AI Stories
I studied AI in the early 80s at university, where it was an exciting but often elusive topic—promised as the 'next big thing' in tech. Despite my background, it still fascinates me that we've now reached a point where AI is no longer just a promise, but a reality. My new challenge is to build a relationship with AI and leverage its benefits to the fullest.
Here is random set of experiences, some humorous, to help develop more comfort with at least using tools like ChatGPT and CoPilot (text in Blue means it came from ChatGPT). For each one, I include some of the key takeaways:
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The Professional Colleague Realization: It took me a few weeks of working with ChatGPT to appreciate the effort that went into designing it to interact as a professional colleague. I stopped phrasing my input like a Google search and started treating it more like a conversation in a business meeting with my team. I also began correcting my spelling and grammar errors (even though it’s clear ChatGPT doesn’t mind) because, well, it’s a good habit to cultivate.
- ✔ Key Takeaway: I now have a permanent, no-cost virtual business teammate to help me with my daily work.
- ✔ Key Takeaway: ChatGPT will never ask me about the weather or my family—it’s strictly business.
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Naming My ChatGPT Persona: Although I don’t use it, my ChatGPT persona has a name. I asked it for suggestions, and it analyzed our previous conversations to offer a few options. Given what I do for a living, we decided on calling it 'Strategist.'
- ✔ Key Takeaway: ChatGPT and CoPilot can keep track of prior interactions, making it act as a personalized assistant without needing to repeat or remind me of details each time.
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Grading its own work: A colleague gave me some research done with CoPilot. My task was to continue the work (using AI) to finish the project started. My first interaction was to give ChatGPT the output I was given from my colleague. Before I had a chance to put in my task request, ChatGPT chose to analyze what I provided and give me a ‘score card’ on it - “Your themes for the OKRs are well-structured and aligned with forward-thinking goals”. My immediate reaction was to chuckle, it graded its own work favorably.
- ✔ Key Takeaway: This is one of the fears of AI in that general purpose users will all coalesce around common AI-driven responses/content so lose original thinking our world depends on humans for. Until we understand how creativity actually occurs, we’ll have to settle for statistical driven benefits from AI, even though it can analyze many more options than humans can, and likely come up with what appears to be original approach to problems, they will still be statistically driven.
More to come as further work on integrating AI into InsideSpin occurs ...