[spiderfarmer]

I recently saw a good example of how LLM's can be really useful.

A friend of mine, who always found learning difficult, now works as a plumber and installer with his own one-person company.

One of his clients is the local community pool. He took over the job from an older man who showed him how everything worked. My friend noticed a lot of inefficient (manual) use of energy and resources, but the previous installer told him it would cost too much to automate, so nothing was done.

The other day we talked about AI, and he said he had never tried it. I asked him to think of some questions from his daily work. He came up with questions about the pool system and how to automate it.

ChatGPT answered his questions correctly, and after a few follow-ups, it even provided a list of the parts he would need and a plan to make it work. Last weekend he told me that, together with the previous installer, he made improvements that should save the pool thousands of euros over the next few years.

Of course, an experienced pool expert might have come up with the same solution, but it is often difficult to convince a committee to hire someone when nothing is broken, the budget is already set, and the inefficiencies are not obvious.

My friend now uses ChatGPT several times a day to solve practical problems. It helps him learn new things and explore possibilities he might not have considered otherwise.

I do not mind if ChatGPT makes the occasional mistake or gives an answer based on outdated information. As long as it is used as a tool to improve your own abilities, the subscription is worth the cost.

When I worked with colleagues, I sometimes relied on advice that turned out to be wrong. Everyone makes mistakes, even when working to the best of their abilities, and I find that my AI 'colleagues' make fewer of them.

[thunderbong]

Thanks for this.

Lots of people, many amongst us here at HN, are critical of AI and LLMs in general. A lot of it has to do with two things, in my opinion - first, with the amount of money being thrown at it, and second, with the hype around it.

Many technical people, myself included, resent money being thrown at a problem rather than finding a proper solution. And we're especially skeptical of the hype cycle, because we've been through multiple hypes which didn't really live up to their claims.

But despite all that, I find regular people, using ChatGPT and other tools, just like any other online tool. Just like all of us rely on some software to find the time on the other side of the world when we have to schedule meetings, similarly, all these people are using these as tools to increase their capabilities and knowledge without the extra cruft that used to be involved in searching the web.

Additionally, AI is literally approachable by anybody who has an internet connection, and that means anyone with a smartphone. This didn't happen with devices, this didn't happen with Napster, this didn't happen with Bittorrent, and certainly not with Bitcoin. Each of these had some hurdle associated with it - cost of device, connectivity, technical knowhow.

But over the years, all those helped lay the foundation of what AI is being seen as now - as a tool that anybody can use. The more savvy among us are also using it to build their own tools as well.

So, yes, this time it certainly feels different.

[AstralStorm]

So it works as an advanced search engine. Sometimes, for simpler things.

Do you want that in every device or a lot of them, in every home, every service, for super cheap?

What's the paradigm being shifted here?

[spiderfarmer]

Don’t you realize how disingenuous you sound calling AI an “advanced search engine”?

That’s like saying. “So a car is just a better horse, what’s the paradigm being shifted here?”

[yobbo]

This is an interesting example but it can't be scaled up to have meaningful impact on the level of the economy or society.

The effect right now of LLMs is reducing friction for some people with certain problems, but big important problems are already optimised to much higher levels.

[spiderfarmer]

I disagree completely.

You seem to believe the venture capital money machine that tells you technology and innovation must always be a major disruptive force and solve big, important problems.

Most problems we encounter in daily life are small. If a technology helps solve them faster, at a lower cost, or in a way that was not possible before, I believe it can scale very well. People just have to get accustomed to it.

For example, I fixed my lawnmower recently with the help of ChatGPT. I could have gone to the dealer or asked my brother for help, but instead it was a quick five minute fix that saved me from bothering anyone or spending time searching through manuals and videos for the answer. It literally couldn't have been fixed faster.

I prefer that over augmented reality goggles and other "Big Ideas".

[yobbo]

It sounds like we agree? LLMs are great for finding fixes for lawnmowers and other things. Before, easier fixes for those problems weren't valuable enough to warrant any investment.

Therefore, current LLMs won't be a complete upheaval like some are fearing.

Things like AlphaFold might create upheavals in their respective fields but they are very specialised. I'm more enthusiastic about that than chatbots.