Recent thoughts on AI use

Yes, it's another post on AI. Whilst, I don't write too many posts on it myself (I wrote around 7,000 words on it for a journal instead) you've probably come across countless posts on it elsewhere.

I was planning to write something about it following the announcement that the Steam Deck was going up by around £200! What was once the go-to suggestion for a PC handheld ("just get a Steam Deck") is now a tougher sell. The reason for the increase is due to the continuing RAMageddon thanks in large part to AI companies swallowing up all as much RAM and storage as possible. It only takes a basic awareness of supply and demand economics to understand how a decrease in available supply alongside an increase in demand pushes up prices. There are other political factors as well, as a result of the US shooting itself in the face repeatedly with a shotgun and the rest of the world being hit by the excess shot.

Anyway, with these two factors, tech of all kinds (and videogames are no exception) are affected. So we wait for the AI bubble to explode (implosion won't be satisfying enough) and for the US to do better. There is also something we can do, which is either not use AI, or (and this is the more pragmatic option) be very selective with how we use it.

Most generative elements are things we can and should avoid. That's because when you use genai you are not creating anything. But, the AI is not the author either, as it has stuck together a bunch of elements it has stolen.

So, what is AI good for. Assisting with search is my main use for it. I don't use it for every search. In fact I've gone as far as making DuckDuckGo's No Ai search option one of the choices in my selection of search providers in Firefox, and the default option when using private browsing. I rarely use Google search at all anymore, in large part because of it defaulting to AI search, which is usually bad. I've tried Startpage but I found myself returning to DuckDuckGo. It is here I do occasionally use it's "Search Assist" which can then be expanded into DuckAI. This is at its most useful when I'm trying to search for something specific and the best way I can describe that search is via more natural language instead of using dedicated search terms. Sometimes the answer it provides is helpful, but mostly I use it to more quickly identify sources. The initial text acting as a precursor to the link I then click on.

This still isn't optimal though. There have been many instances where the text will say one thing, but the "source" is not about the same thing. For example, I'm often searching for comparisons between the Steam Deck version of a game against a Switch/2 version. Often, it will get confused and just compare the hardware instead of the software I was asking about.

A lot of people use AI to check their writing. I understand why they would. I've done so as well, but it's something I only use very very sparingly. The last time I used it was to less about checking the writing, rather it was to help provide an additional highlight of what I had manually compiled to go into a conclusion. I kept it completely separate from the document I was working on, and even then only looked back at it when having a bit of brain fog. Functionally in that instance it was another version of my notes rather than being another instance of writing.

That's what we need to keep in mind, when writing it should be our writing. As I said earlier in this post, when using generative AI, it is not our work, it is the theft from the AI. So, with writing, why would I get an AI to write a paper for me. What does it know about the topic I'm writing about, especially in the research context where I am coming up with novel answers, which is the point of research.

Before writing this post I came across one in my RSS feed from Ava's blog called the "AI blog challenge". I was going to use this to help generate ideas for this post, but I ended up doing rather well myself (see, we don't need AI to prompt, as our brains are still capable enough). Nonetheless, the questions are interesting so I'm going to answer now, but I won't need to go into quite as much detail.

1. How was your first experience with AI models? The first time I used ChatGPT was to send off a measured email complaining to a business. I was happy with the result, only because my version came off far too rude (even though I wasn't swearing).
2. Do you use AI or are you completely against using it? I am against generative AI, such as for images, music, and writing. As I mentioned above, for assisting with searches it is ok. What we need to shift towards is it being a tool, where we use it as part of a process to achieve something, rather than "AI" doing all the work. This is twofold. One, if it does all the work, then what is the point of us. Second, it is not competent to do all the work.
3. Do you have any preference among different models, for example Claude vs ChatGPT? If yes, how do you choose? ChatGPT will happily lie to you. Unfortunately DuckAI is built upon one of its models. I remember asking it how many Metal Gear Solid games does Solid Snake feature in. It got it wrong, so I berated it as I pointed out how wrong it was. I did use Claude a bit, but increasingly found it not very helpful. It didn't blatantly lie like ChatGPT, but it felt like I was wasting time. Gemini has got better. But I wouldn't use it for anything too complex.
4. What aspect of AI models do you like and what do you not like? As I've said above, assisting with search (but not depending on it) is the main thing.
5. How do you feel about AI generated images? Does it annoy you if someone uses them in a blog post? Stock images exist! And so does traditional image search. AI generated images are pointless and just plain bad. I physically feel a bit sick sometimes seeing them.
6. Internet is flooded with AI slop now, full of generated text, images, audio and videos. How do you filter it from authentic human creation? Do you have a strategy? DuckDuckGo has filters for this. I don't spend much time on social media anymore, and when I am it's pretty curated.
7. Are you hopeful for a better future with A.I. or a dystopian one? I'm still remaining optimistic. Ironically through a Cyberpunk lens in which people have more agency over their tech. The rise of Linux and the fact that Microsoft is having to excuse it's pathetic rollout of Copilot helps. (I completely forgot about Copoliot. We have it at work and I never use it because every time I did it would be completely useless.)