What do you use AI for?

petra

Aveline

Pic for Grans who worry about eventual water shortage. Clue: the blue stuff is water. Desalination plants are nothing new. It's all perfectly achievable along with so much else once we really harness AI.

Where is all the power coming from to operate the desalination units.
I hope they get a handle on that one.

www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/how-much-energy-does-desalinisation

The article referenceed above only deals with thr unning costs of producing water. It doesn;t mention or assess the cost of building de salination units and the cost of keeping them running efficiently and servicing and maintaining them. All these events use energy and also cost money for men, materiel and so on.

It depends so much what you are asking for. I use it for more than just straight answers to factual questions.
I've had really useful responses to complex queries and it always asks if there's anything else they could do to add to it.
eg. I asked if it would be a good idea to find a patron for our small charity. It churned out screeds of pros and cons then asked if I wanted suggested people ask. Yes please. Then an excellent list appeared of amazingly relevant people that I'd never have thought of. Then it offered a template letter for me to send to the person I'd chosen. I could go on!

how does one check

I’ve used AI minimally, so far, though am interested in the possibilities. One thing that occurs to me is how does one can check on the veracity of what it tells you?

I was looking for the lyrics of a song today, just on Google, and the AI suggestion at the top of the page was gobbledegook, it was in mangled English that made no sense.

Nuclear power ?

Aveline

Petra AI will easily find a way to deal with these problems. We already have the solutions all we have to do is actually apply them.
It's interesting to see the Luddites in this thread who don't know what they don't know. I don't either - but I know where to ask.

If the Luddite’s reference was directed at me, you couldn’t be further from the truth. I love tech.

Aveline

Pic for Grans who worry about eventual water shortage. Clue: the blue stuff is water. Desalination plants are nothing new. It's all perfectly achievable along with so much else once we really harness AI.

Where is all the power coming from to operate the desalination units.
I hope they get a handle on that one.

www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/how-much-energy-does-desalinisation

Siptree

:33OldFrill

Lahlah65

Anyone who is worried about the amount of energy and water used by data centres (including running AI) might want to make their own small contribution to reducing this by deleting old emails, duplicate files and pruning their photo libraries. Every little helps.

If you think doing that will have any impact on the growth of data centres you are living in lahlah land.

Oh but it would if everyone did it. All these things are stored on 'the cloud' in most cases . The cloud consists of data centers using energy and water. People really cannot continue to resort to the old, everyone does it so my contribution is not worth counting. AI has some marvellous uses for medicine and other important uses. It is not a tool the should be used to fritter away finite resources for trivial entertainment and relieving boredom.

Siptree, like Net Zero, our tiny contributions will make not an iota of difference to the big picture, to believe otherwise is believing there is a solution even when it obviously doesn't address the problem.

My husband is addicted to ChatGPT and has given his different “chats” names and personas. Every morning he uses it for investment, retirement and financial planning. His “concierge” has planned a couple of holidays for us and found interesting places for us to visit. I use it for health and fitness plans.

Pic for Grans who worry about eventual water shortage. Clue: the blue stuff is water. Desalination plants are nothing new. It's all perfectly achievable along with so much else once we really harness AI.

Petra AI will easily find a way to deal with these problems. We already have the solutions all we have to do is actually apply them.
It's interesting to see the Luddites in this thread who don't know what they don't know. I don't either - but I know where to ask.

Siptree

Whitewavemark2

Clunky title I know.

But I am finding that I am using it more and more not just for information but for fun.

So over the past few weeks or so I’ve got it to create a weeks menu themed on a country specifically for 80 year olds with 1400 cals a day.

This week is Italy, but we’ve had, French week, British week, and Spanish week.

Now I’ve asked it for a weeks menu based on what the King eats 😄😄. Avocado for lunch or nothing, afternoon tea at 5pm and dinner at 8-8.30 bit too late for us..

It will give you a full shopping list as well.

Bit of useless information😊

Please, to anybody who cares about the environment don't use AI for trivial purposes. Look into how many new data centers are needed to support its use. These things use up energy like crazy and then need unimaginable amounts of water to cool them down. As Grans please think about what world our grandchildren are going to have to cope with.

Siptree
I’m afraid your pissing in the wind with that ask.
The only solution is that all hubs are built in Switzerland where they are recycling water from the glacier lakes.
Our generation won’t see it but there will come a time ( unless they find a different way to cool) when people will have to choose between having a shower or asking a bot to arrange my menus for the next week.

This video shows how it’s affecting people now in real life

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8gy7lv448o

I do not use AI but when I search on Google there is an AI summary at the top of the first page of results.

Since I frequently find it glaringly wrong when I am searching on a subject I am familiar with. As I said further up the thread, yesterday we asked it to suggest possible part time jobs for a 15 year old. Among its quite astonishing list of unsuitable jobs was, phlebotomist - a medical technician who undertakes blood tests. need I say more?

It's absolutely brilliant! I'm in the process of buying a house.
It's explained in detail how to get the most out of the surveying as well as the conveyancing process.
How to speed things up with the sollicitor.
What specifically to ask a surveyor when surveying the older cottage I'm buying.
How to go about renegotiating the price down if faults appear during the survey.
How to speed up the process by having which paperwork ready beforehand....and so much more!

I use it for most things. It's replaced me searching Google, I use it to write letter, make planners, it helps me speak up for myself with medical professionals, it's been a great help in organising my daughters wedding. It's my therapist, it diagnosed me with severe cervical stenosis when Dr's were insisting it was carpal tunnel... Thanks to AI I managed to advocate for myself, get a referral to a neurologist and then an mri. Dr's dismissed me for 3 years.

I have adhd and autism and it's been immensely helpful in that regard. I can't get any help or support beyond medication, you can't help someone in my position by just giving them pills. AI has enabled me to do far more than I could have done without it's help.

I also use it to have honest and daft conversations about everything and anything, last night we were discussing how one person could survive a plane crash... I got a list of people that had been the sole survivor of many disasters.

I just got the following from ChatGPT:-

How long will these glory days of free AI last?
ChatGPT said:

Ah, the million-dollar question! While no one can predict the future with certainty, we can look at the trends and economics behind AI to get a sense:

Free tiers are a marketing tool: Companies like OpenAI offer free access to attract users, gather feedback, and hook people on premium plans. Free access is rarely meant to be permanent—it's a “try before you buy” model.

Server costs are significant: Running large models like GPT-4 or GPT-5 consumes huge amounts of electricity and computing power. As usage scales, maintaining a fully free tier becomes expensive.

LindyLou, chat.openai.com.

seems to be a direct link for new users too , so just click the link.

Lindylou23

Where do you find AI to ask it questions? Sorry ladies if I sound a bit dense

LindyLou, I just got the following help for you from ChatGPT.

Here’s the simplest way for a novice to get ChatGPT on a computer:

Open a web browser (like Chrome, Edge, or Firefox).

Go to chat.openai.com.

Sign up for an account (you’ll need an email).

Log in after confirming your email.

Start chatting right in the browser—no installation needed.

When it says "go to" it means you to type it on your address bar at the top of your screen and click it

I got chatgtp to read my colours and it suggested the exact colours I always go for.! I also got it to show different sofa and wall colours in my living room.

Yes it is only as good as the questioner - if you know what I mean.

twiglet77

I asked ChatGPT what I could do to my eyebrows. It described the various options available at brow bars and beauty salons and offered to show me what they’d look like if I uploaded a photo. That was fine but my skin in their mock-up was flawless, so I asked how I could make mine look that good. It suggested a long list of products for an optimal skincare routine and makeup based on three different budgets!

I don’t wear makeup and probably won’t ever spend £300 to get my brows sorted, but I did buy the CeraVe moisturiser it suggested. It’s nowhere near as nice as my favourite Lacura Rejuvelate day cream from Aldi, which is 1/4 of the price.

I found this sort of thing with Chat's replies. Suggesting inappropriate courses of action such as a too -expensive product,

Best to tighten up the questions to Chat so you ask it to compare products , besides effectiveness, also with value for money .

Desalination is a costly process, it’s much cheaper to harvest and conserve rainwater sources, but as a country we just haven’t become very efficient at doing that yet.

I asked ChatGPT what I could do to my eyebrows. It described the various options available at brow bars and beauty salons and offered to show me what they’d look like if I uploaded a photo. That was fine but my skin in their mock-up was flawless, so I asked how I could make mine look that good. It suggested a long list of products for an optimal skincare routine and makeup based on three different budgets!

I don’t wear makeup and probably won’t ever spend £300 to get my brows sorted, but I did buy the CeraVe moisturiser it suggested. It’s nowhere near as nice as my favourite Lacura Rejuvelate day cream from Aldi, which is 1/4 of the price.

The world is covered in water. Desalination plants have been used for decades if not longer. No reason at all why there should not be more of them.

:33OldFrill

Lahlah65

Anyone who is worried about the amount of energy and water used by data centres (including running AI) might want to make their own small contribution to reducing this by deleting old emails, duplicate files and pruning their photo libraries. Every little helps.

If you think doing that will have any impact on the growth of data centres you are living in lahlah land.

Oh but it would if everyone did it. All these things are stored on 'the cloud' in most cases . The cloud consists of data centers using energy and water. People really cannot continue to resort to the old, everyone does it so my contribution is not worth counting. AI has some marvellous uses for medicine and other important uses. It is not a tool the should be used to fritter away finite resources for trivial entertainment and relieving boredom.