Asklemmy

It has value in natural language processing, like turning unstructured natural language data into structured data. Not suitable for all situations though, like situations that cannot tolerate hallucinations.

Its also good for reorganizing information and presenting it in a different format; and also classification of semantic meaning of text. It's good for pretty much anything dealing with semantic meaning, really.

I see people often trying to use generative AI as a knowledge store, such as asking an AI assistant factual questions, but this is an invalid usecase.

Another point valid for GPTs is getting started on ideas and things, sorting out mind messes, getting useful data out of large amounts of clusterfucks of text, getting a general direction.

Current downsides are you cannot expect factual answers on topics it has no access to as it'll hallucinate on these without telling you, many GPT provides use your data so you cannot directly ask it sensitive topics, it'll forget datapoints if your conversation goes on too long.

As for image generation, it's still often stuck in the uncanny valley. Only animation topics benefit right now within the amateur realm. Cannot say how much GPTs are professionally used currently.

All of these are things you could certainly do yourself and often better/faster than an AI. But sometimes you just need a good enough solution and that's where GPTs shine more and more often. It's just another form of automation - if used for repetitive/stupid tasks, it's fine. Just don't expect it to just build you a piece of fully working bug-free software just by asking it. That's not how automation works. At least not to date.

Best use is to ask it questions that you're not sure how to ask. Sometimes you come across a problem that you're not really even sure how to phrase, which makes Googling difficult. LLM's at least would give you a better sense of what to Google

For coding it works really well if you give it examples like "i have code that looked like this .... And i made it to look like this .... If i give you another piece of code that's similar to the first can you convert it to the second for me". Been great to reduce the amount of boring grunt work so I can focus on the more fun stuff

I use it to re-tone and clarify corporate communications that I have to send out on a regular basis to my clients and internally. It has helped a lot with the amount of time I used to spend copy editing my own work. I have saved myself lots of hours doing something I don't really like (copy-editing) and more time doing the stuff I do (engineering) because of it.

There is no point. There are billions of points, because there are billions of people, and that's the point.

You know that there are hundreds or thousands of reasonable uses of generative AI, whether it's customer support or template generation or brainstorming or the list goes on and on. Obviously you know that. So I'm not sure that you're asking a meaningful question. People are using a tool to solve various problems, but you don't see the point in that?

If your position is that they should use other tools to solve their problems, that's certainly a legitimate view and you could argue for it. But that's not what you wrote and I don't think that's what you feel.

There are some great use cases, for instance transcribing handwritten records and making them searchable is really exciting to me personally. They can also be a great tool if you learn to work with them (perhaps most importantly, know when not to use them - which in my line of work is most of the time).

That being said, none of these cases, or any of the cases in this thread, is going to return the large amounts of money now being invested in AI.

I recently had to digitize dozens of photos from family scrapbooks, many of which had annoying novelty pattern borders cut out of the edges. Sure, I could have just cropped the photos more to hide the stupid zigzagged missing portions. But I had the beta version of Photoshop installed with the generative fill function, so I tried it. Half the time it was garbage, but the other half it filled in a bit of grass or sky convincingly enough that you couldn't tell the photo was damaged. +1 acceptable use case for generative AI, I guess.

I use it for coding, mostly as a time saver. Generally as I'm typing, it will give a suggestion that's functionally the same as what I was going to type anyway so I hit tab and go to the next line. It's able to do this accurately for around 80% of the total lines that I'm writing and going from writing full lines to writing 0-3 characters + tab on most of those lines makes a massive speed difference. It's especially great for writing one off scripts when I'm doing something that's not even a coding project, but there's some tedious file juggling involved. Writing a script completely by hand for that often would take slightly longer than just doing the task manually, and as I said, it's a one-off. But writing the script with copilot often takes as little as 10% of the time which is really nice.

Even in cases where I don't already know how to solve a problem (particularly a problem involving specific integrations) it can often be faster to ask it how to solve the problem and then look up the specific functions, endpoints, etc it uses in the docs rather than trying to find those doc entries directly with a search. And if it hallucinates a function that doesn't exist in the docs then I tell it that and it often successfully corrects itself. When it fails more than once I've generally found that there's a high probability that the SDK/API/etc I'm looking at doesn't have anything that does what I need so it's time for me to start rethinking my approach

Outside of coding, I also use stable diffusion to generate images of D&D characters I'm creating instead of image searching and settling for something kind of close to what I was picturing.

I also regularly use SD when I stumble upon some art I'd like to use as a desktop wallpaper, but can't find at high enough resolution. I just upscale it and proceed. Sometimes I'll have something at the wrong aspect ratio and use generative fill to extend the edges of the image to the desired aspect ratio, those parts of the image are nothing special, but the important part is the original image and I just need some filler to prevent it from abruptly ending before the edges of the screen.

One last case is if I need to put together a tediously long document, I generally find that having it generate a first draft with the right structure and then iterating a bunch on that comes more easily than starting with an empty page.

I don't use it for anything. I have had no involvement and it will stay that way.

Making dynamic templates.

I use it for parsing through legalese or terms and conditions. IT IS NOT PERFECT. I wouldn't trust it ever over a lawyer. But it's great for things like "Is there anything here that is extra unusual or weirdly anti-consumer or very bad for privacy?". I think it's great for that.

People here are just "it will take jobs it's inherently evil". They said the same about Photoshop, and computers before. I think there are evil uses for it sure, but that doesn't mean that it has no valid usages

I hate questions like this due to 1 major issue.

A generative ai with "error free" Output, is very differently useful than one that isn't.

Imagine an ai that would answer any questions objectively and unbiased, would that threaten job? Yeah. Would it be an huge improvement for human kind? Yeah.

Now imagine the same ai with a 10% bs rate, like how would you trust anything from it?

Currently generative ai is very very flawed. That is what we can evaluate and it is obvious. It is mostly useless as it produces mostly slop and consumes far more energy and water than you would expect.

A "better" one would be differently useful but just like killing half of the worlds population would help against climate change, the cost of getting there might not be what we want it to be, and it might not be worth it.

Current market practice, cost and results, lead me to say, it is effectively useless and probably a net negative for human kind. There is no legitimate usage as any usage legitimizes the market practice and cost given the results.

Amazing for reading docs

I know they are being used to, and are decently good for, extracting a single infornation from a big document (like a datasheet). Considering you can easily confirm the information is correct, it's quite a nice use case

I just use it for fun. Like, my own personal iPhone backgrounds and stuff. Sometimes I’ll share them with friends or on Mastodon or whatever, but that’s about it.

Gemini is fun to dink around with. When it works…

I think LLMs could be great if they were used for education, learning and trained on good data. The encyclopedia Britannica is building an AI exclusively trained on its data.

It also allows for room for writers to add more to the database, to provide broader knowledge for the AI, so people keep their jobs.

I wish I could have an AI in my head that would do all the talking for me because socializing is so exhausting

I use it for providing a text summary of YouTube videos that I can parse quickly. Because everything has to be a gorram video these days.

I was asked to officiate my friend's wedding a few months back, I'm no writer, and I wanted to do a bit better than just a generic wedding ceremony for them

So I fired up chatgpt, told it I needed a script for a wedding ceremony, described some of the things I wanted to mention, some of the things they requested, and it spit out a pretty damn good wedding ceremony. I gave it a little once over and tweaked a little bit of what it gave me but 99% of it was pretty much just straight chatgpt. I got a lot of compliments on it.

I think that's sort of the use case. For those of us who aren't professional writers and public speakers, who have the general idea of what we need to say for a speech or presentation but can't quite string the words together in a polished way.

Here's pretty much what it spit out (Their wedding was in a cave)

Cell Phone Reminder

Officiant: Before we begin, I’d like to kindly remind everyone to silence your phones and put them away for the ceremony. Groom and Bride want this moment to be shared in person, free from distractions, so let's focus on the love and beauty of this moment.

Giving Away the Bride

And before we move forward, we have a special moment. Tradition asks: Who gives this woman to be married to this man?

[Response from Bride's dad]

Thank you.

Greeting

Welcome, everyone. We find ourselves here in this remarkable setting—surrounded by the quiet strength of these ancient walls, a fitting place for Groom and Bride to declare their love. The cave, much like marriage, is carved out over time—through patience, care, and sometimes a little hard work. And yet, what forms is something enduring, something that stands the test of time.

Today, we’re here to witness Groom and Bride join their lives together in marriage. In this moment, we’re reminded that love is not about perfection, but about commitment—choosing one another, day after day, even when things get messy, or difficult, or dark. And through it all, we trust in love to guide us, just as God’s love guides us through life’s journey.

Declaration of Intent

[Officiant turns toward Groom and Bride]

Groom, Bride, you are about to make promises to each other that will last a lifetime. Before we continue, I’ll ask each of you to answer a very important question.

Officiant: Groom, do you take Bride to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?

Groom: I do.

Officiant: Bride, do you take Groom to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?

Bride: I do.

Exchange of Vows

Officiant: Now, as a sign of this commitment, Groom and Bride will exchange their vows—promises made not just to each other, but before all of us here and in the sight of God.  

[Groom and Bride share their vows]

Rings

Officiant: The rings you’re about to exchange are a symbol of eternity, a reminder that your love, too, is without end. May these rings be a constant reminder of the vows you have made today, and of the love that surrounds and holds you both.

[Groom and Bride exchange rings]

Officiant: And now, by the power vested in me, and with the blessing of God, I pronounce you husband and wife. Groom you may kiss your bride.

[Groom and Bride kiss]

Officiant: Friends and family, it is my great honor to introduce to you, for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. [Name].

I pretty much just tweaked the formatting, worked in a couple little friendly jabs at the groom, subbed their names in for Bride and Groom, and ad-libbed a little bit where appropriate

My understanding is that it will eventually used to improve autocorrect, when they get it working properly.

simple tasks you can verify yourself and you're just rolling dice for some time saved. everything else is kinda shit

Just today I needed a pdf with filler english text, not lorem. ChatGPT was perfect for that. Other times when I'm writing something I use it to check grammar. It's way better at it than grammarly imo, and faster and makes the decisions for me BUT PROOF-READ IT. if you really fuck the tenses up it won't know how to correct it, it'll make things up. Besides these: text manipulation. I could learn vim, write a script, or I could just copy "remove the special characters" enter -> done.

I use perplexity for syntax. I don't code with it, but it's the perfect one stop shop for "how does this work in this lang again" when coding. For advanced/new/unpopular APIs it's back to the olds school docs, but you could try to give it the link so it parses it for you, it's usually wonky tho.

Programming quick scripts and replacement for Google/Wikipedia more than anything. I chat to it on an app to ask about various facts or info I wanted to know. And it usually gets in depth pretty quickly.

Also cooking. I've basically given up on recipe sites, except for niche, specific things. AI gets stuff relatively right and quickly adjusts if I need substitutions. (And again, hands free for my sticky flour fingers).

And ideation. Whether I'm coming up with names, or a specific word, or clothes, or a joke, I can ask AI for 50 examples and I can usually piece together a result I like from a couple of those.

Finally, I'll admit I use it as a sounding board to think through topics, when a real human who can empathise would absolutely be better. Sadly, the way modern life is, one isn't always available. It's a small step up from ELIZA.

The key is that AI is part of the process. Just as I would never say "trust the first Google result with your life", because its some internet rando who might say anything, so too should you not let AI have the final word. I frequently question or correct it, but it still helps the journey.

I have personally found it fantastic as a programming aid, and as a writing aid to write song lyrics. The art it creates lacks soul and any sense of being actually good but it's great as a "oh I could do this cool thing" inspiration machine

Documentation work, synthesis, sentiment analysis

Video generators are going to eat Hollywood alive. A desktop computer can render anything, just by feeding in a rough sketch and describing what it's supposed to be. The input could be some kind of animatic, or yourself and a friend in dollar-store costumes, or literal white noise. And it'll make that look like a Pixar movie. Or a photorealistic period piece starring a dead actor. Or, given enough examples, how you personally draw shapes using chalk. Anything. Anything you can describe to the point where the machine can say it's more [thing] or less [thing], it can make every frame more [thing].

Boring people will use this to churn out boring fluff. Do you remember Terragen? It's landscape rendering software, and it was great for evocative images of imaginary mountains against alien skies. Image sites banned it, by name, because a million dorks went 'look what I made!' and spammed their no-effort hey-neat renders. Technically unique - altogether dull. Infinite bowls of porridge.

Creative people will use this to film their pet projects without actors or sets or budgets or anyone else's permission. It'll be better with any of those - but they have become optional. You can do it from text alone, as a feral demo that people think is the whole point. The results are massively better from even clumsy effort to do things the hard way. Get the right shapes moving around the screen, and the robot will probably figure out which ones are which, and remove all the pixels that don't look like your description.

The idiots in LA think they're gonna fire all the people who write stories. But this gives those weirdos all the power they need to put the wild shit inside their heads onto a screen in front of your eyeballs. They've got drawers full of scripts they couldn't hassle other people into making. Now a finished movie will be as hard to pull off as a decent webcomic. It's gonna get wild.

And this'll be great for actors, in ways they don't know yet.

Audio tools mean every voice actor can be a Billy West. You don't need to sound like anything, for your performance to be mapped to some character. Pointedly not: "mapped to some actor." Why would an animated character have to sound like any specific person? Do they look like any specific person? Does a particular human being play Naruto, onscreen? No. So a game might star Nolan North, exclusively, without any two characters really sounding alike. And if the devs need to add a throwaway line later, then any schmuck can half-ass the tone Nolan picked for little Suzy, and the audience won't know the difference. At no point will it be "licensing Nolan North's voice." You might have no idea what he sounds like. He just does a very convincing... everybody.

Video tools will work the same way for actors. You will not need to look like anything, to play a particular character. Stage actors already understand this - but it'll come to movies and shows in the form of deep fakes for nonexistent faces. Again: why would a character have to look like any specific person? They might move like a particular actor, but what you'll see is somewhere between motion-capture and rotoscoping. It's CGI... ish. And it thinks perfect photorealism is just another artistic style.