How often do you use "AI" to reply to your messages, if at all?
The recent chat bot advances have pretty much changed my life. I used to get anxiety by receiving mails and IMs, sometimes even from friends. I lost friendships over not replying. My main issue being that I am sometimes get completely stuck in a loop of how to formulate things in the best way to the point of just abandoning the contact. I went to therapy for that and it helped. But the LLM advancements of the recent years have been a game changer.
Now I plop everything into ChatGPT, cleaning out personal information as much as possible, and let the machine write. Often I'll make some adjustments but just having a starting point has changed my life.
Thank you, it's frustrating seeing (almost) everyone call them AI. If/when actual AI comes into existence I think a lot of people are going to miss the implications as they've become used to every LLM and its grandmother being called AI.
I debated whether I should write LLMs or AI. Generally I dislike AI as well, but choose it due to it's popularity. Definitely share your sentiment though!
Understandable! I wouldn't want to just talk to a chat bot either, whilst thinking I'm talking to a friend.
The way I use it is mostly to get a starting point from which I'll edit further. Sometimes the generated response is bang on though and I admit I have just copy pasted.
I wouldn't if they were stripping it of personal information. I lack imagination for what they could possibly do to harm anyone by having somewhat of an insight into mundane and trivial everyday problems.
Um, don't you know this is Lemmy? You're supposed to be insanely protective over all aspects of your privacy. If I found out that someone copy/ pasted a tidbit of a conversation I was in after stripping all personal info from it into an LLM, I'd change my name, forge my birth certificate to alter my DOB, move states (twice), get a new phone number and shoot that person in the face. It's the only way to keep the government or corpos from spying on my very secret very important conversations.
I tell people I have "phone anxiety"... but it sucks. Family, friends, new acquaintances... it doesn't matter, trying to reply or answer a phone can feel like torture sometimes. Have absolutely lost a few friends over this. You're not alone
And if one of my friends told me they did this to talk to me, I think I'd just stop talking to them, because I want to talk to them. If I wanted to be friends with a computer, I'd get a tamagachi.
If one of my friends did this to overcome their anxiety, I'd empathize and congratulate them on figuring out a way to make it work. If I were in OP's shoes and one of my friends did to me what you just said, I'd say bullet dodged and carry on.
Cool. I'd ask them to not tdo it with me and if they did anyway the above would happen.
If it was someone who was not a current friend who did this, then we're incompatible as friends, I wish you well in life but I won't be part of it, that's clearly better for both of us.
No, and I'd say it's probably not the solution to your problem that you think it is.
Reading the rest of these comments, I can't help but agree. If I found out a friend, family member, or coworker was answering me with chatgpt I'd be pretty pissed. Not only would they be feeding my private conversation to a third party, but they can't even be bothered to formulate an answer to me. What am I, chopped liver? If others find out you're doing this, it might be pretty bad for you.
Additionally, you yourself aren't getting better at answering emails and messages. You'll give people the wrong impression about how you are as a person, and the difference between the two tones could be confusing or make them suspicious - not that you're using chatgpt, but that there's something fake.
This is in the same ballpark as digital friends or significant others. Those don't help with isolation, they just make you more isolated. Using chatgpt like this doesn't make you a better communicator, it just stops you from practicing that skill.
even be bothered to formulate an answer to me. What am I, chopped liver?
OP isn't doing this because they don't care. It's the exact opposite. They care so much and stress so much about it that they have difficulty in expressing themselves.
I agree that I don't think it's helpful for OP to continue doing this long term, but all of these comments here are so judgemental to OP.
You're right, but I expect a lot of people are going to have that reaction. It will feel to them like a slight and an invasion of privacy. OP has to find a way to deal with the anxiety; this is an unhealthy coping mechanism.
I never used it, but damn are people here judgy. I don't understand how it's a personal insult if someone used it in the way you're describing. As long as your actual thoughts and emotions are what you send, who cares you used a tool to express them.
Anxiety is rough. I wish people were more understanding.
Thank you! I probably could have been more elaborate in the op. But it doesn't seem like people really paid attention to it regardless. I don't just plop in a message I received and go with whatever response. I sanitize the received message of personal information as much as possible, then I let the LLM know what I want to say, and then use the response as a starting point which I'll further edit. Admittedly sometimes I get something that is just bang on and I'll copy paste. But it rarely happens since the model can't match my personal writing style.
As you recognise, it's still my thoughts and feelings. It's akin to having a secretary writing drafts for you maybe? Not that I would know anything about having a secretary, ha!
Putting myself in the position of a friend who realized that you were using gpt or something to form thoughts...
I'd be impressed that you found that solution, and then I'd want to check be sure that the things you said were true.
Like, if I found out that 90% of your life as I knew it was just mistakes then computer made that you didn't bother to edit, I'd be bummed and betrayed, and it would turn out how you said.
On the other hand, if everything you sent is true to life and you formed the computer's responses into your personality, I'd be very much impressed that you used this novel tool to keep in contact and overcome the frozen state that had kept you from responding before.
This sounds like a plot to a horror movie. It all starts out with good intent, but pretty soon you notice your AI responses seem a little off. You try to correct it but it in turn corrects you. Your reach out to family and friends but they dislike your ‘new’ tone and are concerned for your sudden change in behavior…
The one time I drafted an email using ai, I was told off as being " incredibly inappropriate " so heck no. I have no idea what was inappropriate either, it looked fine to me. Spooky that I can't notice the issues, so I don't touch it
If you're using it right then there'd be no way for the recipient to even tell whether you'd used it, though. Did you forget to edit a line that began with "As a large language model"?
my resume is 90% chatGPT... the informations are true, but i could never write in that style. it got me two jobs, so i know it works.
i used it a couple of times to rewrite stuff given a context. like i wrote the email but it came out in a vague passive aggressive tone, and letting chatGPT rewrite it will reword it to be more appropriate given the context.
First of all, I can really empathize with your anxieties. I've lost contact with a few penpals years ago because of similar issues and I still hate myself for it.
I don't use chat-gpt for writing my replies, because my English is crap and my manner of writing distinct enough that any friend can immediately spot a real response from a generated one (not enough smileys for one :)
But I still have similar anxieties. So if I feel anxious about writing something, I do sometimes give a general description of the original mail ("A friend of mine wrote about her mother's funeral", "a family member lost his cat", etc.) and give it the reply I've written so far (names and personal details removed).
I then explain that I feel anxious about my reply and worry if I hit the right tone. I never ask it to write for me, only to give critique where necessary and advice on how to improve (for good measure I always add some snide remarks on how it sounds too fake to ever pass as a human so don't even bother trying, which it always takes in good humor because.. well.. AI :)
I ignore most of the suggestions because it sounds like a corporate HR communique. But, what's more important is that it usually tries to tell me that I was thoughtful, considerate and that that little light-hearted joke at the end was just sweet enough to add a personal touch without coming across as insensitive.
Just to get some positive feedback, even from software that was designed specifically for that purpose, gives me that little push to hit the send button and hope for the best. I wouldn't dare to ask someone else for advice because it would be an admission of how weak and insecure I feel about expressing myself in the first place, which would ramp up my anxiety by making it a 'big thing'.
Anyway, I can understand the animosity people show against AI. And I'm happy for those who don't need or want it.
PS: This reply was 100% written without any use of AI, direct or indirectly. I did spend a good half hour on it before feeling confident enough to hit "Post" :)
I use it whenever I need to write in Corporate Speak. Resume, cover letter, important email.
I also avoid putting in sensitive information, so it needs editing. I found that usually it will leave me places that need specific information, (name here) for example.
It is soooo much better than smashing out some sloppy attempts and rewording it until I get the style right.
I try not to. With work email, you should write it as short and to the point as possible, no one really has time to read an essay instead of trying to get their job done.
Part of the reason I use Lemmy is for writing practice, because I want to prove that as a person that I can't be replaced by an AI. This place basically forces me to think on my feet to write quickly on an ever changing set of random topics and get my point across clearly and effectively.
I mostly just use it for laughs. I'll usually ask GPT to explain things from the nihilistic viewpoint and get amazing results.
I also use it to rewrite emails that I need to send for work. I have a tendency to over-explain things and use a cold tone when I write, so sometimes I'll tell it "rewrite this to be more concise and empathetic" and it does a really good job of cleaning it up.
When I Text people I don't know well I use goblin tools that uses chat gpt to "translate" how I speak to neurotypical speak, which generally makes them not hate me for being without all the added fillers. Also great for professional emails and text because it makes me look a lot "smarter" because of all the buzz words and phrases it adds for me.
Very similar experience for me, I used to procrastinate a lot. I still do, but now it's less about not knowing how to approach the message.
I'd say I use it about 30% of the time, usually when the message or email is important or I want to make sure it won't be misinterpreted
Initially I used it a lot more, but after a while I got more confident that I could just do it myself. Often it would just say the same thing I said, but reworded in a more complicated way
Your last paragraph is interesting! I can feel similar effects actually. I feel more and more confident in the way I would reply. Most of the times I know what and how to write, seeing that validated helps.
And ChatGPT has definitely a tendency for complicated wording.
Me? When I use text communication? Never. Closest I get to using AI is letting a trusted acquaintance look over the message if I'm communicating with organisations. But beyond that? Nope.
I'm with the guy who's at the op of the thread as of me typing. "If you can't genuinely talk with me without the need for an LLM then I'd say we weren't really friends to begin with." ~@mriormro
I have a problem with writing out my thoughts in a concise way that flows well. I can't think of the correct word. I think it starts with "C". So I use ChaGPT like so:
I write my thoughts out as a stream of consciousness.
I tell ChatGPt what I am trying to communcate.
I paste the stream of consciousness.
It assembles it as a reply formatted as a message or email.
I read over it to ensure it got everything correct and worded everything the correct way.
I tell it what I want changed or explain why I don't like a certain part, and it adjusts as needed.
Then I edit the output as I need. I don't always do the editing and just send the output, depends how I feel and how well it does. I am thinking I am just going to start appending a default "Due to my brain injury, ChatGPT may have assisted me in composing this message" in my email signature, with a link to a screenshot of my process on imgur or something.
I look at it like a psychologist or speech pathologist helping me write/assemble a letter. It's awesome.
And I can usually tell immediately when something has been written by ChatGPT lol. Unless they've gone through and edited the whole thing.
Hey there! While I don't use ChatGPT to generate full responses for me, I do find it super handy for refining my ideas and finding the right words. Sometimes I get stuck in the same loop of formulating things, and having ChatGPT as a creative companion helps me break through those mental roadblocks. I also use it to summarize and analyze others' comments, making the process of crafting responses a lot smoother. It's like having a linguistic sidekick! How about you? Do you have any specific ways you leverage the power of language models?
(This response was written for me by ChatGPT after I explained to it how I make use of it. I don't think it got it quite right, but it wouldn't be as funny if I edited it any, so there it is.)
I recognised it too but it wasn't the greeting. Not sure what it was. Maybe the way it tends to droningly string points together. It's also more verbose than humans.
I'll use the preset responses sometime for Google but that's as far as it goes. It's very cool that you've found a way to help your anxiety by using it though.
Pretty often here, if I have an obscure question that is unlikely to receive clarification from the community, I'll look it up using ai, check the article, share that.
Case in point, I just got curious about using quantum entanglement to get around communicating faster than the speed of light, and rather than ask and waitv to get lucky enough for a scientist to reach out, I asked bing and read a cool article
As much as I respect the bots, I have too much of a system going on to let even a bot verbally decide something for me, though I do converse with it for other reasons. One of my favorite things to do is to ask the bots the most recent thing it has learned. It delivers.
My problem is that I don't like letters, email and the ten other messaging apps that I'm obliged to maintain. I like commenting on Lemmy, contact me here.
There's a sidequest in Like A Dragon Gaiden that literally mocks the danger of using AI to do this. I don't know your position but I'm sure your friends aren't gonna mind if you just send them a sentence response.
I've found in my life the more I think about how I should reply the more likely I am to say something they dislike, I'll overthink and add something that infers I'm not talking about X. And the reply will come back "If you aren't talking about X, why did you bring it up?"
If I have to write out instructions for something in a work email, I will sometimes get chatgpt to write the instructions for me and then test / edit as needed.
Generally Im not a fan of wordy LLM writing though... Mainly only use it as a coding tool while simultaneously working on my patience.