Learning AI Past Sixty

I’ve been around long enough to remember when folks said the internet was a fad. I’ve seen a few “next big things” come and go. So when everybody started talking about AI, I’ll admit I rolled my eyes a little. 🤔

Then I tried it. Now I’m hooked, and I’m learning something new just about every day. Here’s my honest beginner’s take, for whatever it’s worth.

So what is it, really?

I’m no expert, so take this with a grain of salt. As best I can tell, the AI most of us use is a computer program that’s read an awful lot of writing. Books, websites, you name it. From all that reading, it got real good at guessing what words ought to come next.

That’s it. It’s not thinking the way you and I think. It’s more like the world’s best guesser. But when you can guess that well, it starts to look an awful lot like thinking.

I started out primarily using Google Gemini, basically just as I used Google, for simple web searches, and playing around with making funny graphics. Certainly nothing fancy—just what most everyone else on the internet was doing. I even used it to make fancy graphics promoting my yard sales on Facebook.

What surprised me

A few things caught me off guard:

• How plain you can talk to it. No special codes or commands. You just say what you want, same as you’d tell a neighbor.
• How patient it is. I can ask the same dumb question five times and it never sighs at me.
• How much it can actually do. It’s not just answering questions. It can write, make pictures, and keep track of things for me.
• It even learned about me, my likes, preferences, hobbies, etc. This part may scare some people but I was ok with it as it was nothing that most of my friends already knew or could find out on their own.

The biggest surprise was that I wasn’t too old for it. I figured this was a young person’s game. Turns out the most important skill is knowing what you want and being able to explain it. After sixty-some years, I’ve had plenty of practice at that. 😂

Where it’s dumb as a box of rocks

Now for the other side. AI can be confidently wrong. It’ll tell you something with a straight face, and it’ll be flat-out made up. If you don’t know any better, you’ll believe it.

It’s also short on common sense. It’ll do exactly what you said, even when any person would know that’s not what you meant. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Don’t get me wrong, AI is not perfect. There is a famous example that you could ask AI “how many e’s are in seventeen” and it would answer three. Being curious, I tried this myself and sure enough, three was the answer given by ChatGPT.

And it doesn’t know you unless you tell it. It’s not reading your mind, no matter what the commercials say.

My 2 cents

If you’re past sixty and curious, I say give it a try. Start small. Ask it a question you already know the answer to and see how it does. You’ll learn pretty quick what it’s good at and where to keep an eye on it.

Treat it like a new helper. Real handy, eager to please, and still needs somebody checking its work. That somebody is you.

— Rick