I was having tea with some friends for lunch and one of them mentioned that she was very stressed in her workplace because of Edicts From Above™ mandating the use of large language models (as in Claude, ChatGPT, and the like) in her work. I have to admit that I also grow a bit weary of seeing these LLM (or “AI”) things popping up just about everywhere with no rhyme or reason.
Let me preface by saying I am not a technophobe by any stretch of the imagination! I think LLMs are fascinating tools for search and retrieval. My first use of Gemini was on the 2nd of December, 2024. When used responsibly, and prompted correctly, they can be a true game changer for doing research and finding information that can take ages to find using traditional Web searches.
But that is when used responsibly, and prompted correctly. I am finding so many places where it is being shoved in without thought. Generously, I could say it is because those businesses don’t want to be “left behind” as everyone else integrates this technology. Cynically, I could say it is because those businesses just want a reason to charge more for the same (or less) quality of service.
GitHub is incessant about reminding me of Copilot’s existence these days. Word for Mac, where I write my graphic novels, also nags about Copilot. Even this blog, which is a WordPress instance I host, offers to write “AI summaries” of my articles for the excerpt. And I appreciate that these services are available to me. I just wish there was a way to tell them I am not interested at this time.
And I am happy to admit that Copilot reviews on merge requests can actually be useful. I could argue that half the grammar checks that word processors perform are “AI” in some way, since it has to infer sentence structure and English grammar rules. If we define it that way then I’ve been using “AI” to enhance my writing since my first interactions with WordPerfect in 1997.
Just the same, it feels like we are quickly becoming oversaturated with “AI” and “LLM” in everything, everywhere, all the time. I don’t mind the sands of time continuing to fall, and I know it’s not realistic to hope the fad stops soon. But would it be ever so nice if there was a big “Dismiss” button so I didn’t have to look at it every day.
And, of course, it’d be even nicer if people like my friend weren’t being forced to use tools that don’t even assist them for the sole purpose of satisfying upper management that doesn’t even understand her role and the tools she actually needs.
Leave a Reply