Attention, trust and generating words in the world of AI

A daily blog. Written by a human. Why?

Is it desirable to interact with humans instead of AIs?

Of course, the answer is "it depends".

AIs have very vast specific knowledge. Embedded within their knowledge are documentation, manuals, guides, how-tos... and they never get tired of repeating those back to us. If I am new at using a new product like a video editor, I could spend countless hours reading the manual (but most likely watching YouTube videos) in order to find the right tool or command for what I want to achieve. An AI can tell me almost immediately how to do it.

AIs are also infinitely patient, which means that I can ask for clarifications, or if what I'm doing doesn't work (be it for my own incompetence or because instructions weren't clear) I can just ask again and again until it works or I lose patience. Try to bug a human for hours while you try to add an animated title tracking to a point in your phone-recorded video and most likely you'll be running out of friend credits very soon!

Still, AIs are not great at living in the real world, with its complexities and human problems that come up on a daily basis. LLMs are perfectly capable of spitting out complete slop on pretty much any topic, but there's a curatorial quality to a human that (for now!) trumps a generic run-off-the-mill AI conversation. It is not impossible to connect with an AI, but at some point one runs into the context window limit and the illusion breaks.

Humans sharing what they have learned have value because it is useful to them. They have had to go through a process of learning based on the human experience. You, as a human, can be in a similar situation or might want to follow that path that has worked well for a human. Humans think, age, have impostor syndrome, must earn a living to survive... these are some overarching topics that can be inherently interesting to us because by understanding the context of the writer, we understand they might be transferrable.

So I want to share what has been useful to me. Thoughts. Heuristics. Aphorisms. Predictions. On tech, AI, being human, privacy, investing, self-sovereignty, meditation... I hope that it will be useful to you as a human, to live a better life. At the same time, selfishly, it will help me structure my thoughts, become accountable for them and receive feedback for it.

One unrelated thought: It costs very little to find out.