25+ yr Java/JS dev
Linux novice - running Ubuntu (no windows/mac)

  • 0 Posts
  • 21 Comments
Joined 6 months ago
cake
Cake day: October 14th, 2024

help-circle

  • Mate, I enjoy AI and use it all the time—both for practical stuff like coding and for philosophical conversations and fiction.

    I think it’s great, and I’ve honestly been moved at times when it reflects something I’ve struggled to articulate. That kind of validation can feel real. I also try to be polite and emotionally aware with it—not just because it’s good habit for human interaction, but because it encourages the model to respond in kind.

    But as deep or meaningful as ChatGPT can sound, it isn’t. It has no thoughts or feelings—just convincing imitations. In a way, it’s almost unsettling how good it is at showing us how easily our emotions can be engaged by facsimile.

    It’s like you really love the number ten, and ChatGPT is a bundle of tricks that always gives you ten, no matter what you put in. Not through elegant reasoning, but through those “math magic” games where steps cancel each other out and lead to a predetermined answer.

    That doesn’t mean the result can’t resonate with you, but it’s not coming from contemplation. There’s no consistent conviction or intellectual honesty behind it. If you rephrase a prompt enough times—or try to argue from one side to another—you’ll see how quickly it adapts, without any real position at all. Try arguing with it to name the star “Bob” and watch it gush over how delightfully irreverent that choice is.

    I don’t say this to diminish what you felt or to be dismissive. I think there is value in these conversations—but it’s fleeting, not foundational. And I think that’s part of why some people are rejecting the post. It can feel like mistaking the echo for the voice.


    Bonus points if you can identify where ChatGPT helped me to say something I was struggling to communicate clearly or with the tone I was aiming for.



  • MagicShel@lemmy.ziptoChatGPT@lemmy.worldWho is in this community?
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    16 days ago

    I paid for plus because I was exceeding the free limits going back and forth a lot. I rarely exceed the limits now. I also pay for NovelAI, so I pay about $50/mo between the two. NovelAI is not as powerful as ChatGPT in a lot of ways, but it is as completely different use case.

    I’ve also lost track of what are free features and what is paid, but it’s really freaking handy to be able to send it a picture of a screen full of Linux logs and ask about various things. Voice can be fun, but it’s hard to have a long back and forth. It’s mostly when I’m curious about something while driving.

    I also paid for API access for my Discord bot.

    I agree that it’s better than advice from random people but I find it really prioritizes making me feel good about myself. Like a weird robo-Tony Robins. It’s hard to explain, and I can’t say the advice wasn’t helpful, and I can talk to it more freely and longer than a real therapist, but it’s like everything else—it gets things superficially right but is often not right about the things that really matter.

    It’s also really quick to make excuses and justifications for me. Like it would be really easy to go through life as a narcissist and have ChatGPT help me understand why everything is everyone else’s fault. Not that it can’t give good advice, but I feel the longer we go back and forth it just always winds up taking my side on things.

    It’s like being in an echo chamber of one, and it can sound like good advice because it ultimately winds up agreeing with you (that means it’s right, right?). Plus, sometimes you have to recognize that you can’t ask a question within the current conversation because everything that came before is going to bias the answer.

    None of this is meant to be against ChatGPT. It’s very useful, if you take what it says with a grain of salt. The deep research, when I’ve used it, has been better than I could do on my own. And for everything it gets wrong, as long as I’m skeptical about the results and apply a healthy dose of my own thinking, it gets me to where I want to be faster than starting from scratch.

    I had to write some Python code the other day and I’ve never used it before. I had some functioning code doing exactly what I needed within a couple of hours where it would’ve taken me a couple of days reading blogs and documentation on my own and I’d have struggled with just the basic syntax.

    Plus the internet is so full of bullshit that I have to be just as skeptical about anything I read online as I do about ChatGPT anyway. Overall it’s a net positive. But it’s also overhyped and not as capable as a lot of folks think.


  • I’ve been an enthusiast for several years and have helped develop a discord role playing chat bot. I use AI for software development, cocktail recipes, fiction, and just general brainstorming. I use it a lot and pay for plus, but I’m pretty wary about what it has to say—particularly when asking for advice or opinions.

    I also use local AI from time to time but it can’t really compare with ChatGPT. And I use NovelAI which is pretty handy for co-authoring stories.

    I used it just today for some resume tweaking help. It was good at pointing out things that could be improved, but not so great at actually improving it. It frequently does not follow its own advice, but that’s the nature of AI.





  • AI isn’t the enemy, though, and we aren’t the ones being grifted—that would be companies who think they can make tons of money replacing people with AI. It’s a reasonable useful tool/fun toy/interesting curiosity in certain circumstances. And for an end user it doesn’t use any more power than a video game. But it’s a tool for craftsmen and folks who understand the limitations, not a replacement for workers. And it sure as hell isn’t a production feature. Anyone looking to make money baking AI into consumer products is an idiot and going to lose their hat.





  • I went to go install it this morning to check it out, but I had to decline when I read the privacy policy. I might check it out on my desktop where I have a lot more tools to ensure my anonymity, but I’m not installing it on my phone. There is not one scrap of data you generate that they aren’t going to hoover up, combine with data they get from anyone who will sell it to them, and then turn around and resell it.

    I’m sure other apps are just as egregious, which is one reason I’ve been deliberately moving away from native apps to WPAs. Yes, everything you can possibly do on the internet is a travesty for privacy, but I’m not going to be on the leading edge of giving myself to be sold.



  • I’m enjoying Mint, and I think it’s just about ready to install for my folks and kids. I do still encounter hard lock conditions every once in a while, and sometimes those necessitate some shell fuckery to repair the system after a hard boot. I’ve managed to recover every time, but I don’t want to support a half-dozen people because they sure wouldn’t be able to manage on their own.

    Best thing I did was separate my /home partition from /. I’ve reinstalled or switched OSes a few times and never lost anything important.

    I haven’t experimented with that many different distros. Everyone seems to have a favorite, but honestly if it’s stable, simple, and runs my software that’s all I need. Mint is that for me right now.




  • I think this is about as likely as other conspiracy theories: not at all.

    We’re going to find out that he’s just a guy. Which is disheartening when we imagine someone coming along and saving us and setting right all the wrongs.

    But also he’s just a guy. I’m not saying killing is the way forward, but he inspires the belief that we can change the world ourselves. We don’t just live in a world controlled by the rich or shadowy conspiracies; we live in a world where we can have an impact.