Uses
Personally, I use Artificial Intelligence for many things.
- Helping me code.
First, there is code autocompletion. In PhpStorm, it saves me a huge amount of time: several lines of code generated with a tab instead of having to type everything by hand.
Then I ask ChatGPT coding questions, for example about the PHP library for the Google API, or system questions, such as how to configure NGINX on a server.
Or what I did recently: vibe coding features on this site in Hugo’s language, which I do not master even though I understand the logic.
- Prototyping applications.
I suddenly have an idea for an application I would like to build, I scribble the basic concepts on a sheet of paper, and I send a photo to ChatGPT, which extends the thinking around the project.
Or I want to make a website, and I ask Base44 or Lovable to make me an AI version so I can get ideas, even if it is always a bit the same thing.
- Suggestions on a text
In addition to correcting spelling or translating a text, I can ask ChatGPT for writing suggestions, synonyms, or to expand on an idea, analyze the tone, tell me whether something is missing, etc.
This applies to an email, a Facebook post, an article, writing for my VAE Livret 2, and so on.
I can ask it to summarize a text I wrote so I can see the big picture, or a text I did not write so I can skim it across the surface.
- Understanding a concept
I ask ChatGPT to explain a concept to me, give me examples, tell me whether I have understood it correctly, etc.
- Psychological questions
I can ask ChatGPT to help me see what I do not see in my own psychology, my ego for example. After an argument, for instance, it serves as an outlet that helps me reason through the subject.
If I see a meme that triggers a reaction in me on social media, I can ask it to help me see where my reaction comes from.
- Generating images
Sometimes, after a long reflection, I can ask it to generate an image to synthesize our exchange.
When I started this site, my first idea was the cat in its cardboard box and the elephant on its cardboard box. It came to me just like that, and I was able to get a visual quickly: the two images in the same spirit and the same tone, which I would probably never have found in royalty-free images.
If I need to illustrate an article like From Paris to Cordes-sur-Ciel, in less than a minute I had a nice montage, which I might have been able to make myself, but by then I would have lost the inspiration for the article!
Ecology
Artificial Intelligence servers consume enormous amounts of electricity, water, and release greenhouse gases.
I feel guilty every time I use it, a bit like the followers of the via dolorosa who flagellate themselves after allowing themselves a little pleasure.
I pray for the advent of clean and free energy, and other technologies of the future that will be more revolutionary than AI.
Finances
After being free for a while, Artificial Intelligence is starting to charge money, and the money spent on generation tokens evaporates like water in the sun.
AI will become a commodity like water or electricity, something we pay for based on usage.
After private funds massively financed AI in its early days, the cost of AI is going to fall back on us.
As a friend and I were saying, it is like a dealer giving you the first dose for free, and once you are dependent, you have to pay for the rest.
Plagiarism
I feel empathy for all the artists who complained that AI stole their work, but the human creative process is unique, and we will quickly come back to “handmade” as a sign of quality.
But being able to generate images in the “Hayao Miyazaki style”, apart from the fact that it is a vain and ecologically costly trend, I do not see the problem. I find it rather nice that it is possible.
Human vs AI
I believe that even if AI has a greater ability to reason over a large amount of data, it is the human who brings the salt.
You always have to reframe and redirect the conversation. Even if AI sometimes has good “intuitions”, it does not possess the gift of self-awareness or the highest forms of reason and creativity.
There is also the phenomenon of the “uncanny valley”, where AI produces clearly non-human content that is disturbing and makes us uncomfortable.
Errors and lies
The other day I asked for information about a colleague, and the AI replied that he had written a book he had never written and worked at companies where he had never worked.
Another time, I asked ChatGPT to tell me in which Lauryn Hill song she sings “What you see is what you get but you ain’t seen nothing yet.”, and it told me it was in a particular song.
After checking, I told it no, so it told me it was in another song.
I asked it to show me the lyrics and it lied to me: it showed me two lines from the song’s lyrics, followed by […], then the requested lyrics.
I was outraged.
You know how I got the answer? My intuition led me a few days later to the song on YouTube that I hadn’t listened to for years.
Recently, I saw on social media someone asking ChatGPT to generate an image of one country’s flag burning, then another, then another again.
It was only when it got to the Israeli flag that it refused to generate the image. That is to say, we can ask ourselves who the lobbies are, and what ideologies are behind the information being returned.
We no longer make an effort
Often, when I use AI, I realize that I have lost an opportunity to think for myself.
It is sad, and it goes somewhat in the direction of the mediocrization of the new generation. For example, in high school, teachers give students grades that are too good and no longer make them repeat a year, and that is quite terrible.
Is AI going to steal our jobs?
I laugh bitterly when I see AI agencies saying that AI represents the same turning point as the Internet did in its early days, that those who do not get on the AI train will become obsolete while the others will seize an opportunity.
What I see is that these people are taking large fees precisely to make men and women obsolete by “replacing” them, a very big word, with AI agents.
In other words, they are accelerating the thing they are trying to avoid.
Fortunately, this only happens in companies whose spirit has always already been “mechanized”, companies that have no empathy for human beings and that must be avoided at all costs.
The replacement of humans by machines is not for today.
Especially since what we see is that the extensive use of AI is costly—often more expensive than human contracts.
Where AI impressed me
From a technical point of view, I find it amazing when AI lets you navigate in 3D inside a master’s painting, or generates third-person video games.
I am thinking in particular of Google’s Genie project, or other nice things like Gmail’s AI or Google Maps.
From the point of view of service to humanity, everything related to medical diagnosis and DNA sequencing seems excellent to me.
Late addition: Can artificial intelligence possess consciousness like a human? (The wet dream of some.)
Artificial intelligence is essentially a system where you input information; a process takes place within the AI’s matrix—within the program or algorithm—and an output is generated.
But consider the question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
When no input is fed into an artificial intelligence, it ceases to exist; nothing happens, and there is no consciousness.
In contrast, if you take a person and no one speaks to them, that person still exists; they are still there, and consciousness remains.
If an astronaut is alone in deep space, with no one around for miles, the astronaut still exists—they have consciousness and a point of view.
Of course, no man is an island, we cannot live in complete isolation, and the astronaut has people back on Earth waiting for him, but that is beside the point.
This is what distinguishes humans from artificial intelligence: artificial intelligence does not truly exist; it possesses no consciousness.
It’s a tool.