In the world of Star Trek (and it was Star Trek day last Monday!), the humans of the future get through like talking aloud to their computers. Why type when your computer system is able to process verbal commands, right? Given that, I think a lot of us Trekkies have enjoyed the continued evolution of home assistants like Google Home, Alexa, or Siri for bringing us closer to that sort of Star Trek future.
And while we still can't just tell our computers what we need them to do, AI chatbots do seem to be getting us a lot closer to something like that sort of future. The home assistants were already well on their way with increasingly robust natural language processing capabilities, but generative AI has really taken things to a whole other level. Sure, these apps get vilified for their weird "creative" efforts like emdash-heavy AI-crafted copy or forever shiny AI-generated images of people, there's still a lot of potential for changing the way we work in a number of ways.
Moving beyond the basic levels of trying to get generative AI to write things for you and mock up weird images for stuff, their potential for problem-solving only gets better and better. A few years ago, I was pretty proud of my ability to figure out what search queries to use to find answers to questions - even if that meant going through different help pages, internet forums, and other resources just to figure out the answer to a technical question. AI chatbots have gotten pretty good and are trying to do all that legwork for you so you can focus on the steps closer to the actual solution. And as the AI models get better and better, it's rather scary how good the bots are getting.
My main point of AI interaction remains Google Gemini, given I have access to the Pro model thanks to my Google One subscription. And because I'm conscious of potential Pro prompt limits on my personal Gemini versus the office Google Workspace Gemini, so I'm actively using both their quicker (default) Flash model and their Pro models, and...WOW. You can really tell the difference. The Flash model is your typical consumer generative AI chatbot - a goldfish brain that isn't the best at remembering EVERYTHING you've discussed in a particular chat model. It answers very quickly; thus, it's good as a general assistant, but it's still prone to hallucinations. But the Pro model is SO MUCH better. Sure, it takes more time to come up with an answer to any question (especially if you ask compound questions like me), but the answers are so much better. I find myself importing various images and even data sets to get help breaking things down and figuring out next steps. It's still hit or miss at times with providing links to external references (e.g. links to YouTube videos that don't exist), but the general thinking is sound and makes for a great starting point for further research or other avenues of investigation.
I get many articles bemoaning how the increased use of generative AI is making people dumber. If you rely on AI for answers without verifying your results and doing more research, then yeah, I can see how that happens. It's no different from people who only look at the top search result whenever they enter a query into a search engine. But if you're using it to think aloud, verify processes, and cut down on menial work, then I don't think you're going to lose IQ points any time soon. What you get out of AI is only as good as what you put in and how carefully you evaluate the results that come out.
In a mid-size company like ours, where someone like me wears multiple hats for varied functions like operations, human resources, and performance marketing, having my AI wear just as many hats (with tailored references and response criteria) has saved me so much time and effort. I still have a LOT of work to do, but at least I don't find myself feeling like I'm an individual contributor drowning in work and unable to juggle the various things people expect of my different work facets.
I can't wait until I can just dictate my command parameters, though. If only I could get AI to speak back with the voice of Majel Barrett as well - then that would be really Star Trek.
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