I used chatgpt to craft stories based on events of the day, then I reviewed and modifies, printed them out, and read them out with my kids. In a given time, it multiplied what I can achieve. I could do it without chat gpt. I could do it without computer and printer. I could do it without pen and paper. Heck I could do it the normal way and just get a generic children book. But this was fun! And it was the opposite of zoning out for all involved! :)
Same for black history month quizzes and posters. It allowed my wife, in the limited time available to her (time is always limited to humans in this universe) , to do a far better job celebrating the event than ever before. I don't think she or her colleagues felt like any "zoning out" was involved, or that minimal effort was put in!
We found our initial explorations exciting and involved and rich and educating. I believe there are strong limits, and there can be accuracy issues and AI hallucinating and so on. But just the basic dozen use cases are such strong effort multipliers. I have learned more and have done more with given unit of time invested. For all the extremely legitimate moral, socio economic, legal and other issues, which are extremely valid, I stand by my awe at people who say "I can find no use for this".
I 1000% acknowledged and am terrified of social, economic, power implications. I think they should be discussed and debated.
They are not the same thing though as "is this useful?".
We can and should have discussion on dangers of nuclear and AI and ubi and myriad other things. I will still unabashedly repeat my only point in this thread - it's shocking to me that some people find "chatgpt has no use", to the point I find it disingenuous.
I'm not arguing that ChatGPT has no use. My argument is that I strongly suspect the long term negative externalities of large language models will vastly exceed any positive impact they will have on society. And humanity has a pretty clearly established track record in terms of widespread deployment of things that bring some immediate utility but whose longterm consequences we don't understand upfront. CFC's, artificial sweeteners, cigarettes, lead paint, social media, React Hooks, so on and so on and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
I guess I'm just surprised how easily people are able to put aside their terror (as you put it) in exchange for some of that sweet, sweet, short-term utility. They're two sides of the same coin. You're ushering in tomorrow's consequences, unseen.
You're basically just saying your too damn lazy to do any of this stuff unless the amount of effort you need to put in is as minimal as possible.
While I get being tired and stressed (I'm a parent too) I feel like what you're doing is not much better than just zoning out.