When I pick up a hammer, there is no doubt about what I use it for.
I hit and extract things with it. Sometimes those things are nails, sometimes not. But I never look at it and think, “maybe this hammer would be good at designing my deck” or “I wonder if I could drill a precise 1/8″ hole with this thing?” I don’t ask it to do those things. It never crosses my mind that it might be able to.
I have no expectations for the hammer beyond hitting and extracting.
Just like a hammer, ChatGPT (and Claude, etc) is a tool. A tool that requires a person.
But when we look at ChatGPT, we’re not exactly sure what we can use it for. Can it write my essay? Can it create my company logo? Can it do my math homework? Can it write my code? Can it design my code? Can I just “plug AI into that” and have it solve my problem? Can it just do everything while I sit around watching Squid Game?
ChatGPT looks super smart. It looks like it knows everything. It looks like it solves many of our problems. But looks are deceiving.
Here’s some advice: lower your expectations.
An actual paraphrased conversation I recently had with ChatGPT:
Me: Create an icon set to be used in a presentation that represents software build, package, release, and deliver.
ChatGPT: [gives me something, but with a misspelled word]
Me: Try again, but simpler, use only a single color and spell software correctly.
ChatGPT: [gives me something I like, but software still misspelled]
Me: OK, give me these exact images again, but spell “software” correctly in image 3.
ChatGPT: [totally changes everything and software still misspelled]
Me: No, don’t change the images. Go back to the previous, but just correct the spelling of “software”
ChatGPT: [again, totally new images that I don’t like and software still misspelled]
Me: no, dumbass. do what I’ve already told you to do.
ChatGPT: [4 new images, software still misspelled]
Me: [Back to google image searching…]
ChatGPT is that kid in school that talks a good game, but you know that under the covers, doesn’t know shit about shit. Because it doesn’t know anything. It’s statistics, pure and simple. Statistics, even predictive statistics, is an analysis of history, not knowledge.
AI is sneaky stupid. Lower your expectations.
