Making sense of AI

Today I’m working on understanding AI mainly from the viewpoint of how to map out my position in the disruption AI has brought about (contextualizing AI).

I use AI at work quite a lot. It helps me with scheduling, keeping track of tasks, using tones in communication, checking inconsistencies in technical writing, small scripts where I have a clearly defined input and output, and so on. AI is a tool that makes my work easier.

On a larger scale, I can see how people are excited about AI, mostly from a technical perspective. Others are scared of AI taking their jobs. At the same time, there are ongoing policy discussions around inclusivity, safety, and other societal impacts.

I’ve also encountered the idea that content has become diluted. Google Image Search now returns AI-generated imagery, Google Search returns articles most likely written by AI, and even books are being generated with AI.

Associated with this I’m beginning to question: Why would I read anything nobody was willing to write? (I saw this in a comment section in YouTube and am probably paraphrasing it wrong). Perhaps I will come to a conclusion on this.

To make sense of this, I’m going to do a bit of research to learn how AI works — the main concepts and technology — and how to communicate with AI through prompt engineering. Then, I’ll explore how I could delegate tasks to AI. Finally, I’ll focus on my areas of expertise to figure out exactly how to apply AI.

Instead of perceiving AI as a threat — although there are downsides to AI disruption — I’m looking forward to having an assistant I previously couldn’t afford to hire.

All of this will be divided into a series of blog posts.