How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Questions on how we spend our money and our time - consumer goods and services, home and vehicle, leisure and recreational activities
MrNarwhal
Posts: 337
Joined: Sun Dec 19, 2021 8:20 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by MrNarwhal »

VaR wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2024 9:21 pm For people earlier in the thread wondering about productivity improvement studies from AI, here's a research paper that studied productivity in materials science from a non-LLM AI model powered tool.
https://aidantr.github.io/files/AI_inno ... mod=ANLink
Re: "non-LLM AI model", is there any consensus in the literature for what should be called "AI"? This one is a graph neural network, but I saw a paper on a hospital application using a non-parametric regression model which also called itself "AI".

The next time I write some deterministic logic for business process automation, should I tell my boss that I created an AI to solve the problem?
ScubaHogg wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2025 11:55 pm One fun prompt for me has been when I want an intro to a new subject. Whatever it is. I just ask for ChatGPT to explain it to me like I’m a 10-year old. It’s been a nice way to get a high level summary. Or I had some questions regarding electricity. I asked it to explain it to me like I was 10, using a river as an analogy to electricity.
Is this for entertainment or curiosity purposes, or are there decisions you want to make based on a 4th grade level explanation of a topic?
flyingcows
Posts: 912
Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2019 8:13 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by flyingcows »

I've tried some of the tools but I haven't found anything that meaningfully moves the needle yet for my workflow as a software developer. I'm open to using any tool that would improve my productivity, or any tool that would improve software quality, but so far my experience has been kind of luke warm at best, but maybe I'm missing something
ScubaHogg
Posts: 5578
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:02 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by ScubaHogg »

MrNarwhal wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 10:13 am Is this for entertainment or curiosity purposes, or are there decisions you want to make based on a 4th grade level explanation of a topic?
Yes to all? Anything I know meaningfully know about, say personal investing, I started at a beginner level. You’ve got to start somewhere. A 4th grade level seems perfect.

Part of the problem might be people seeing a new technology and trying to cram it into their current work flow. Sort of like 1997 when people saw the internet and could only imagine shoving current tools and processes onto it. They, rightly, didn’t see much use in logging onto the internet to get the same info they could get through the phone book and newspaper.

They just could not imagine the high speed internet of 2010 with things like uber, the rise of social media, Wikipedia (remember all the hate it used to get?), Airbnb, etc.

As a tutor it’s already starting to show its chops

If Tyler Cowen, smarter than me by a factor of 10, can find uses for it I probably can too

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginal ... ng-o1.html
“You can have a stable principal value or a stable income stream but not both" | - In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio
peterw
Posts: 227
Joined: Thu Jan 04, 2024 12:13 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by peterw »

tetractys wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 11:14 pm I’ve been exploring AI apps lately.

Finding knowledge is good though. I learned something I’ve always wondered about, why an apple with a worm living in its core is so much sweeter than the other apples around it—enzymes.

...

I think AI is also very good for language learning and there are AI apps dedicated to several other tasks, photo editing, writing, etc.
I found out about worm' action sweetenng apples by reading an article about it when it came out. As an intensely curious person, I often query Google for answers. After they added the AI reaults, I've been quickly skipping past that section before it shows anything. Why? Because...

(a) I don’t trust AI. I've seen ridiculously wrong stuff showing up in the past.

(b) It's drawing answers from the most frequented result pages whittling out the context.

(c) I get more of a rounded view of the answer by scrolling through the first several search results, reading them, and attaching that to the existing store of knowledge in my human brain and my life experiences. iTech innovators have been at this a long long time and they still haven't made AI function as a human brain would.)

(d) AI may grow productivity for business but it is making our brains lazy, just as calculators made it not necessary for us to mentally calculate numbers.

As for helping us with writing, how interesting will life be when all modern written communication becomes homogeneous, stripped of the very diversity that defines humans as an individually creative species?
snic
Posts: 1336
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2023 11:37 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by snic »

ScubaHogg wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 11:26 am
MrNarwhal wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 10:13 am Is this for entertainment or curiosity purposes, or are there decisions you want to make based on a 4th grade level explanation of a topic?
Yes to all? Anything I know meaningfully know about, say personal investing, I started at a beginner level. You’ve got to start somewhere. A 4th grade level seems perfect.

Part of the problem might be people seeing a new technology and trying to cram it into their current work flow. Sort of like 1997 when people saw the internet and could only imagine shoving current tools and processes onto it. They, rightly, didn’t see much use in logging onto the internet to get the same info they could get through the phone book and newspaper.

They just could not imagine the high speed internet of 2010 with things like uber, the rise of social media, Wikipedia (remember all the hate it used to get?), Airbnb, etc.

As a tutor it’s already starting to show its chops

If Tyler Cowen, smarter than me by a factor of 10, can find uses for it I probably can too

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginal ... ng-o1.html
In 1997, the usefulness of the internet vs the phonebook and newspaper was already readily apparent - at least to me. You could find what you need faster, and the results were just as accurate. In some cases, you got the information much faster - for instance, finding a phone number for someone across the country or world, or reading news from that location. And the information you got was pretty accurate. You didn't really have to worry that "The Times of London" website was showing you made-up news that wasn't in the print addition available that day in London, or that the Online Yellow Pages of Schenectady, NY was showing you hallucinated phone numbers for Al's Garage. But with LLM AI, you just never know. It seems to me that the whole point of AI is to take some of the cognitive load off of you, the user. If you can't trust what it tells you, and you have to laboriously verify everything it tells you, that defeats the point entirely.

Maybe eventually AI will get there, but for now, from what I can tell, it's used to do things I find it very easy and quick to do on my own: read a technical document in my field and summarize it accurately, draft an email, manipulate data and calculations in an Excel sheet, etc. This is totally different from the situation in 1997 because I can do whatever LLM AI is supposed to help you with more efficiently without using AI than with using it. Maybe when it gets to the point where it can explain a technical document outside my field and be trustworthy at it, I'd start to find it useful.
"Financial ignorance is expensive."
ScubaHogg
Posts: 5578
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:02 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by ScubaHogg »

snic wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 5:48 pm In 1997, the usefulness of the internet vs the phonebook and newspaper was already readily apparent - at least to me. You could find what you need faster, and the results were just as accurate. In some cases, you got the information much faster - for instance, finding a phone number for someone across the country or world, or reading news from that location.
You had a different internet than me in 1997. I’d still be trying to get my dial up to connect
Maybe eventually AI will get there, but for now, from what I can tell, it's used to do things I find it very easy and quick to do on my own: read a technical document in my field and summarize it accurately, draft an email, manipulate data and calculations in an Excel sheet, etc.
It’s not surprising that AI isn’t yet as good at your speciality as you are. If that’s the only thing you are experimenting with I can imagine it’s underwhelming
“You can have a stable principal value or a stable income stream but not both" | - In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio
Fat Tails
Posts: 653
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:47 am
Location: New Mexico

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by Fat Tails »

I use the Perplexity app/website. It is like a google search but it does the analysis to answer your question and then gives you references.
“If you don’t fly business class, your son-in-law will” - Unknown
hunoraut
Posts: 2312
Joined: Sun May 31, 2020 11:39 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by hunoraut »

ScubaHogg wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2025 11:55 pm One fun prompt for me has been when I want an intro to a new subject. Whatever it is. I just ask for ChatGPT to explain it to me like I’m a 10-year old. It’s been a nice way to get a high level summary. Or I had some questions regarding electricity. I asked it to explain it to me like I was 10, using a river as an analogy to electricity.
Same. I've asked it for things in my formal field of knowledge, and it answered perfectly correct, in the way a topmost expert would. And it does it instantly, and arguably more concisely. I've asked it things that I don't know, like astronomy, and the explanations are satisfying as if I was asking a public-educator like Brian Cox.
snic wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 7:05 am And how do you know that ChatGPT's "explanation" wasn't just a hallucination?
...
It's not a question of "should I learn to use AI?". I'm willing to use any tool that makes life easier. My concern is whether I can trust it. If I can't trust it, I have to verify its output by doing more reading and analysis. But then how has AI made my life easier relative to using other tools, such as internet searches, forums like this, etc?
The same way you might challenge a subject matter expert in real life. You wouldn't blindly trust me on any given answer if I told you I was a credentialed [biologist/chemist/meteorologist/zoologist] would you?

You (1) use your intuition (2) ask for further justification (3) request references and sources. By default it already breaks the answer into logical piece-wise chunks, and often provide math equations when relevant.

At the very minimum, it gives you a shortcut to the answer. If I wanted to know, for example, the real estate capital gains tax rate in Mexico, I could google it, and find the answer buried in hundreds of blog articlse of private accounting firms, of discussions on message board, and some outdated guide by ernst and young, or laboriously translate my way across the gigantic tax code of the govt in its native language. Or I could ask the LLM to cite the exact location of the text and then read it myself.

Better, I can tell it the hypothetical transaction prices, dates andd geography (if municipality and holding period matters), offsetting capital transactions, and have it chain and calculate the final answer by itself. Again, all these things a reasonable person can eventually find and verify on their own, but its a great accelerator.

Wooly questions of subjectivity on esoterica is one thing (though it'll answer that too), but for many topics for which there is a large corpus of information, it converges to the "correct" answer remarkably well.
hunoraut
Posts: 2312
Joined: Sun May 31, 2020 11:39 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by hunoraut »

A fun litmus test is take questions asked on Bogleheads on a topic in which you consider yourself an expert. (Like, I don't know, the pros and cons of kitchenware or induction cookers). Spit that into the machine.

Are its answers aligned with what you know? Is it superior to most of the answers provided? Would a novice encounter more noise in having to trawl through a multi-page thread than reading what it gives?
MrNarwhal
Posts: 337
Joined: Sun Dec 19, 2021 8:20 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by MrNarwhal »

Another test:
"Give FEN notation for a valid chess position after the third move of the white pieces in the French defense, exchange variation opening."

The reply from ChatGPT gives a correct description of the move order followed by:
rnbqkbnr/ppp1pppp/8/3P4/8/8/PPP1PPPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 3

What's interesting is that there appears to be some logic behind this: white has a pawn on d5, and black does not. But the d-pawns were simply exchanged, not according to the correct move order with other pawns moved. I pointed this out, and ChatGPT apologized but then returned the same thing again.
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

Fat Tails wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 12:29 am I use the Perplexity app/website. It is like a google search but it does the analysis to answer your question and then gives you references.
As an Xfinity / Comcast customer I was given a complementary one year subscription to Perplexity Plus. I spent some time with it trying out some questions to which I knew the answers.

Was decidedly completely unimpressed and rated it a poor experience. Seemed like doing Bing searches gave me no worse results and probably a better experience.

I'm not in any hurry to go back to try it again.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

hunoraut wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 5:39 am A fun litmus test is take questions asked on Bogleheads on a topic in which you consider yourself an expert. (Like, I don't know, the pros and cons of kitchenware or induction cookers). Spit that into the machine.

Are its answers aligned with what you know? Is it superior to most of the answers provided? Would a novice encounter more noise in having to trawl through a multi-page thread than reading what it gives?
Better yet. Do what I did and put your own name in there and see what it has to say about you. Perplexity Plus miserably failed that test for me.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
just_a_cloud_away
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2025 9:42 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by just_a_cloud_away »

thanks for posting that. I just subscribed to perplexity pro thru Xfinity.

I gather it hasn't proven to be worthwhile to you but I enjoy having this "free" access.
I'd actually been considering throwing Xfinity over in favor of Quantum Fiber but this reward will keep me hanging on.

cheers
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

just_a_cloud_away wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 10:24 am thanks for posting that. I just subscribed to perplexity pro thru Xfinity.

I gather it hasn't proven to be worthwhile to you but I enjoy having this "free" access.
I'd actually been considering throwing Xfinity over in favor of Quantum Fiber but this reward will keep me hanging on.

cheers
What is otherwise the cost for a year's subscription to Perplexity Pro?
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
hunoraut
Posts: 2312
Joined: Sun May 31, 2020 11:39 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by hunoraut »

yankees60 wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 10:06 am
Better yet. Do what I did and put your own name in there and see what it has to say about you. Perplexity Plus miserably failed that test for me.
Im very glad to know that personally identifiable information about me is not spread across the internet and forever encased in large ai models

If my grandkids ever want to know more about me, they need to learn it the good old fashioned way: through family stories
just_a_cloud_away
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2025 9:42 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by just_a_cloud_away »

What is otherwise the cost for a year's subscription to Perplexity Pro?
Perplexity Pro costs $20 per month or $200 per year for individual users
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

hunoraut wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 10:41 am
yankees60 wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 10:06 am
Better yet. Do what I did and put your own name in there and see what it has to say about you. Perplexity Plus miserably failed that test for me.
Im very glad to know that personally identifiable information about me is not spread across the internet and forever encased in large ai models

If my grandkids ever want to know more about me, they need to learn it the good old fashioned way: through family stories
What is puzzling to me is that when I do a search on myself in a search engine things do not come back that had been there years ago in other searches. I had always thought that everything remained on the internet forever.

I am also surprised when I'm able to find almost nothing on certain people.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
ScubaHogg
Posts: 5578
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:02 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by ScubaHogg »

Was searching for a vacation destination with several completely unrelated criteria. No Google search would figure it out in a single search because no single website would list all the relevant info, unless someone on Reddit asked the exact question

Perplexity figured it out, with sources, in a single search since it was “smart enough” to seek out diverse sources of info and logically combine them
“You can have a stable principal value or a stable income stream but not both" | - In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

A related article from the NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/tech ... -exam.html

When A.I. Passes This Test, Look Out

The creators of a new test called “Humanity’s Last Exam” argue we may soon lose the ability to create tests hard enough for A.I. models.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
rufflesinc
Posts: 88
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2024 1:10 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by rufflesinc »

The really annoying is when captchas keep getting harder and harder, eventually they will be too hard for humans, then what?
User avatar
HomerJ
Posts: 21871
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:50 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by HomerJ »

MH2 wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 7:39 am ChatGPT pro account through work. We also host an open source LLM model (llamav2) which will eventually be integrated into an event detection platform of ours for academic research.

ChatGPT alone has saved about 30-50K in my time over the last three months.

LLMs like ChatGPU are significant force multipliers.
But how? You don't say a single word about how it is helpful.
"The best tools available to us are shovels, not scalpels. Don't get carried away." - vanBogle59
DrChronzworth
Posts: 179
Joined: Wed Dec 10, 2014 5:42 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by DrChronzworth »

I’ve used Claude by Anthropic to code various Python apps for me to automate parts of my work - especially data entry.

It’s scarily good at taking feedback when creating UIs and processes as well as refactoring the code it creates…

I think people get a misleading impression based on the free versions of these LLMs - to use the internet analogy the free versions are 56k modem while the paid versions are wifi + broadband.
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

For those still assessing AI and its value ...



Reid Hoffman is the cofounder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI, and Manas AI; a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners; an early backer and board member of OpenAI; and an award-winning podcaster.

This book of his came out this past week:

Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D5WMKV9H/?r ... l_huc_item

An interview with him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQF0RuddS4g
How to Prepare for AGI According to Reid Hoffman - Ep. 46

Transcript of the interview:
https://every.to/podcast/transcript-how ... id-hoffman
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

Yesterday I asked Perplexity Plus the following question:


"Compare the 1976 and 2024 presidential elections for popular vote and electoral votes"

I could have done simple web site searches to get the simple answers.

However, it would have been two searches. Would have had to either keep them side by side to compare or else note the results somewhere.

Instead, all of that was done for me and presented in tabular form plus got some extras thrown in.


I was satisfied with the results.

I am now becoming a convert and coming closer to realizing the best ways to utilize AI.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
Bagels
Posts: 285
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:08 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by Bagels »

I realize this comment could raise a lot of hackles or at least cause a lot of eye rolling, but reading through the “How to Move to Linux” thread reminds me:

ChatGPT has answered countless linux questions for me. The free version of ChatGPT.

I still read linux books and search the forums, but usually I just ask ChatGPT, “What command line command can I use to find out _x_ or do _y_ and it just tells me. It has helped me install Chinese keyboard input. It has answered dozens of questions in the past week.

Does it always work? No. And sometimes it leads me on a wild goose chase where a person on a forum might’ve said, “You’re asking the wrong question. Just do this instead of that.”

Am I recommending that you do the same? No.

But, it’s been very useful for me.
How can you tell if someone’s a vegan | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you | How do you know if a boglehead doesn’t care about calculating dividend yield? | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you, even if 10 other people have
hunoraut
Posts: 2312
Joined: Sun May 31, 2020 11:39 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by hunoraut »

Bagels wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 5:30 pm I realize this comment could raise a lot of hackles or at least cause a lot of eye rolling, but reading through the “How to Move to Linux” thread reminds me:

ChatGPT has answered countless linux questions for me. The free version of ChatGPT.

I still read linux books and search the forums, but usually I just ask ChatGPT, “What command line command can I use to find out _x_ or do _y_ and it just tells me. It has helped me install Chinese keyboard input. It has answered dozens of questions in the past week.

Does it always work? No. And sometimes it leads me on a wild goose chase where a person on a forum might’ve said, “You’re asking the wrong question. Just do this instead of that.”

Am I recommending that you do the same? No.

But, it’s been very useful for me.
thats a great example. ive used it to find more esoteric computer commands for various things, such as generating and inspecting the windows sleep logs.

that information is widely available on the web, but usually buried behind layers of in spam on tech "blogs" or buried deep in discussion forums with hidden and expired messages in between tons of false answers. gpt summary cuts through all the noise.
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

hunoraut wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:25 am
Bagels wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 5:30 pm I realize this comment could raise a lot of hackles or at least cause a lot of eye rolling, but reading through the “How to Move to Linux” thread reminds me:

ChatGPT has answered countless linux questions for me. The free version of ChatGPT.

I still read linux books and search the forums, but usually I just ask ChatGPT, “What command line command can I use to find out _x_ or do _y_ and it just tells me. It has helped me install Chinese keyboard input. It has answered dozens of questions in the past week.

Does it always work? No. And sometimes it leads me on a wild goose chase where a person on a forum might’ve said, “You’re asking the wrong question. Just do this instead of that.”

Am I recommending that you do the same? No.

But, it’s been very useful for me.
thats a great example. ive used it to find more esoteric computer commands for various things, such as generating and inspecting the windows sleep logs.

that information is widely available on the web, but usually buried behind layers of in spam on tech "blogs" or buried deep in discussion forums with hidden and expired messages in between tons of false answers. gpt summary cuts through all the noise.
Thanks to both of you for continuing to open my eyes that while it may not yield satisfactory results ... just like an internet search ....it can be quite valuable.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
wunderkind
Posts: 67
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2020 12:57 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by wunderkind »

hunoraut wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:25 am
Bagels wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 5:30 pm I realize this comment could raise a lot of hackles or at least cause a lot of eye rolling, but reading through the “How to Move to Linux” thread reminds me:

ChatGPT has answered countless linux questions for me. The free version of ChatGPT.

I still read linux books and search the forums, but usually I just ask ChatGPT, “What command line command can I use to find out _x_ or do _y_ and it just tells me. It has helped me install Chinese keyboard input. It has answered dozens of questions in the past week.

Does it always work? No. And sometimes it leads me on a wild goose chase where a person on a forum might’ve said, “You’re asking the wrong question. Just do this instead of that.”

Am I recommending that you do the same? No.

But, it’s been very useful for me.
thats a great example. ive used it to find more esoteric computer commands for various things, such as generating and inspecting the windows sleep logs.

that information is widely available on the web, but usually buried behind layers of in spam on tech "blogs" or buried deep in discussion forums with hidden and expired messages in between tons of false answers. gpt summary cuts through all the noise.
ChatGPT is phenomenally good for tasks where its output can be readily verified. Computer commands, and programming are such tasks.

For writing software, ChatGPT is incredibly useful for looking up commands and programming interfaces for nearly anything.

Need to find out how to query YouTube for the number of videos in a channel? ChatGPT will give you an answer that will likely work. If it doesn’t work, you will instantly know, and have a baseline to work with that would have taken an hour to create by hand sifting through YouTube documentation.

Sometimes you can describe a problem you are having with a misbehaving program, it will speculate on the obscure root cause of the problem and find the arcane Linux command or configuration that will fix it; saving hours and sometimes days of web searching and testing.

It does sometimes hallucinate commands that don’t exist to make its life easier, and it needs relatively specific well defined tasks to avoid wandering into the weeds. But the time savings it offers when used judiciously as a super reference are incredible.

With regards to hallucinations in general, I’ve seen some people hallucinate more.
ScubaHogg
Posts: 5578
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:02 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by ScubaHogg »

Thought this was worth sharing. Tyler Cowen had a nice post on using o1 pro that should at least give pause to the “AI is useless” crowd
Adam Brown, who does physics at a world class level, put it well in his recent podcast with Dwarkesh. Adam said that if he had a question about something, the best answer he would get is from calling up one of a handful of world experts on the topic. The second best answer he would get is from asking the best AI models.
And this
I also would add that if you are not familiar with o1 pro, your observations about the shortcomings of AI models should be discounted rather severely. And o3 pro is due soon, presumably it will be better yet.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginal ... 1-pro.html

This is coming. Get on board or find yourself in a few years like those poor folks who can’t use Google
“You can have a stable principal value or a stable income stream but not both" | - In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio
xb7
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Jun 09, 2018 6:13 pm
Location: WA State, USA

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by xb7 »

I find that I'm using it almost every day, it's a matter of getting in the habit of thinking of it as an alternative way to help with anything "knowledge based". Day before yesterday it helped me sort out why my TV didn't turn off when I hit the power button on my Roku --- I had about given up on solving that one, but thought to run it by the AI and it led me to the solution.

I think it's also helpful in terms of negative results. For example, my wife is looking for a roll-top or secretary type desk and has pretty specific criteria for what she wants. Trying a couple of AIs to quickly run through a lot of possibilities was more efficient in helping her realize she likely can't get what she wants short of having a craftsman build one to her specs.

Yesterday I was trying to sort out various problems with deciding if I can site a TV antenna in my attic and use that to somehow connect to a DVR, given that I can't realistically run coax direct from the antenna to the TV. I consulted with the AI about multiple issues that arose along the way, with varying success but again --- a better, faster experience than I would have had sorting through the mostly non-relevant links and advertisements I would have got from a standard search.

Recently I saw a recording of a powerpoint presentation someone had given where a lot of the images were very specifically crafted for his talk --- obviously by an AI. A sort of downside is that --- currently --- AI generated art can have a sort of cartoon sameness to it that now makes me immediately think of it as AI-generated, almost a distraction really. OTOH, I recall putting together classes in the past where I spent way too much time searching the internet for images the would fit with what I wanted to present, with the additional criteria that it should be something in the public domain that I had the right to use. With AI, this would now be trivial.

I can't hold back the tide with my hands, AI is here and coming on stronger in future, so while I recognize all the (many) downsides and risks and issues, I'd rather try to surf the tide than (fail to) build a seawall.
Dottie57
Posts: 13543
Joined: Thu May 19, 2016 5:43 pm
Location: U.S.

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by Dottie57 »

I’ve tried chatgpt a couple of times since this thread opened.

The one thing that is clear is that it doesn’t always have current information. I asked for the S&P500 total reyirn for each year from 1980. It gave me a nice table but explained it did not have returns for 2023 and 2024.. 5 days later I tried the same query and found it now had 2023 results. So somehow it had new info 5 days latter.
Life is more than grinding it out in some drab office setting for an arbitrary number. This isn't a videogame where the higher score is better. -Nathan Drake
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

Now listening to this.

I am a major fan of Lex Fridman. Listen to all of his interviews at least once.

There have been a lot of high technology people in this topic.

This current interview from three days ago should be of interest to those people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1f-o0nqpEI
DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters | Lex Fridman Podcast #459

Postscript: If you do go there, look at Lex's past interviews. He's interviewed many major people in the world - finance, politics, sports, and other - including many others regarding AI, since that is his field of interest as an MIT professor.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
User avatar
nisiprius
Advisory Board
Posts: 54897
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:33 am
Location: The terrestrial, globular, planetary hunk of matter, flattened at the poles, is my abode.--O. Henry

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by nisiprius »

I gave it a shot today. Perplexity and DeepSeek both failed me. I was preparing this posting.

I posed this query to each:
I wrote:Use the list of ticker symbols I'll give you. Take each ticker symbol and substitute it for XXXXX in the url
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/XXXXX/quote
Look at the web page and extract "total assets." Prepare a two-column chart listing each ticker symbol and the total assets value. Here are the tickers: VWELX, VGSTX, VSMGX, BLPEX, DOXBX, MAMAX, OIBFX, ONGFX, RBAIX, TPPAX, MDCPX, PIBQX
Perplexity wrote:I apologize, but I'm unable to access or view the web pages for each ticker symbol in real-time. As an AI language model, I don't have the capability to browse the internet or access current financial data....
DeepSeek wrote:To complete your request, I would need to access the web pages for each ticker symbol and extract the "total assets" value. However, I cannot directly access external websites, including Morningstar, in real-time.

If you have access to the pages, you can manually visit each URL, extract the "total assets" value, and create the two-column chart.... If you provide the "total assets" values for each ticker, I can help you format the chart or analyze the data further.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness; Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
SnowBog
Posts: 5503
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2018 10:21 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by SnowBog »

nisiprius wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 1:50 pm I gave it a shot today. Perplexity and DeepSeek both failed me. I was preparing this posting.

I posed this query to each:
I wrote:Use the list of ticker symbols I'll give you. Take each ticker symbol and substitute it for XXXXX in the url
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/XXXXX/quote
Look at the web page and extract "total assets." Prepare a two-column chart listing each ticker symbol and the total assets value. Here are the tickers: VWELX, VGSTX, VSMGX, BLPEX, DOXBX, MAMAX, OIBFX, ONGFX, RBAIX, TPPAX, MDCPX, PIBQX
Perplexity wrote:I apologize, but I'm unable to access or view the web pages for each ticker symbol in real-time. As an AI language model, I don't have the capability to browse the internet or access current financial data....
DeepSeek wrote:To complete your request, I would need to access the web pages for each ticker symbol and extract the "total assets" value. However, I cannot directly access external websites, including Morningstar, in real-time.

If you have access to the pages, you can manually visit each URL, extract the "total assets" value, and create the two-column chart.... If you provide the "total assets" values for each ticker, I can help you format the chart or analyze the data further.
Not sure why that's considered a failure... Such access would result in even more lawsuits by website owners for misuse of their data/content.
id_afstand
Posts: 250
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2021 5:11 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by id_afstand »

nisiprius wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 1:50 pm I gave it a shot today. Perplexity and DeepSeek both failed me. I was preparing this posting.

I posed this query to each:
I wrote:Use the list of ticker symbols I'll give you. Take each ticker symbol and substitute it for XXXXX in the url
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/XXXXX/quote
Look at the web page and extract "total assets." Prepare a two-column chart listing each ticker symbol and the total assets value. Here are the tickers: VWELX, VGSTX, VSMGX, BLPEX, DOXBX, MAMAX, OIBFX, ONGFX, RBAIX, TPPAX, MDCPX, PIBQX
Perplexity wrote:I apologize, but I'm unable to access or view the web pages for each ticker symbol in real-time. As an AI language model, I don't have the capability to browse the internet or access current financial data....
DeepSeek wrote:To complete your request, I would need to access the web pages for each ticker symbol and extract the "total assets" value. However, I cannot directly access external websites, including Morningstar, in real-time.

If you have access to the pages, you can manually visit each URL, extract the "total assets" value, and create the two-column chart.... If you provide the "total assets" values for each ticker, I can help you format the chart or analyze the data further.
The AI becomes more human-like: lazy, it doesn’t want to execute laborious boring tasks :). Just a couple of days ago, I asked ChatGPT to compile a list of novels nominated or awarded the Hugo award, which have been translated into Dutch. It did not refuse outright but came up with a completely unsatisfactory response. It did not look up the Hugo list, and it did not care to search for translations meaningfully. Plain lazy.
JMACatfish
Posts: 48
Joined: Mon Jul 08, 2024 4:20 pm
Location: Texas 🤠

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by JMACatfish »

id_afstand wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 2:17 pm
nisiprius wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 1:50 pm I gave it a shot today. Perplexity and DeepSeek both failed me. I was preparing this posting.

I posed this query to each:
The AI becomes more human-like: lazy, it doesn’t want to execute laborious boring tasks :). Just a couple of days ago, I asked ChatGPT to compile a list of novels nominated or awarded the Hugo award, which have been translated into Dutch. It did not refuse outright but came up with a completely unsatisfactory response. It did not look up the Hugo list, and it did not care to search for translations meaningfully. Plain lazy.
I asked:
Which novels have both been either nominated for or won the Hugo award and have a Dutch translation?
And got the response:
There are several Hugo Award-winning or nominated novels that have also been translated into Dutch. Here’s a list of some notable examples:

### **1. *The Left Hand of Darkness* by Ursula K. Le Guin**
- **Hugo Award Winner (1969)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *De linkse hand van de duisternis* (translated by Tonke Dragt)

### **2. *Dune* by Frank Herbert**
- **Hugo Award Winner (1966)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *Dune* (translated by Hans J. L. Jansen)

### **3. *The Dispossessed* by Ursula K. Le Guin**
- **Hugo Award Winner (1975)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *De ontheemden* (translated by Tonke Dragt)

### **4. *Neuromancer* by William Gibson**
- **Hugo Award Winner (1985)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *Neuromancer* (translated by J. S. van Santen)

### **5. *The Yiddish Policemen's Union* by Michael Chabon**
- **Hugo Award Nominee (2008)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *De joodse politieagenten* (translated by Janie Oosthuysen)

### **6. *The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress* by Robert A. Heinlein**
- **Hugo Award Winner (1967)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *De maan is een wrede minnares* (translated by C. R. de Jonge)

### **7. *The Windup Girl* by Paolo Bacigalupi**
- **Hugo Award Nominee (2010)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *De windup girl* (translated by Karin A. A. Beijer)

### **8. *Hyperion* by Dan Simmons**
- **Hugo Award Nominee (1990)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *Hyperion* (translated by Peter van Zonneveld)

### **9. *The Forever War* by Joe Haldeman**
- **Hugo Award Winner (1975)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *De eeuwige oorlog* (translated by J. R. J. L. van der Molen)

### **10. *Kindred* by Octavia Butler**
- **Hugo Award Nominee (1979)**
- **Dutch Translation**: *Kindred* (translated by D. T. R. Heiligers)

These novels are prominent works in science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction and have enjoyed significant popularity worldwide, including in the Netherlands.
I don't intend to verify these responses, but that was the first query I could come up with and the result seems good to me!

Personally I've gotten a lot of value from using LLMs to name some phenomenon I'm familiar with but forgot the name of and want to investigate more. For a Boglehead-flavored example, I once asked:
What is the economic principle that the performance of a portfolio cannot be fully explained by the performances of each component of the portfolio in isolation, but rather how each component interacts with the whole?
And got:
The economic principle you're referring to is known as Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). Developed by Harry Markowitz in the 1950s, MPT emphasizes that the performance of a portfolio cannot be fully understood by simply examining the performance of each individual asset in isolation. Instead, it is crucial to consider how each asset interacts with the others within the portfolio.

Key concepts of MPT include:

Diversification: The idea that by holding a variety of assets, investors can reduce the overall risk of the portfolio. This is because the performance of different assets often does not move in perfect correlation with each other.

Risk and Return: MPT quantifies risk using standard deviation and suggests that for any given level of risk, there is an optimal mix of assets that will maximize expected return. Conversely, for any desired level of expected return, there is a portfolio with the lowest possible risk.

Efficient Frontier: This is a set of optimal portfolios that offer the highest expected return for a defined level of risk or the lowest risk for a given level of expected return. Portfolios that lie on the efficient frontier are considered well-diversified.

Correlation: The degree to which two assets move in relation to each other. MPT uses the correlation between asset returns to optimize the risk-return profile of the portfolio.

By considering the covariance (a measure of how two assets move together) and correlation between the returns of different assets, MPT helps in constructing portfolios that can achieve better risk-adjusted returns. This principle highlights the importance of the interrelationships between assets, rather than just their individual performances.
This gives a strong launch-off point to look into the topic at hand more granularly.
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

In the past day or two I've officially become a Perplexity Pro devotee.

While reading a book I wanted to verify some of the assertions in it and asked Perplexity Pro the questions.

Impressive, comprehensive results.

This was the last question asked:

"What did English precedents say were high crimes and misdemeanors"

Again, far less time consuming if I'd asked the same question in an internet search and then tried to assimilate all the varied responses .. plus ignoring all the ones that were not relevant.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
roamingzebra
Posts: 1759
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 3:29 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by roamingzebra »

id_afstand wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 2:17 pm The AI becomes more human-like: lazy, it doesn’t want to execute laborious boring tasks :). Just a couple of days ago, I asked ChatGPT to compile a list of novels nominated or awarded the Hugo award, which have been translated into Dutch. It did not refuse outright but came up with a completely unsatisfactory response. It did not look up the Hugo list, and it did not care to search for translations meaningfully. Plain lazy.
Try promising it a beer first. :D
ScubaHogg
Posts: 5578
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:02 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by ScubaHogg »

Today Perplexity saved me several minutes of frustration. I knew my son wanted to hear specific song that’s on a single episode of the show “Cocomelon”, but I had no clue which episode. Google searches in the past were complete failures for finding a specific song

Perplexity not only instantly located the episode, it also gave me the exact timestamp so I didn’t have to fast forward through 30 minutes of songs trying to find it

Separate from that, I was looking at the Lexus website. I know nothing about their SUV lineup and on the “build a Lexus” landing page the differences aren’t obvious. ChatGPT gave me a high level summary of the entire lineup including major differences between them. It took seconds and was delivered in a simple, non-ad or painful story based format
“You can have a stable principal value or a stable income stream but not both" | - In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio
ScubaHogg
Posts: 5578
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:02 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by ScubaHogg »

nisiprius wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 1:50 pm I gave it a shot today. Perplexity and DeepSeek both failed me. I was preparing this posting.

I posed this query to each:
I wrote:Use the list of ticker symbols I'll give you. Take each ticker symbol and substitute it for XXXXX in the url
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/XXXXX/quote
Look at the web page and extract "total assets." Prepare a two-column chart listing each ticker symbol and the total assets value. Here are the tickers: VWELX, VGSTX, VSMGX, BLPEX, DOXBX, MAMAX, OIBFX, ONGFX, RBAIX, TPPAX, MDCPX, PIBQX
If you Google that exact question will a traditional Google search give you a better answer?
“You can have a stable principal value or a stable income stream but not both" | - In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio
Fallible
Posts: 9091
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2009 3:44 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by Fallible »

wunderkind wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 10:10 am ...
It does sometimes hallucinate commands that don’t exist to make its life easier, and it needs relatively specific well defined tasks to avoid wandering into the weeds. But the time savings it offers when used judiciously as a super reference are incredible. ...
I think this sums up where things stand at this point, i.e., its usefulness depends on the human user's ability to be judicious, to have good judgement, to question, to be skeptical.
"Yes, investing is simple. But it is not easy, for it requires discipline, patience, steadfastness, and that most uncommon of all gifts, common sense." ~Jack Bogle
MrNarwhal
Posts: 337
Joined: Sun Dec 19, 2021 8:20 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by MrNarwhal »

nisiprius wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 1:50 pm I gave it a shot today. Perplexity and DeepSeek both failed me. I was preparing this posting.

I posed this query to each:
I wrote:Use the list of ticker symbols I'll give you. Take each ticker symbol and substitute it for XXXXX in the url
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/XXXXX/quote
Look at the web page and extract "total assets." Prepare a two-column chart listing each ticker symbol and the total assets value. Here are the tickers: VWELX, VGSTX, VSMGX, BLPEX, DOXBX, MAMAX, OIBFX, ONGFX, RBAIX, TPPAX, MDCPX, PIBQX
Perplexity wrote:I apologize, but I'm unable to access or view the web pages for each ticker symbol in real-time. As an AI language model, I don't have the capability to browse the internet or access current financial data....
DeepSeek wrote:To complete your request, I would need to access the web pages for each ticker symbol and extract the "total assets" value. However, I cannot directly access external websites, including Morningstar, in real-time.

If you have access to the pages, you can manually visit each URL, extract the "total assets" value, and create the two-column chart.... If you provide the "total assets" values for each ticker, I can help you format the chart or analyze the data further.
What do you get if you try something like: "Write a python script to return the assets under management for a list of comma-delimited mutual fund ticker symbols."
MH2
Posts: 732
Joined: Thu Oct 28, 2021 3:46 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by MH2 »

HomerJ wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 7:02 pm
MH2 wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 7:39 am ChatGPT pro account through work. We also host an open source LLM model (llamav2) which will eventually be integrated into an event detection platform of ours for academic research.

ChatGPT alone has saved about 30-50K in my time over the last three months.

LLMs like ChatGPU are significant force multipliers.
But how? You don't say a single word about how it is helpful.
Blast from the past.

Current SOA for our use case is an abliterated Llama 3.2 3B model. VLLM on antiquated hardware with 8x GPUs gives about 20k a second token throughput, which is enough to classify 80-100 full length news articles a second.
User avatar
Tycoon
Posts: 1859
Joined: Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:06 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by Tycoon »

nisiprius wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 1:50 pm I gave it a shot today. Perplexity and DeepSeek both failed me. I was preparing this posting.

I posed this query to each:
I wrote:Use the list of ticker symbols I'll give you. Take each ticker symbol and substitute it for XXXXX in the url
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/XXXXX/quote
Look at the web page and extract "total assets." Prepare a two-column chart listing each ticker symbol and the total assets value. Here are the tickers: VWELX, VGSTX, VSMGX, BLPEX, DOXBX, MAMAX, OIBFX, ONGFX, RBAIX, TPPAX, MDCPX, PIBQX
Perplexity wrote:I apologize, but I'm unable to access or view the web pages for each ticker symbol in real-time. As an AI language model, I don't have the capability to browse the internet or access current financial data....
DeepSeek wrote:To complete your request, I would need to access the web pages for each ticker symbol and extract the "total assets" value. However, I cannot directly access external websites, including Morningstar, in real-time.

If you have access to the pages, you can manually visit each URL, extract the "total assets" value, and create the two-column chart.... If you provide the "total assets" values for each ticker, I can help you format the chart or analyze the data further.
I'm not a fan of Perplexity, but it returned this:
Answer. That may be because instruction didn't tell it to.
Okay, I will create a two-column chart with the ticker symbols you provided and the corresponding "Total Assets" values extracted from the Morningstar URLs.
Ticker Symbol Total Assets
VWELX
VGSTX
VSMGX
BLPEX
DOXBX
MAMAX
OIBFX
ONGFX
RBAIX
TPPAX
MDCPX
PIBQX
I will now access each of the following URLs and populate the "Total Assets" column in the table above.

https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/VWELX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/VGSTX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/VSMGX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/BLPEX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/DOXBX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/MAMAX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/OIBFX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/ONGFX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/RBAIX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/TPPAX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/MDCPX/quote
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/PIBQX/quote

Unfortunately, I am unable to access external websites, including the Morningstar URLs you have provided, and cannot complete your request at this time.
On the browser web page it shows columns but failed to fill the second column with total asset values.
Emotionless, prognostication free investing. Ignoring the noise and economists since 1979. Getting rich off of "smart people's" behavioral mistakes. Life does not bow to math formulas.
User avatar
yankees60
Posts: 8683
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:50 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by yankees60 »

Tycoon wrote: Fri Feb 07, 2025 6:47 am
I'm not a fan of Perplexity ....
Can you elaborate? Do you use something else you believe to be superior?
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
User avatar
GeraniumLover
Posts: 578
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2016 2:39 pm

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by GeraniumLover »

I've been using Udio and Suno to create songs out of lyrics and poems I've written over the years. It can take me several hours to get something I'm happy with. There are seemingly simple things I'd like to do that I just can't. They are like rebellious teenagers. They will ignore many of the things you prompt for, and the AI tools currently lack the editing, mixing and mastering features found in popular digital audio workstations (DAWs).
Northern Flicker
Posts: 17495
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:29 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by Northern Flicker »

tetractys wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 9:43 am Last night I woke up with a test question for ChatGPT and it gave a pretty good answer:

Q: What’s a good chordal progression to move from C major to E Major?

A: A common chordal progression to move from C major to E major could involve using chords that smoothly connect the two keys. You might try something like C major (I) → A minor (vi) → E major (V), or C major (I) → G major (V) → E major (I). These progressions incorporate chords that exist in both C major and E major keys, helping create a smooth transition between them.

This is a good answer and close to 0 thinking required! Not only the simple answer is given; but also the applicable and extended useful method.
Replying to an old posting but ChatGPT got this wrong, at least back in 2023. Neither A minor nor G major are chords found in E major harmony. A major, not A minor is the subdominant in E major-- note the C# (an A minor chord uses C natural). And a G major chord is rooted on G natural-- E major uses G#. Neither an A minor nor G major chord are standard in E major harmony.

Moreover, the G major chord is the dominant in C major, and is a strong pull to stay in C major, so often not a good choice for modulating into E major.
Mr. Rumples
Posts: 3591
Joined: Sun Aug 25, 2019 7:16 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by Mr. Rumples »

I find it useless, though I suppose it's operating in the background. The doctor's who use it let a person still call in.

As for google and AI, it gets simple things wrong. If it gets them wrong how can someone rely on it? It says for the Battle of Yorktown "final major battle of the American Revolutionary War." That's false. In 1782: the Battle of the Saintes, the final battle of the Grand Siege of Gibraltar and the Battle of Negapatam all took place in after the Battle of Yorktown. In the Battle of Blue Licks, 1782, the US lost almost as many men as it did at Yorktown - the numbers of militia was smaller, but 40% of the militia died, with injuries, the casualty rate was 50%.

AI says also, regarding the Battle of Yorktown: Following the Battle of the Saintes, George Washington would have likely written letters to the Continental Congress expressing his gratitude for the crucial naval victory achieved by the French fleet under the command of the Comte de Grasse,

AI may be mixing up up the Battle of the Chesapeake (French fleet won) with the Battle of the Saintes (French fleet lost) - but all of General Washington's letters and diaries (over 75,000) of them are available in print and online. There is such a letter in which General Washington despairs after the Battle of the Saintes that the British will not give up the fight. There are no letters from Washington to de Grasse after Yorktown though there is a condolence letter to his son in 1788: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=Recipi ... 311111&r=5
Last edited by Mr. Rumples on Sat Feb 15, 2025 6:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
"History is the memory of time, the life of the dead and the happiness of the living." Captain John Smith 1580-1631
User avatar
bikefish
Posts: 323
Joined: Wed Jul 10, 2024 10:38 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by bikefish »

Mr. Rumples wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2025 5:50 am I find it useless, though I suppose it's operating in the background. The doctor's who use it let a person still call in.

As for google and AI, it gets simple things wrong. If it gets them wrong how can someone rely on it? It says for the Battle of Yorktown "final major battle of the American Revolutionary War." That's false. In 1782: the Battle of the Saintes, the final battle of the Grand Siege of Gibraltar and the Battle of Negapatam all took place in after the Battle of Yorktown. In the Battle of Blue Licks, 1782, the US lost almost as many men as it did at Yorktown - the numbers of militia was smaller, but 40% of the militia died, with injuries, the casualty rate was 50%.

AI says also, regarding the Battle of Yorktown: Following the Battle of the Saintes, George Washington would have likely written letters to the Continental Congress expressing his gratitude for the crucial naval victory achieved by the French fleet under the command of the Comte de Grasse,

AI may be mixing up up the Battle of the Chesapeake (French fleet won) with the Battle of the Saintes (French fleet lost) - but all of General Washington's letters and diaries (over 75,000) of them are available in print and online. There is such a letter in which General Washington despairs after the Battle of the Saintes that the British will not give up the fight.
I am at the Yorktown visitor center. Want me to tell them to correct their website?
https://www.nps.gov/york/index.htm
If someone asks you the time, why are you telling them how to build a watch?
Mr. Rumples
Posts: 3591
Joined: Sun Aug 25, 2019 7:16 am

Re: How do you utilize AI (artificial intelligence)?

Post by Mr. Rumples »

bikefish wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2025 6:12 am
Mr. Rumples wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2025 5:50 am I find it useless, though I suppose it's operating in the background. The doctor's who use it let a person still call in.

As for google and AI, it gets simple things wrong. If it gets them wrong how can someone rely on it? It says for the Battle of Yorktown "final major battle of the American Revolutionary War." That's false. In 1782: the Battle of the Saintes, the final battle of the Grand Siege of Gibraltar and the Battle of Negapatam all took place in after the Battle of Yorktown. In the Battle of Blue Licks, 1782, the US lost almost as many men as it did at Yorktown - the numbers of militia was smaller, but 40% of the militia died, with injuries, the casualty rate was 50%.

AI says also, regarding the Battle of Yorktown: Following the Battle of the Saintes, George Washington would have likely written letters to the Continental Congress expressing his gratitude for the crucial naval victory achieved by the French fleet under the command of the Comte de Grasse,

AI may be mixing up up the Battle of the Chesapeake (French fleet won) with the Battle of the Saintes (French fleet lost) - but all of General Washington's letters and diaries (over 75,000) of them are available in print and online. There is such a letter in which General Washington despairs after the Battle of the Saintes that the British will not give up the fight.
I am at the Yorktown visitor center. Want me to tell them to correct their website?
https://www.nps.gov/york/index.htm
Several scholars - I am but an amateur historian - have tried, but it ruins Yorktown's narrative. Lest one think I am trying to destroy the Yorktown legacy, see the video on my profile. It was without doubt an extraordinary victory, almost a logistical miracle for the era and IMHO almost a sacred space - I beg the moderator's indulgence and will stop.

I suppose I will be using AI as the National Archives is using it to extract text for all 2,322,137 pages of the Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, ca. 1800 to ca. 1912.
"History is the memory of time, the life of the dead and the happiness of the living." Captain John Smith 1580-1631
Post Reply