Great for Annie Grifiths , i just bought a kindle version of your book. 0.99 $ but with all the Amazon slop it cost me 1.10. Lol. Do i get a thank you or just AI slop? Just kidding Keep writing you make me laugh
I have tracked down a hardware store employee and — at least in a big box store — I choose ChatGPT
Pictures are a good trick too. I was going through my dad's safe deposit box and he had all sorts of random coinage. Snap a pic and ChatGPT will tell which ones are worth a second look
Smart, unflinching, honest, thank you. Michael. It must have felt GREAT to fix that door yourself! One silver lining for the humans in this story: you could share your discovery with the contractor and the handyman so they could put it to good use in the future. Everybody wins.
Hi Teri, I think your description of the way AI aggregates answers is pretty fair. Google does something similar, but as anyone who has ever googled a home improvement question knows, you can spend hours sifting through answers that don't quite speak to your situation. This was a lot more dialed in. A knowledgeable human is ideal, but for whatever reason (ignorance, business model, laziness) I couldn't get a human to give me a good answer.
My dad ran a hardware store for 30 years. I worked there A LOT growing up. At a young age I was put in charge of the nuts and bolts aisle. Mainly, putting all the random screws back that customers had pulled out and realized weren't right for their project but couldn't remember what tiny drawer or box they came out of. I had to measure the length and diameter and also determine what TYPE of screw or bolt it was so I could put it back in the right spot. Nowadays, I know what all the different screws are and what they do, but I still use them for the wrong thing all the time because I'd rather not go to the hardware store for something I need and have to track down an employee. Or deal with a robot. 😳
My family took a maiden voyage through our local wholesale club last night. They had these inventory bots roaming around. Named Telly. Yes, they were cute and even spoke in beeps and boops. But they creeped me out big time, because another thing I used to do at my dad's hardware store was take inventory. 😭
Why exchanging some part of management in corporations with a robot would make sense; It knows the things that have already been tried before. It learns and doesn’t forget the lesson. Seriously, often a new manager doesn’t know the measures the last one and the ones before him/her have already tried. So, we change the chairs back and forth, with every change of management. A robot would know.
I've never had a robot bring me foot. Even at the sushi place we go to, their robot sits in the corner and the waitress brings the food.
Rarely, I've found employees at Home Depot and even more rarely, they've been able to answer a question. The local hardware store has employees who are somewhat helpful. They will tell me what kind of screw I need, but then send me down to the basement to get it myself.
My son would have taken one look at your door and would have said, "Hang on a minute." He'd go out to his truck, get the right screw out of the tool box and get the job done for you in five minutes. No charge. Give him a beer and Bob's your uncle.
Hey, thanks for writing an intelligent and balanced piece about AI; I’m getting tired and a little annoyed at the knee-jerk rejection of a new tool. It seems to happen with every iteration of tool that humans come up with to make things easier. I’ll bet there were stone age complaints about bronze axes being for sissies. I think the missing part in your opinion is a socialist and class analysis. For me the biggest problem is that all the monetary benefits to increased productivity are going to the billionaires.
Thanks Jeff! I think those bronze age axes were for sissies. Stone for life! All kidding aside, appreciate the comment, and yes, there's more to this story in terms of the billionaire class.
1. Smitty’s Pancake House near us had a robot server. It was so popular people called from rural communities to ask if the robot was working before they made the trip to town. They complained bitterly if a human brought them their food because, after all, they hadn’t driven all the way from Lumby to be served by a human. Smitty’s is gone now. It was replaced by Mr. Mike’s Steakhouse Casual. The robot server is gone, too, but I’m guessing that the people from Lumby will return. I mean it’s a Mr. Mike’s! Of course they will return!
2. No. At Canadian Tire, the app tells you what isle to go to, how many units of screen door repair kits are left in stock, and when you arrive a flashing light on the shelf with the repair kits will flash so you can easily find the repair kit. The app is useless when it comes to assisting with the repair itself. That still takes hours of toil, rolling around on the deck wrestling with the screen to pin it into place, and introducing neighbours to 4729 swear words in Danish, Norwegian, and English.
3. That would be worse than if kindergarten teachers spent their day in a bar leaving the children to entertain themselves.
4. Was it laughing uncontrollably when it left the dispensary?
As for the robot at the dispensary, I'm not sure. Class started and I blocked everything out to focus on my practice. When class was over, the robot was gone.
I go to the Ace Hardware on Soquel in Santa Cruz. There is always someone waiting at the door to take you to whatever you are looking for… so much appreciated.
A programmer recommended that I try a Gen AI tool for creating code and solving bugs, since I’m a novice programmer at best. I did. The tool was right about 15%-20% of the time at best, which is why I suspect they call the practice “vibe coding.” In my experience, it generates broken code that is sort of in the ballpark of what I asked for.
Cloud storage does have an energy cost, but for me, it pretty much always works. My file is on my Google Drive 100% of the time. In a world where resources are scarce, I’d prefer they be used for tech that works consistently rather than tech I see as a crapshoot at best.
3. This is a legit fascinating question. I guess the implicit assumption is the AI-generated users are sentient, or capable of being entertained, which they're not, which means we can only describe the idea of AI-generated users consuming and enjoying AI-generated content as completely fucking insane. Anyway, the answer is yes: Humanity should log off and let the AI-bots poison themselves with social media.
For what it's worth, the best use case I've found for AI is home improvement stuff. It's helped with several DIY projects and it's helped me idiot-check some of the stuff various vendors have said to me.
Husband sees me on my device, asks “what’s the news?” Me: “I dunno, I’m reading a home-improvement piece on Substack by a guy I follow.” Husband: “What’s the problem?” I describe the door, the missing screw, the near infinite choice of screws. Husband: “Probably needs a wood screw.”
Michael, I read your comment to him. He laughed and said, “go ahead and tell them I used to work at a home improvement store.” (Not the orange one, I feel obliged to add.)
Great for Annie Grifiths , i just bought a kindle version of your book. 0.99 $ but with all the Amazon slop it cost me 1.10. Lol. Do i get a thank you or just AI slop? Just kidding Keep writing you make me laugh
I wonder if the bot would get pissed if he saw too many stems and seeds in the bag of weed. That would truly be a valuable service.
That’s a higher intelligence
I have tracked down a hardware store employee and — at least in a big box store — I choose ChatGPT
Pictures are a good trick too. I was going through my dad's safe deposit box and he had all sorts of random coinage. Snap a pic and ChatGPT will tell which ones are worth a second look
Oooh, thanks for the tip. Got a box full of old silver dollars I've been meaning to check.
Smart, unflinching, honest, thank you. Michael. It must have felt GREAT to fix that door yourself! One silver lining for the humans in this story: you could share your discovery with the contractor and the handyman so they could put it to good use in the future. Everybody wins.
Thanks Asha! I'll tell my handyman next time he's here.
I appreciate that AI figured out how to fix your door problem, and you didn’t have to get a new door.
I think, though, that a truly expert carpenter would also have been able to figure it out.
Would it be fair to say that what ChatGPT did was aggregate the math and the knowledge from others to come up with the answer?
I would rather have the hypothetical expert carpenter come up with the answer. But the human experts can be really hard to find.
Hi Teri, I think your description of the way AI aggregates answers is pretty fair. Google does something similar, but as anyone who has ever googled a home improvement question knows, you can spend hours sifting through answers that don't quite speak to your situation. This was a lot more dialed in. A knowledgeable human is ideal, but for whatever reason (ignorance, business model, laziness) I couldn't get a human to give me a good answer.
I totally get that it is hard to locate a capable human—surrounded as they are by the not so capable.
My dad ran a hardware store for 30 years. I worked there A LOT growing up. At a young age I was put in charge of the nuts and bolts aisle. Mainly, putting all the random screws back that customers had pulled out and realized weren't right for their project but couldn't remember what tiny drawer or box they came out of. I had to measure the length and diameter and also determine what TYPE of screw or bolt it was so I could put it back in the right spot. Nowadays, I know what all the different screws are and what they do, but I still use them for the wrong thing all the time because I'd rather not go to the hardware store for something I need and have to track down an employee. Or deal with a robot. 😳
My family took a maiden voyage through our local wholesale club last night. They had these inventory bots roaming around. Named Telly. Yes, they were cute and even spoke in beeps and boops. But they creeped me out big time, because another thing I used to do at my dad's hardware store was take inventory. 😭
Inventory bots! Yikes. Thanks for the heads up that those things exist.
Why exchanging some part of management in corporations with a robot would make sense; It knows the things that have already been tried before. It learns and doesn’t forget the lesson. Seriously, often a new manager doesn’t know the measures the last one and the ones before him/her have already tried. So, we change the chairs back and forth, with every change of management. A robot would know.
I've never had a robot bring me foot. Even at the sushi place we go to, their robot sits in the corner and the waitress brings the food.
Rarely, I've found employees at Home Depot and even more rarely, they've been able to answer a question. The local hardware store has employees who are somewhat helpful. They will tell me what kind of screw I need, but then send me down to the basement to get it myself.
My son would have taken one look at your door and would have said, "Hang on a minute." He'd go out to his truck, get the right screw out of the tool box and get the job done for you in five minutes. No charge. Give him a beer and Bob's your uncle.
Tell your son to come to my place. We have lots of small problems and plenty of beer.
If you have beer, he has skills!
Hey, thanks for writing an intelligent and balanced piece about AI; I’m getting tired and a little annoyed at the knee-jerk rejection of a new tool. It seems to happen with every iteration of tool that humans come up with to make things easier. I’ll bet there were stone age complaints about bronze axes being for sissies. I think the missing part in your opinion is a socialist and class analysis. For me the biggest problem is that all the monetary benefits to increased productivity are going to the billionaires.
Thanks Jeff! I think those bronze age axes were for sissies. Stone for life! All kidding aside, appreciate the comment, and yes, there's more to this story in terms of the billionaire class.
1. Smitty’s Pancake House near us had a robot server. It was so popular people called from rural communities to ask if the robot was working before they made the trip to town. They complained bitterly if a human brought them their food because, after all, they hadn’t driven all the way from Lumby to be served by a human. Smitty’s is gone now. It was replaced by Mr. Mike’s Steakhouse Casual. The robot server is gone, too, but I’m guessing that the people from Lumby will return. I mean it’s a Mr. Mike’s! Of course they will return!
2. No. At Canadian Tire, the app tells you what isle to go to, how many units of screen door repair kits are left in stock, and when you arrive a flashing light on the shelf with the repair kits will flash so you can easily find the repair kit. The app is useless when it comes to assisting with the repair itself. That still takes hours of toil, rolling around on the deck wrestling with the screen to pin it into place, and introducing neighbours to 4729 swear words in Danish, Norwegian, and English.
3. That would be worse than if kindergarten teachers spent their day in a bar leaving the children to entertain themselves.
4. Was it laughing uncontrollably when it left the dispensary?
5. Yes.
As for the robot at the dispensary, I'm not sure. Class started and I blocked everything out to focus on my practice. When class was over, the robot was gone.
Sometimes we go to a Korean restaurant with robot servers. Humans still take your order, but the robots carry the food.
I go to the Ace Hardware on Soquel in Santa Cruz. There is always someone waiting at the door to take you to whatever you are looking for… so much appreciated.
Ace is the place.
Hey! I go there too. Friendly and well-trained!
A programmer recommended that I try a Gen AI tool for creating code and solving bugs, since I’m a novice programmer at best. I did. The tool was right about 15%-20% of the time at best, which is why I suspect they call the practice “vibe coding.” In my experience, it generates broken code that is sort of in the ballpark of what I asked for.
Cloud storage does have an energy cost, but for me, it pretty much always works. My file is on my Google Drive 100% of the time. In a world where resources are scarce, I’d prefer they be used for tech that works consistently rather than tech I see as a crapshoot at best.
3. This is a legit fascinating question. I guess the implicit assumption is the AI-generated users are sentient, or capable of being entertained, which they're not, which means we can only describe the idea of AI-generated users consuming and enjoying AI-generated content as completely fucking insane. Anyway, the answer is yes: Humanity should log off and let the AI-bots poison themselves with social media.
Nailed it.
Chat GPT contractor! That’s crazy. Your handyman could have looked it up.
1. Haven’t seen robots here. I fear they might be vandalized.
2. Home Depot usually has helpful people loitering about.
4. Haha!
5. It’s probably happening already.
For what it's worth, the best use case I've found for AI is home improvement stuff. It's helped with several DIY projects and it's helped me idiot-check some of the stuff various vendors have said to me.
Husband sees me on my device, asks “what’s the news?” Me: “I dunno, I’m reading a home-improvement piece on Substack by a guy I follow.” Husband: “What’s the problem?” I describe the door, the missing screw, the near infinite choice of screws. Husband: “Probably needs a wood screw.”
Tell your husband he's a genius. It'll go to his head. But damn it, we need more helpful people like him
Michael, I read your comment to him. He laughed and said, “go ahead and tell them I used to work at a home improvement store.” (Not the orange one, I feel obliged to add.)