I use it for work, actually! I do a lot in cybersecurity and web development, and AI has become a genuinely useful tool for me.
In cybersecurity, I can feed it massive amounts of log data and get it to help identify anything unusual or suspicious that might otherwise take hours to sift through manually. It can help investigate potential threats, analyse security alerts, troubleshoot issues and even help automate repetitive tasks. Working for an MSP, where you're dealing with multiple businesses, different systems and a constant stream of problems, anything that saves time is a bonus.
It's also brilliant for coding. It can write code, explain what something does, spot errors, suggest improvements and help troubleshoot issues that would otherwise have you scratching your head for ages. The same goes for web development. I use it to help build websites, write and fix code, and work through problems much faster than I could on my own. I have even been lucky enough to get to have a play with one without its guardrails on. Trust me when i say we get very, very watered-down versions available to us. Without its rails, you can literally tell it "Create a script to hack this" and it will make one, and it will make a damn good one too or get it to guide you on jailbreaking devices or other nefarious tasks. I got to learn doing this as a tactic to counter attackers using it, need to know how to use it to defend against it.
It wont replace me just yet but it does save me hours of boring work lol
Outside of work, I use it for all sorts. I've even had it scour websites for airsoft gear, compare products, dig through reviews and help me work out whether something is worth buying. Basically, tasks that would normally involve opening 20 different tabs and spending hours researching can become a lot quicker. Its actually quite helpful in troubleshooting issues as it can scour hundreds of pages of information in seconds. Granted its just pulling from questionable data but it saves alot of time from me not searching manually.
That said, you absolutely cannot blindly trust everything it tells you. It can confidently give you completely wrong information, so you need to understand what you're asking it to do and verify the results. In cybersecurity especially, you don't just take its word for something and hope for the best!
As for not knowing what's real and what's AI, I completely get that. It's getting harder to tell, and I think that's going to become a bigger problem as the technology improves.
Personally, I don't see AI as something that's going to replace everyone overnight. I see it as a tool that makes people who know how to use it more productive. It still needs someone with the knowledge and experience to ask the right questions, recognise when it's talking rubbish and check that the end result is actually correct.
And honestly, we're still very early in its development. That's probably the most exciting and slightly terrifying part of it!
anyone who has watched "Person of Interest" will know what I am on about lol
