About AI

AI stuff is all over the news and there is a lot of hype out there. Lots of companies are touting their new AI capabilities. I’m not sure how real some of these claims are. What I do know, however, is that these chat bots are very impressive and powerful. They can be great for normal people and used for everyday things. You don’t need to be any kind of computer genius to start using AI.

Ways that I have used AI

I have been playing around with the various AI tools since they broke into the mainstream back in 2023. Since then, their capabilities have only gotten more and more impressive.

Here are some ways that I have used AI:

• Planning a trip to Wales

• Learning how to fix some loose patio stones & filling cracks in the garage floor

• Planning a cat friendly garden from native plants species

• Creating an image based on a funny thing that happened to Jaime at Sparks 🦟

• Building home automations

• Fixing squeaky door hinges

• Repairing the thing that refills your toilet (turns out it’s called a fill valve)

• Creating an actual computer program from scratch that is beyond my actual coding capabilities

• And plenty more…

The AIs aren’t perfect so always think critically about their responses. You probably don’t want to use the AI for any medical or legal advice.

How can you try out some AI tools?

It’s easy to get started with AI. It’s almost like using a search engine but you can be a lot more broad in your questions and you can ask follow up questions once you get a response.

You have probably already heard of ChatGPT which is an AI created by a company called OpenAI. However, they are not the only one with an AI chat bot. This is a good thing because they are all slightly different and they have different strengths. Some of them limit how many free queries you get in a certain period of time. Others offer essentially unlimited chat.

Here are a few of the top AI tools you could try.

• ChatGPT - the one that started the AI craze (limited free queries).

• Claude AI - A top competitor to ChatGPT (limited free queries).

• Gemini - Google’s chat bot (usually no limits to basic chat).

• Meta AI - Facebook’s AI chat bot (Unlikely to be usage limits for basic chat).

They all have a bit of a different feel so I recommend trying a few to see if there is a particular one you prefer. Meta and Google’s AIs are built into many of their existing tools so they tend to be quite easy to access. For example, if you have Facebook’s messenger app on your phone you should see a small blue circle near the bottom of the screen. This will open a chat with Meta AI. The other brands all have stand alone apps that are free to install on your phone or you can access them through a browser.

Quick tip: If you are using one of the AIs with limited queries, once you hit your limit you can move the conversation to a different AI and keep the conversation going.

Have you tried any AI yet?

Have you already tried some AI tools? What did you use? What did you ask?

If you haven’t tried them yet, once you do, let me know what you think. How were the results? Do you have any questions?

Let me know in the comments.

Thought starters for using AI.

• Book recommendations - tell the AI some of your favourite books and ask for some recommendations.

• Cooking - ask for ways to change up a recipe or for some new recopies based on your flavour preferences.

• General information - ask about people, places or things.