As a software developer, the one usecase where it has been really useful for me is analyzing long and complex error logs and finding possible causes of the error. Getting it to write code sometimes works okay-ish, but more often than not it’s pretty crap. I don’t see any use for it in my personal life.

I think its influence is negative overall. Right now it might be useful for programming questions, but that’s only the case because it’s fed with Human-generated content from sites like Stackoverflow. Now those sites are slowly dying out due to people using ChatGPT and this will have the inverse effect that in the future, AI will have less useful training data which means it’ll become less useful for future problems, while having effectively killed those useful sites in the process.

Looking outside of my work bubble, its effect on academia and learning seems pretty devastating. People can now cheat themselves towards a diploma with ease. We might face a significant erosion of knowledge and talent with the next generation of scientists.

I absolutely hate AI. I’m a teacher and it’s been awful to see how AI has destroyed student learning. 99% of the class uses ChatGPT to cheat on homework. Some kids are subtle about it, others are extremely blatant about it. Most people don’t bother to think critically about the answers the AI gives and just assume it’s 100% correct. Even if sometimes the answer is technically correct, there is often a much simpler answer or explanation, so then I have to spend extra time un-teaching the dumb AI way.

People seem to think there’s an “easy” way to learn with AI, that you don’t have to put in the time and practice to learn stuff. News flash! You can’t outsource creating neural pathways in your brain to some service. It’s like expecting to get buff by asking your friend to lift weights for you. Not gonna happen.

Unsurprisingly, the kids who use ChatGPT the most are the ones failing my class, since I don’t allow any electronic devices during exams.

Other than endless posts from the general public telling us how amazing it is, peppered with decision makers using it to replace staff and then the subsequent news reports how it told us that we should eat rocks, or some variation thereof, there’s been no impact whatsoever in my personal life.

In my professional life as an ICT person with over 40 years experience, it’s helped me identify which people understand what it is and more specifically, what it isn’t, intelligent, and respond accordingly.

The sooner the AI bubble bursts, the better.

For work, I teach philosophy.

The impact there has been overwhelmingly negative. Plagiarism is more common, student writing is worse, and I need to continually explain to people at an AI essay just isn’t their work.

Then there’s the way admin seem to be in love with it, since many of them are convinced that every student needs to use the LLMs in order to find a career after graduation. I also think some of the administrators I know have essentially automated their own jobs. Everything they write sounds like GPT.

As for my personal life, I don’t use AI for anything. It feels gross to give anything I’d use it for over to someone else’s computer.