I ran into a post on LinkedIn touting how amazing it is that they can have ChatGPT in a spreadsheet. They showed it with inputting data for some USian states and their population and foundation years and then letting GPT fill in the rest. Here's a screenshot of it, the last row (Alaska) is filled in automatically. Amazing, right?
It automatically understood the context, what is asked, and filled in data. Whoa!
Except...
Alaska's population is not 603k, it's 733k (in 2020, as stated by the US Cencus Bureau). Also it wasn't founded in 1906, it was made into a state in 1959. In 1906 capital was moved to Juneau apparently, and some other things happened, but nothing about its founding is at that time.
Imagine what happens when people advertise these tools without even checking what they output. Imagine people thinking they can just use them and trust what they produce. Imagine being so stupid that you post this as an example of a great use for "AI" and won't even check the data yourself.
This is why I'm a total luddite for "AI" at this point. Machine learning has its uses, so does predictions it can do, it can generate things, and so on. But for me, at this point, it's not very useful. It won't write code for me just like the code I need isn't available on Stack Overflow or other pages to just copy in. I don't think I'm that special, but it seems that a lot of developers just copypaste stuff and their work is something simple that an AI can do it. Mine apparently isn't.
Could parts of it be done by the current generators? I'm sure it could. But the time spent on that and then fixing, refactoring, adapting... it's just not worth it in my eyes.
But I digress. This was about people advertising tools that aren't fit for their use. And this is a clear example of it. It's also a clear example of what kind of people advertise them. People who don't care of the results and/or have some agenda.
"Well you of course have to check the results yourself" someone said. So why would I use an "AI" for it in the first place? If I have to check the results of a simple operation like "what's the population of Alaska" then I can literally put that into a search engine or go to US Census Bureau's site (which I already know will have the info) and get the number from there. One step missed.
But all hail our "AI" ignorant fanbois!