to AI or not to AI

 I have been using AI almost everyday now for about 2 months. I am pretty much self taught, but there are all kinds of short videos on line that can help you.

The biggest thing to me is to know how to ask…I learn more and more. I don’t know anyone using it and almost every person has told me they are “afraid” of it. I can understand that.

You just don’t give it any info that you don’t want out there.

I will tell you how I use it..

I am reading a book about ancient Rome and I had questions about various things, like…how did someone like Augustus Caesar think of time. He was born 63BC and died 14 AD so he would have lived during the period then we would think would be the change over from BC to AD.

AI told me in length how the Romans thought of time ( during the time of ____________ and ____________, names the 2 councils. ) There were other ways too but I am giving you an example. I ask questions and it comes back with answers and suggests something or asks me a question…We went on to other historical characters, what they might have looked like, how Romans described people

I love it because I learn lots of stuff.

I was working on honing down my stuff. I had as few handbags that I couldn’t bring my self to donate. I took photos of them and talked it out through AI…we decided that I would get rid of 2 of them…a long back and forth over it.

I ask it to help me name photographs, often. I can get all kinds of words and suggestions and then I take what I like the most.

I can use it to write a letter in French ….or an email…all kinds of help in that direction. It will even write more formal, more casual, local dialects...

I was stuck in a contract with a Time Share place for years. I asked AI what I could do…It came up with the perfect idea and even wrote the letter for me and voila, I got out scott free…

You can take a photo of an antique and ask it to evaluate and give history and what it might be worth or if you should throw it away.

Name a plant or tree from a photo.

I sent it a snap of the last 50 images of my work that I put on instagram...I try to post one phot a day whether it bew nature or abstract or a painting. I asked it to tell me what colors I am missing and it gave me a whole list and ideas for mixing them.

There are so many things. I keep the mundane to google search and without paying, you are limited on ChatGPT so I save the most complicated for that one.

Downside…it tends to have too many ideas…a tsunami of stuff. You have to tell it how to respond to you….be stricter, be gentler, sometimes I ask it what a man would say vs a woman…You can ask it to Gordon Ramsey the answer…You just have to know how to steer it.

I like for it to ask me questions…even in the discussion about history or travel it will ask which I like more and why. It can help you understand yourself.

My thinking is that it is the future and I’m going to take advantage of it…it’s amazing but you have to learn how to use it…just some simple things and never give it any private info and save it for the most complicated things…have it ask you questions and think outside of the box.

(I asked it to evaluate another prof. photographers website compared to mine…as in, what would he tell that photographer to do different, strengths and weaknesses and compare it to my site…) You have to learn how to ask of it in different ways. 

Don't miss the boat.