Whenever AI is mentioned lots of people in the Linux space immediately react negatively. Creators like TheLinuxExperiment on YouTube always feel the need to add a disclaimer that “some people think AI is problematic” or something along those lines if an AI topic is discussed. I get that AI has many problems but at the same time the potential it has is immense, especially as an assistant on personal computers (just look at what “Apple Intelligence” seems to be capable of.) Gnome and other desktops need to start working on integrating FOSS AI models so that we don’t become obsolete. Using an AI-less desktop may be akin to hand copying books after the printing press revolution. If you think of specific problems it is better to point them out and try think of solutions, not reject the technology as a whole.
TLDR: A lot of ludite sentiments around AI in Linux community.
Ok. Tell me how A.I made your life better so far
Using “AI” has been beneficial for example to generate image descriptions automatically, which were then used as alternative text on a website. This increased accessibility AND users were able to use full text search on these descriptions to find images faster. Same goes for stuff like classification of images, video and audio. I know of some applications in agriculture where object detection and classification etc. is used to optimize the usage of fertilizer and pesticides reducing costs and reducing environmental impact they cause. There are ofcourse many more examples like these but the point should be clear.
I can ask a lot of specific coding questions without having to try to generalize them to get some results in a search engine.
I generated a few logo sketches to show the logo designer what I liked and disliked, which parts to avoid and which elements I liked.
I had a fun time (and still do from time to time) with generating images.
I learned a new skill and I very much like crafting prompts, it really makes you think from a very alien point of view when you’re after something obscure.
I got to work with interesting technologies when we integrated AI into our product (both generative AI and standard ML).
How has AI made your life worse so far?
My top uses are “generate this boiler plate” (for example a schema) and debugging: “why is this function returning <someUnexpectedValue> when I expect <expectedValue>” for example. Debugging is most certainly my favorite part of it because every developer knows the frustration of spending hours on a bug. I still try to tackle it myself initially because I believe it makes me a better problem solver but after enough time I will use Ai to explain it and learn from the experience by reading ChatGPT’s thorough explanations behind what caused the bug.
I work in a medical startup and we provide an AI powered service for semi automatic target detection for neurosurgery specifically for Parkinson’s and essential tremor. Many patients have benefitted from it so far with excellent results and the fact that it allows surgeons to perform the entire surgery under general anesthesia makes it much less traumatic and available to many more patients.
It’s okay to reconcile that AI is both an amazing tool with a lot of great benefits in some areas AND a lot of assholish data theft and overhyped, unhelpful bloat shoved down our throats in others.