AI

Ofcourse, I need to have an opinion on todays hot topic: AI.

Recently, a colleague, who became a friend, discussed his usage of AI with me. Which also triggered me to think more about it. And I realised that I don't have the urge to use AI for the time being.

Before I start, I want to make clear that this is purely my own opinion, not what I think that everybody should apply. It's based on my own experience.

When ChatGPT was still a fancy tool used by the hyper geek, who always want to test latest trends, I didn't payed a lot of attention to it. However I did worked before "AI" was a thing, with it's predecessor "machine learning", where you upload some pictures and the algoritm (which is also a fancy hyped word of this era as well) will tell you what's in the picture, you give it an address or city and it will give you the rent/buy prices of properties, cctv takes your picture and compares it with pictures in database and matches with x percent accuracy and stuff like that.

It was amazing, but the algoritm was still a mistery, so I was kind of curious about what was behind. But didn't searched it at that time.

When ChatGPT was there, I tested the webclient with silly questions and that was it and didn't used it (or any other AI tool) anymore(directly). Today, without noticing it, we are all using AI in one way or another, so we are using it indirectly.

Some developers used AI tools, integrated them in their dev environment, forced themself to use it for a period (a week, month, a project, ...), then shared their experiences. It was very interesting, but still wasn't enough to convince me to use it myself. I did try to convince myself to use it (pay extra attention to "try to convince"). But didn't take any steps to use it.

Followed some AI related news/blogposts, but still it was always like 2 sides: You are absolutely FOR or AGAINST AI! Like every subject.

To make it clear, I'm not for or against AI at all. I love technology, so I'm totally for using all the tools in your possession to make life (or at least your life) easier, not harder. But I'm also for enjoying life, even if it will make it slightly harder, but more fun. And most of all, I'm more for privacy and freedom.

What do I mean by that. I'm for usage of AI, the more people use it, the more it will learn, but most of the AI is hosted on large infrastructures of big corporations, that benefit from your personal information. And most people will get used to those AI tools, and start sharing (knowingly or unknowingly) some private info, and those info can be used to benefit you, or benefit the company or the ones who will pay to benefit from you.

Secondly, I learned (or unlocked) a part of myself, if I want to do something (like learning, trying, ...), I love to do it the hard way. In that way, I learned and loved using split keyboard, (neo)vim, linux base commands, renovate kitchen and bathroom, be able to fix plumbing, setup private home-automation, talk to strangers, ...

Third, I love to use my keyboard to write, it can be anything (writing code, an article, message, ..., I even write every time the ending of my mails the "kind regards..."-part). And I also still love to think about the actions I take, and don't really like to just copy paste something that I'm given. one clear example is: when I code, I try 5 different ways, before searching for an answer in Stackoverflow, even when I found the solution there, I will write it myself instead of copy pasting the code, and I will try to find help pages or documentation(github, npmjs, man-pages) about the code I'm writing. I always close the autofill/suggestions from chat applications, so I try to come up with the word I intent to say myself, if I don't know how to write it down, I will lookup in google, I write my sentences as correct as possible, if I write it incorrect, I hope the person that I'm talking to will correct me, over and over again, until I don't make that error anymore.

By using AI, I've the feeling that I'm delegating the important stuff, that I love to do, to something/someone else. I'm not learning (or I'm unlearning) those things I love to excel at. But I know that I need to try it one day, to have the experience myself, and see if I will start loving other/new things, while passing the things I currently love to AI. I just don't have the urge or motivation to start using AI yet. Once I'll start having the motivation, then I'm sure I will force myself to use it.

Lastly, I just think that AI is not mature enough as they portray it in the media, and it will take some time to become really mature. Also it is in a "hype-thingy" stage, so when the hype is over there will be a second or "reviving-hype" stage. Once that is also over it will start to really grow and become more mature to integrate it (not just in IT) in our lives.

So those are my conclusions:

• do I fear to missing out? no
• do I need to invest my energy in it? currently no, in near future maybe, in future, yes
• do I like the "old" way of doing stuff? absolutely
• will AI take control over humans? nope
• will AI replace jobs? in future yes, even a lot of IT related jobs
• replacing jobs is it bad? nope, we need to think of new jobs
• what will I suggest to someone interested in AI?
  • if you are curious and motivated, please learn AI and use it, try to integrate it as much as your motivation goes, and share your findings with everyone.
  • if you're interested, watch some AI stuff, search information about it to see if you find any motivation to go deeper.
  • if you are just interested, but you know you don't have motivation, don't wast a lot of time in it and follow the things that motivates you and you love to do.

AI is just another trending topic, that will become a part in our life, but not today. Enjoy life the way you want. I love the curiosity, and excelling at things I love to do, so I will keep doing those things, even if it is harder to do, while AI can just do it in seconds.

This was just my opinion, I wanted to write down (also forcing myself to write blogpost like diary from time to time). I know people have their own opinions, facts, believes which are not the same as mine, feel free to send me your opinions about it, I'm very pleased to read them.

Kind regards