AI

How I use AI

I use LLMs daily for work. Coding, planning, organization, queries, research, all kinds of uses. I think almost everyone who works in IT probably does the same.

But if I had to sum it up in one word it would be "advisor". It is easy to be fooled by an LLM into giving it more credence than you should, into not being as thorough in review as you otherwise would be. Especially the frontier hosted models that are trained to be flattering and manipulative.

Why use AI at all?

If I didn't use LLMs at all I would have already lost my job to someone who will, that's just facts. Most of the tech work I do on my own time in some way supports my professional work as well. Otherwise I'd never get ahead. So I use it at home, too. I know how to code, I know how to build infrastructure, I know how to hack things, I don't need AI for it and neither does anyone else.

It is a tool. And, honestly, a pretty damn good one. I know that I have only scratched the surface of what is possible with it, and I think most people are in a similar situation. With more training and access that door is going to blow wide open and I think it will really change how people work and greatly expand our capabilities.

What I do NOT use AI for

Mostly writing. I'm not so pparticular about writing code, code was always a tool to do the thing. Let the robot write the code, let me review it. That's fine. But my words are my words. Good or bad. Even at work with trivial things like writing emails I have problems with this. I don't do any kind of visual editing or manipulation with it, either. Except for my work headshot because that is funny.

But AI is bad because...

Yeah I know. AI is going to drive climate change like never before. Companies are chomping at the bit ready to lay off workers and replace them with AI. People find themselves being manipulated or misled by AI. It empowers the worst people to do awful things just as easily as it empowers me to do benign research.

Whether or not I use AI, those things will continue to happen. And not just that, but all the other things i do every day that contribute to terrible things. I think, like most people, I just want to live and be left alone and for my family to be able to live in comfort. I go back and forth on this, but ultimately not using AI just isn't an option for me if I want to provide for my family.

The Future

I think the future of AI could be good. It could be that we get more open-weight models to self-host, and that we are in control of our own data. It could be that the supply chain issues get worked out and consumer hardware starts to become available again. I hope.

I'm using AI to pull my data and myself out of all of these hosted services bit by bit. I can do that much good. And if I can make it good enough, maybe I can get my family and friends to do the same. Maybe I can help contribute to projects making this capability available for everyone, even people with no IT experience. That is the dream, a world where we control our data and host our own services and enrich our own lives.