It just feels too good to be true.
I’m currently using it for formatting technical texts and it’s amazing. It doesn’t generate them properly. But if I give it the bulk of the info it makes it pretty af.
Also just talking and asking for advice in the most random kinds of issues. It gives seriously good advice. But it makes me worry about whether I’m volunteering my personal problems and innermost thoughts to a company that will misuse that.
Are these concerns valid?
The big problem that I see are people using it for way too much. Like “hey write this whole application/business for me”. I’ve been using it for targeted code snippets, mainly grunt work stuff like “create me some terraform” or “a bash script using the AWS cli to do X” and it’s great. But ChatGPT’s skill level seems to be lacking for really complex things or things that need creative solutions, so that’s still all on me. Which is kinda where I want to be anyway.
Also, I had to interview some DBA’s recently and I used it to start my interview questions doc. Went to a family BBQ in another state and asked it for packing ideas (almost forgot bug spray cause there aren’t a lot of bugs here). It’s great for removing a lot of cognitive load when working with mundane stuff.
There are other downsides, like it’s proprietary and we don’t know how the data is being used. But AI like this is a fantastic tool that can make you way more effective at things. It’s definitely better at reading AWS documentation than I am.