[Hoot Gibson]

Artificial intelligence (AI) - how are you using it, or if you are not using it, are you crazy, or do you just enjoy doing everything the hard way? I use AI for something every day and will continue to use it until I am no longer able. I will concede that AI is far from perfect and using it can be very frustrating. So, why do I use it so much, you might ask? Well, I use AI as a force multiplier for my brain and to save more and more time as I become better at writing prompts. (A prompt can be a question that you ask an AI, or it can be a very detailed set of instructions about a task that you want AI to accomplish.)

I will be discussing different ways that I am using AI in this thread and I encourage you to share your experience. If you have never given AI a try, I encourage you to do so. I do not consider myself an AI expert I work with a growing number of coworkers who are experts in the field. I am also using AI more each day in the office, but I know almost nothing about training AI models (large language models or LLMs). I consider people who train LLMs and design hardware to run the models to be experts in the field. I am just a consumer of the technology.

I will start out describing some of the ways that I have been using AI.

1. Cooking - AIs are great at creating recipes on the fly. I feed it a list of ingredients that I have on hand, the equipment that I have available, etc., and ask it to suggest recipes. My wife uses an easy recipe for Red Beans and Rice that I had an AI generate and it has become one of my favorite meals. It is also great for suggesting substitutions for ingredients that you don't have, for converting measurements or scaling recipes up or down to match the number of servings that you want, and for giving instructions for alternative cooking methods. For example, I have an outside Ninja Woodfire Grill, and I can give an AI the model information and get detailed instructions for cooking a dish using my grill.

2. Purchasing advice - AIs are great at taking your description of a product that you are considering buying, generating pros and cons of the best options that meet your requirements and budget, and making recommendations about what you should buy.

3. Internet searches - I have almost stopped using web search engines like Google because most of them are paid to place certain results near the top of the search results. A well written prompt can give you an ad-free list of results, so that you don't have to read through a bunch of sales pitches to find the information that you need.

4. Software development - I am using AI to build a high school football team ranking system similar to the Massey, Sagarin, and CalPreps rankings. I am writing it using a programming language called Python, which I have never used before. I started yesterday afternoon and I am hoping to have something useful by Monday. It will probably take a few weeks to finish work on the project, with most of the time spent configuring the imports of the football scores from 2023, 2024, and 2025 for the states bordering Kentucky. The 2023 scores will be used to test the accuracy of predictions of the 2024 games, so that they can be prepared to the actual outcomes. I will adjust the model based on the test results for the 2024 season to optimize the application for ranking and predicting game scores for the 2025 season.

Early in each season, scores from the previous season are used as inputs for computing ranks, and those results are weighted less as the results for the current season become available. I am using a specialized LLM named Grok Code Fast for the rankings project. The LLM was created by one of Elon Musk's companies. I have tried other LLMs for coding and I subscribe to three LLMs, including Grok, but I like Grok best for coding.

For most people, free LLMs will meet their needs. There are some limits to how many prompts you can submit in a day, and free LLMs are often slower than paid subscriptions, but you will save lots of work and time using free LLMs over not using them. Also, there are many apps that allow you to use LLMs on smartphones, including voice interfaces.

Please share how you use AI. If you don't use AI but are interested in trying it, please post any questions that you have about getting started.