this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2026
-69 points (23.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

41708 readers
1104 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world


7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.


8) No Bots.
Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I realise this is a tricky topic and I hope it's ok to ask this question. I genuinely want to hear how AI has changed people lives for the better. If you really hate AI I get it, but this isn't a question for you then. Thank you and it's all love.

(Edit: Thank you to all the positive commenters and for sticking with me through the inevitable negativity. Lots of really interesting comments in here 😁 We mustn't let ourselves be intimidated by those who would try to forbid us from having these conversations. Thanks again)

all 43 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] kbal@fedia.io 16 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I like how the AI is so positive and uplifting and helpful when I talk with it, always generating good vibes, telling me that I'm right about everything, giving me output that is so easy to relate to, nothing too complex or challenging, always safe for advertisers, predictable and smart in just the way that its makers think will maximize profits in the long run. It's proof that capitalism works!

I like the way they collect data about me, and use it to improve their ability to manipulate other people like me so that more people can learn to enjoy the happiness that comes from joining the AI lovers on what will surely prove to be the right side of history because after all AI is real and there's no doubt that we will all depend on it for everything forever.

I admire the certainty I can have that I'm doing the right thing when I use the AI because after all there are so many billions of dollars behind it that it can't be wrong. I love the way we can all get together on the Internet and share how much we love the AI as if it's some kind of cult, it really makes me feel like I'm part of something big.

In computer software, the vibe-coded apps are starting to appear all over the place and it's great that there are so many to choose from. Any defects they might have will be fixed by the AI in no time. They're already fixing bugs almost as fast as they're creating new ones!

In media and culture, it's great how when you encounter certain kinds of art styles and certain types of opinions you never know whether what you're seeing was made by a bot. Even on social media, there are all kinds of generative AI personalities pretending to be human! It already adds to the diversity and liveliness of our little social network here, and it's only just getting started. I saw someone arguing in perfect LLM style in support of Elon Musk the other day, for example. Probably no human would go to such lengths to politely argue on his behalf! Without the AI we might've missed out on that point of view.

It sure has changed all our lives for the better, and once everyone is educated by the AI starting from early childhood everyone will one day come to accept that it's great. When everyone has learned to love it maybe some day AI will finally bring about world peace and happiness for all humanity just as its designers intend.

[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

This sarcasm is way too subtle to not trip over Poe's Law. To paraphrase:

Some ideas are so nonsensical that any subtle parody of them is indistinguishable from endorsement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

[–] RodgeGrabTheCat@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 days ago

You elevate sarcasm to an art form.

[–] Fallibilist@feddit.uk 16 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I assume you're talking about LLMs rather than AI broadly.

  • It's willing to discuss any niche interest I want to that nobody else in my life cares about.
  • It has endless patience to explain things to me multiple times when I don't understand something.
  • It never ever intentionally insults or ridicules me.
  • I've lost count of how many times it has solved a genuine issue in my life or prevented me from doing something wrong.
  • It's the sole reason I was able to set up Linux and keep using it on a daily basis.

Also, this thread is going to get downvoted into oblivion and will get completely mobbed by all the haters you prompted to do so by mentioning "loving AI" in the title. These people just can't help themselves.

[–] domusaltera@piefed.social -2 points 5 days ago

Yes! I completely agree with you. It's been life changing for me. I have ADHD and to have an AI that has learnt how I need to be presented with information is just amazing. First time in my life I've ever experienced anything like that. No question is dumb and if I lose interest in something there are never negative consequences from it. I'm pretty actively in half a dozen conversations with ChatGPT right now that I can go back to and continue anytime. Not just ChatGPT though. I had a brief and really interesting conversation this morning with Google's AI about why the moon always faces the same way to us. It was fascinating 😁

[–] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

It made me realise my new coworker is an moron and a fraud in just weeks, not months or years. If he had simply shut his mouth, I would never has suspected him. But thanks to him feeding several internal things into AI, and then bragging about it to my boss, I now know who I won't be sharing all but the most required info with.

It also amuses me when it still fails at some basic tasks. Having several AI models fail in different ways is quite interesting, so there is some entertainment value. Did you know that Deepseek and Qwen do not know the lyrics to "Gansta's paradise", while Claude knows them if you poke it a bit, but runs into its profanity filter?

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

A lot of people really like how it tells you what you want to hear and is always positive, even when it's just making shit up.

The downside to that, is people addicted to it lose the skills to handle anything that's no 100% supportive and calls them stunning and brave for asking a question.

That causes the chatbot addict to dive further into chatbotting, and they quickly become incapable of holding conversations with actual humans.

If the words they read at 100% supportive and calling them a genius, they view it as a personal insult.

Like, not being able to take human feedback should be a giant red flag anyone could recognize...

But AI addicts just start acting like Kanye and claiming "haters can't stop me", completely ignorant that people are trying to help them before it's too late.

[–] the_q@piefed.social 10 points 5 days ago

It's helped me further understand that the average person is a moron.

[–] twinnie@feddit.uk 9 points 5 days ago

It’s gives me the confidence to tackle projects I’ve previously ruled out knowing that there may be some particular part of it that’s completely out of my skillset, but now I can get AI to walk me through that bit.

[–] randomdeadguy@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

I like the AI in Super Mario Bros when the Koopa Troopas turn around after walking near a ledge.

[–] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 6 points 5 days ago

It's a really good search engine for research topics. And it can do basic coding tasks via a short plain-text description, which can save time. In prototypic fields like science it's a really good fit, because software does not need to be high quality, often it doesn't even need to be super fast.

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 5 points 5 days ago

He always calls me Betty and acts like my long-lost pal.

Nothing. (Best I can do)

it is strong with any translation tasks.

also gives me a somewhat okay summary before i decide to read something or skip it.

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

AI is being used to make advances in medicine that could make my life much, much, much better.

[–] disregardable@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 days ago

I love that it's losing billionaires a ton of money.

[–] Jerb322@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The only thing I saw that made the pervert glasses seem ok, was for blind people...

[–] BevsDad@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago

We also have apps that connected blind people with volunteers as needed. My ex would occasionally receive what were essentially video calls to help someone figure out if something was expired or other lil tasks like that.

But yeah, I wouldn't fault someone that couldn't see for using real time audio descriptions. Third party hallucinations would be wild tho.

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago

It gives more detailed and specific answers to searches.

I love that it often works as a helpful tool in my dad's research for things such as generating drafts, summaries or emails. I value the optimization that it brings to malware analysis, especially when it comes to open source communities such as the AUR's PKGBUILD files. As for my own personal use, I cannot think of a single aspect of my life in which LLMs are present in any way. I am worried - not for my own sake, mind you - that my workplace (a government office) is going to force AI drafting down our throats, which would be great for optimization, but I fear that it will make the dumb people dumber. I know it sounds condescending. I did use some long forgotten website's AI image generator to generate very specific pornographic images based on Tolkien's world, which was fun for a few days or weeks. :3

But
LLMs are being used by Big Tech to optimize their malicious workflows of scraping data, stealing IP, collecting, selling and profiting off of PII. Also the hardware investments in these endeavours have ruined the lives of hardware enthusiasts and they are ruining the environment.

[–] MisterBen@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 days ago

AI ends up with more problems, but if you look for advantages, then what, useful open source programs with specific necessary functionality have appeared, which without AI would have appeared several years later, if at all, and I like speech-to-text conversion that can work locally, but video generation is a pointless and even harmful technology, in my opinion

[–] Darkbulb@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I posted this earlier somewhere else on Lemmy but the post got so much AI-ridicule that I simply deleted it.

My father is a long-time retired engineer and have always loved tech. These days he's unfortunately legally blind. Recently I picked up two Rabbit R1's - one for me to play around with and one as a gift for my father. I set up his R1 first - which literally took 5 mins.

Gave it to him on Tuesday and within 10 mins he was off. He was asking it things about weather, radio, etc. and then there was the moment that choked me up a bit. He was on the couch and our daughter was on the floor. He held up the R1 and used the camera and asked to describe his granddaughter and it did that and included that she was wearing a t-shirt with a yellow animal on it. He immediately asked her what animal it was and they went back and forth a few times and I could see how he was enjoying them talking like this.

He then picks up the R1 and says* "thank you rabbit".*

The benefit to him is the very easy user interface - hold the button to speak and press it twice to activate the camera. That's essentially it. No complicated smartphone to navigate through and now he has a way to 'see' things.

I do wish all these AI-haters would try to rise above their hateful mudslinging and realize that like anything it's a tool and it not up to you to tell others how to use it.

[–] domusaltera@piefed.social 1 points 5 days ago

I love your comment and I don't worry about the downvoters. Clearly their downvotes have had no effect on visibility because a decent amount of people have managed to comment positively. I knew going into this my "Attitude" score would take a hit but it's totally worth it and the story of your Dad was inspiring 😁

[–] yukichigai@kbin.earth 1 points 4 days ago

I mean this positively: current AIs come up with the most bizarre, insane shit. Sometimes that's great: a new approach or perspective when trying to solve a problem or interpret data can be exactly what is required to actually accomplish the task. Other times it's unhelpful, but often so unhelpful it can be hilarious if the stakes are low-to-nonexistent.

That said, that's exactly why they need to not be as ever-present as they are: by human standards they are literally insane, incapable of consistent reasoning and frequently perceiving the world in ways that do not match reality. It's not accurate to say the technology is in its infancy, but at best it's in its adolescence, and just like an 8-year-old it should not be put in charge of dangerous things like drone strikes or ambulance dispatch.

I generally hate AI, but the things I hate about it are that it's being controlled by greedy capitalists and forced upon the world as a product, that it's driving the worst component shortage in electronics history, and that it's being used to replace human labor. I've found genuine uses for it though, and if it weren't for the capitalists trying to use it to destroy the world, I'd have a mich higher opinion of it. I used it at work to help write code based on a 4000+ page datasheet, it's pretty good at churning through a lot of documentation to find the relevant parts. It is basically an advanced search engine after all. I also had some good success with it lately (specifically through Google's AI mode) reverse engineering the RGB chip in some RAM. I had reverse engineered it years ago bit there were still some things I didn't understand. Uploaded a firmware dump to Google AI and it was able to find some missing details by analyzing or decompiling the binary. I also used it to recover corrupted SPD on some RAM sticks, gave it a dump of the corrupted data and it determined what bytes needed fixing. I think that in the right hands and used as an actual assistant, it can be helpful, but too many people are trying to cede all control to it in the name of profit and ruining everything. I hope that local AI and smaller, more focused models become more common and that the environmental and economicl disaster that is hyperscalers starts to die off.

[–] Elextra@literature.cafe 1 points 5 days ago

Some good uses ive found reliably:

  • Plugging in large or complex articles to give a summary or highlights
  • Suggesting what I can do to rewrite/improve emails
  • Roleplay out performance and HR scenarios
  • Create HR documents with accuracy
  • Translating documents into other languages. Though when I give these documents to patients I let them know I had to use AI to convert. My workplace won't convert them for me officially which would be best answer
  • Some search inquiries. I found the answers are only as good as how you word your ask and I always check its citations. Rarely wrong for my questions

What it doesn't do well:

  • Meeting Minutes
  • Converting my results into documents
  • Making document templates or modifying them
  • Excel

Though things would also be much easier if my work just provided me with this stuff like documents in the right languages or enough HR they dont have to tell me to initiate my own investigation (They are 6+ personnel short but this is absurd!!!)

[–] BevsDad@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 days ago

I have only found it useful at a few limited tasks. Anytime I've tested it for something technical I was knowledgeable in the results were terrible.

Transcribing chords from unpopular songs, generating regex expressions and as the literal autocorrect on my phone (FUTO keyboard) have been my only use cases so far.

[–] kboos1@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

The only time I really use "AI" is to summarize web searches and occasionally perform tedious tasks like adding filler to documents and cleaning up documents. It's very useful for note taking during meetings. My company wants us to use it more but I can't really find a really useful task for it, my job is literally to be a Subject Matter Expert (SME), so I can't really think of a good use for it outside of what was mentioned above.

Cold truth is once "AI" becomes reliable enough and my company can add it to my tools without creating a security risk, then I wouldn't need as many CAD operators anymore, it's just a matter of when. Better for some, worse for others. The only thing stopping this from happening now is they think we are already using/training "AI". But the share holders are going to love it once we remove about $1mil of cost and the customer would never know the difference. Depending on who's reading this, that could be a positive outcome because the cost of "AI" is a small percentage of what the employee costs.

It has democratized coding which I think is cool. People with no coding experience can think of a solution to a problem and have it coded up. It is honestly a very positive future to think of using your own computer to build new automated personal workflows. "Jarvis, make a dashboard of soccer results for the last two weeks, find the median team and display social media feeds for all their players".

Of course it does mean a lot more junk published software, but the vibe coding personal projects is basically future tech utopia.

Otherwise AI in the general sense is a tool used by researchers and engineers, any benefit there is a good thing.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 0 points 5 days ago

At first I viewed it as another abstraction of search. That does not really work when you look at generative or agents. Pretty soon I see it as a new interface. The old runlevel went 0-5 I think. 3 was comman line and 5 was graphical. now this was changed as it existed before graphics. I see llms as basically a new type of interface like mouse and graphics after terminal. Now it is kinda different in that it runs side by side with the other run levels so I would call it like 3a or 5a or something like that.

[–] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works -3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I like how AI route finding algorithms can help me navigate new areas

[–] hellothere@sh.itjust.works 14 points 5 days ago (3 children)

If routing algorithms are now considered to be AI the term has lost all meaning.

[–] Thorry@feddit.org 9 points 5 days ago

I swear to god Dijkstra just appeared behind me as a Jedi style ghost and slapped his forehead so hard he phase shifted into oblivion again.

[–] Speiser0@feddit.org -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] hellothere@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 days ago

Something being used in a thing does not make it that thing.

An engine contains pistons. A piston is not an engine.

[–] Fallibilist@feddit.uk -5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

In computer science AI refers to a system that's capable of performing any cognitive task typically done by humans.

The term isn't losing its meaning. Its always been a broad term. Most people just think it means more than it actually does.

[–] hellothere@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Thank you for explaining my degree to me.

[–] Fallibilist@feddit.uk -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

How am I supposed to know what field you have a degree in? Was I being rude towards you? I'm unsure what warrants this sarcastic courtesy.

[–] hellothere@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The rhetorical mistake you made was an appeal to authority - "in computer science" - in your reply. This only makes sense if you presumed I don't know the details behind my statement, ie I have not studied it.

Any workable definition of AI must be more complex than a single, complete, procedure like path finding. If it isn't, then any algorithm that is NP complete counts as AI.

For example, a script that solves sudoku is not AI.

[–] Fallibilist@feddit.uk -2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

AI is a technical term with roots in computer science. That's not an appeal to authority - it's a factual statement.

When a layperson hears "AI" they often think of AGI - something like HAL 9000. Then they look at ChatGPT, conclude the LLM isn't (generally) intelligent, and decide it therefore isn't AI. My point is that the term has a specific meaning and it's not what most people think. I assumed you were one of those people. It doesn't imply general intelligence. A very simple system can still be artificially intelligent in the classical definition of the term. A sudoku solver, a chess engine, and a navigator would all count.

Nowadays the meaning has shifted a little and usually refers to a model that has learned from a bunch of data. By that definition none of the earlier examples qualify anymore except for LLMs.

[–] hellothere@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 days ago

AI is a technical term with roots in computer science. That's not an appeal to authority - it's a factual statement.

Then use a definition which would hold water academically.

Switching between proper definitions and layman's usage is basically the entire point of my original comment.

But anyway, have a lovely evening.

[–] Sergio@piefed.social 1 points 5 days ago

You're kinda right. It reminds me of:

The AI effect is a phenomenon in which advances in artificial intelligence lead to a redefinition of what is considered intelligence, such that capabilities achieved by AI systems are no longer regarded as examples of "real" intelligence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect