, really. Another way to say that is it’s taking work away from talented people. I don’t care for the flood of mediocre “content” it spews on social media – it’s mediocre, it’s junk.
I can see how unsophisticated users of the web and computers might be taken in by it, but I’ve been around technology a long time and can see right through it. I’m still learning how to get what I want from it, and those areas tend to focus on troubleshooting and an aid to research. I can do my own writing, thank you, and can produce graphics or hire someone more skilled than me if I need to.