How to Actually Use AI to Improve Your Life
Every day brings a new AI breakthrough, another "game-changing" model, a REVOLUTIONARY new agent scoring 47% on that one test. Endless hype. You just got off the NFT train and it's all a bit exhausting, isn't it? Let's cut through the nonsense and talk about how to actually use this stuff.
The AI We're Actually Talking About
When we used to say "AI", we meant classical machine learning. Data scientists – those boring people who dress like developers, talk like developers, and spend too much time in rooms containing developers – would do presentations during your company's Friday evening demo day, showing off glorified Excel spreadsheets with heatmaps and charts proving they can separate the color green from purple after only 4 months of company-expensed cloud compute.
NO, that's not what we're talking about. If this is what you're looking for, get the F*** off my page. Nobody cares about that shit. You wasted 2 years in university instead of just learning Java.
What we mean by AI today is Transformers. Remember that Michael Bay movie with robots looking for a cube on Earth to save their planet? Well, we found it first. It's called "Attention Is All You Need", and if you knew any better, you would have read the paper "Attention Is All You Need" (spoiler: I haven't).
Practical AI Applications
Forget the sci-fi dreams and nightmares. This new generation of AI shines at mundane tasks that you're probably wasting hours on right now:
While building Narkis.ai, I created LinearGPT, a tool that translates informal ideas into structured tasks.
Text Processing
If you're still reading text in 2024, you're not going to make it. Start dumping everything into ChatGPT and cast this spell: "Using the Pareto 80/20 principle, break down the 20% most useful information that conveys 80% of the key insights in this text. Then, summarize those key points in a concise format." Congratulations, you've just wasted only 20% of your time instead of 100%.
Natural Language Processing
ChatGPT might finally help you decipher what your project manager actually wants. Take the last confusing thing your, let's be honest here, cocaine addict CTO said and feed it to ChatGPT: "Could you help me understand what my crackhead CTO wants? After you give an answer, reflect on it and see if there is anything you misunderstood or missed and write an improved breakdown". If you're not doing this with at least 50% of things your A. Boss, B. Wife and C. parents ask of you, you are not going to make it past 2026.
Tool Building
While building Narkis.ai, I created LinearGPT out of sheer laziness. It translates my incoherent ramblings into actual tasks. No more opening Linear (Jira, but for smart people) and staring at a blank description field. Just mutter your thoughts, and voila – a perfectly formatted ticket appears. Despite being someone who hates ticket management, I've made over 240 issues, and believe it or not, it has been VERY useful.
Once you've got the hang of it, AI opens up some interesting doors:
- Content translation that actually captures nuance
- AI-narrated content creation. Look, you're already knee-deep in this AI mess, so why not go all in? Use ElevenLabs to clone voices with a 60-second sample. Bam! Your YouTube channel now running 24/7, voiced by your digital clone. "But it's not really my v"- Irrelevant. "Your" voice? Replaced. Your thoughts? REPLACED. The AI is now you. It's thinking your thoughts, speaking your words, and probably doing a better job at being you than you ever did. You have just successfully replaced yourself.
Look, AI isn't going to steal your job tomorrow. But it will definitely steal your job at some point. Be happy. Rejoice! Isn't this what you've always wanted?
On a more serious note, the trick is to stay ahead of the curve. Learn to leverage these tools now, and you'll be the one building the AI systems of tomorrow instead of being replaced by them.
The AI Apocalypse Survival Kit
So you've read this article, and despite my undeniable intellect and priceless advice you are still trying to hold on to the shit rope. This is the best advice you will find on the net:
- Learn COBOL -- Nobody cares about COBOL and once you learn it, nobody will care about you either.
- A sourdough starter
- Join online Stop-AI communities: misery loves company
- Pick a problem that needs solving, and don't do anything about it.
Subscribe to my email list for more emotional abuse. Or better yet, subscribe to my service and get some good photos of yourself. You look like shit. That's why you can't get past the recruiter interview (they don't know what "GCP" means).