Thats super reasonable - I'm a person with ADHD so if I'm asking questions in a grocery store context - I might fully forget things or take way too long to get things done - Going for a walk in nature is absolutely a much better place for questions like that to me though. I think I would prefer to not have tech in the moment to take me out of the space.

But do you need AI for those answers? I sometimes do the same thing, but Google/DDG/whatever works fine for most, and a niche app works for others (IDing a bird = Merlin app, for example).

I am in the same boat. I am always thinking about things and recently often asking ChatGPT for an answer. Having a natural language interface for questions has opened the door for me to many more questions.

It happens to me all the time, however, I want to have real answers. And while a LLM is sometimes involved, I usually go deeper, with some cross referencing, fact checking and primary sources. LLMs are great at giving you a starting point, but the problem with them is that it is impossible to distinguish between fact or fiction, so I always have to verify. Really, I have seen my fair share of falsehoods popping up on LLMs, sometimes on simple and uncontroversial topics.

On hot topics like politics, illegal drugs, gender and racial differences, etc... it may be impossible to even get an answer passed the filters.

I rarely have questions of others but I always question myself. :shrug:

There’s a difference between asking out loud or another being vs asking yourself internally.

I think not having those instant answers available is a big part of why your mind wanders in that setting.

I mirror that experience, except for the latter half. I enjoy just being outside and letting my mind wander, letting it wonder about odd questions in the moment. I never actually want or care about the answers, I just like the feeling of thinking.

I already have my phone, I could look up the answers immediately. The reason I don't isn't that I can't. It's that asking the question is the point, not answering it.

My walk is also around a reservoir, also 4-5 times a week and the length of the walk around it is also 1 hour.

Are you the guy that walks the poodle?

When I walk around, I have many questions in my head. But I never stop to do something about it. If the question is important enough, it will stick and I'll do something about once I get back.

This is the modern curse: I know I can get an answer to nearly every question, and I can get it quickly, just taking my phone out of my pocket and dictating it, it takes zero effort. I feel it's worth to restrain oneself and just enjoy the walk. It just feels better.

Sadly, it takes away from my productivity when I was already used to the position of the button previously.

I do understand that sometimes things need to be redesigned. But crowing like you landed on the moon because your new phone icons now have "rounded edges with shading" or somesuch fuckery that will just slow down the rendering.. gets old and annoying really fast.

Dealing with real humans in the future will be the ultimate VIP treatment.

We recently got a customer support request asking if we were going to "implement AI" on our website and then saying we could use it in our marketing if we did. No suggestion as to why they would find it useful, or what feature could be augmented with it. It's crazy that the hype is so high that random non-tech users suggest adding AI for marketing.

Embedded AIs are pretty dumb as a product in my opinion. Why would the customer pay you instead of their existing model vendor of choice? Why do they have to learn your chatbox - when it's probably using a crappier model and lacks the context of their preferred vendor.

I really don't want to pay for 5 different AI subscriptions, I want one subscription that works with all my other services (which I already pay for).

Now the sass can sass you

Yes, there are people working on image recognition glasses for blind people.

Nobody seems to have been successful yet, and I think the focus on applying LLMs instead of dumb UI and mixed dumb and ML image processing is a large reason why.

Oh I do still enjoy the glasses, they are actually rather incredible, even though they do not have a screen. That said - These actually do have a Be My Eyes integration - It is incredibly impressive.

Agreed - 95% of the questions I ask Copilot, I could answer myself by searching emails, Teams messages and files - BUT Copilot does a far far better job than me, and quicker. I went from barely using it, to using it daily. I wouldn't say it is a massive speed boost for me, but I'd miss it if it was taken away.

Then the other 5% is the 'extra; it does for me, and gets me details I wouldn't have even known where to find.

But it is just fancy search for me so far - but fancy search I see as valuable.

My favorite copilot use is when I join a MS Teams meeting a few minutes late I can ask copilot: what have I missed? It does a fantastic job of summarizing who said what.

> Though I'm not sure we should be killing the earth for better search

Are we, though? What I have read so far suggests the carbon footprint of training models like gpt4 was "a couple weeks of flights from SFO to NYC" https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-b...

They also seem to be coming down in power usage substantially, at least for inference. There's pretty good models that can run on laptops now, and I still very much think we're in the model T phase of this technology so I expect further efficiency refinements. It also seems like they have recently hit a "cap" on the increase in intelligence models are getting for more raw power.

The trendline right now makes me wonder if we'll be talking about "dark datacenters" in the future the same way we talked about dark fiber after the dot com bubble.

I meant mostly in the context of daily life tasks as a person with ADHD - so maybe a hair neurodivergent. My issue isn't that I don't wonder things, it is that indulging the wonder would interrupt me from accomplishing almost anything. I would not very highly functioning if I allowed for non-critical thoughts to interrupt the flow. When outside of trying to do specific things and in less focus-dependent tasks, I absolutely wonder and google and get lost on weird random topics.

I think I probably could have worded it more as "I rarely have questions worth knowing the answer to", where the cost of knowing answers is tied to the following rabbit holes and delays/forgotten tasks.

I always ponder how many people have a refrigerator in their home their entire life, and what percentage of them don't know how it works.

I've asked several gfs, and they don't have even a hint of how it works. Guy friends do a bit better but not as well as you'd think.

So yes, people live their entire lives not asking obvious questions.

I'm autistic and I probably ask many more questions than most people.

I would also argue that ND people seem to be the heavier AI users, at least in my experience. Its a bit like the stereotypical 'wikipedia deep dive' but 10x.

Don’t try and diagnose people like this please. Even if you’re qualified, and I doubt you are, it’s very insensitive.

Oh what a blissful environment the mind that is not full of constant questions begging to be answered and explored must be.

I'll just be over here, floating (often treading water) in a raging river of "what ifs ...", "I wonder ifs..." And, "Hmmms?"