AI being helpful thread

[EscapedSuburbia]

I need to get my butt in gear and learn to use AI beyond the one that's built into the google search engine. I've never had much regard for people who refuse to learn anything new. It used to be "I don't even have a computer" and "I don't have any use for e-mail". Then it became, "I don't even have a cell phone" and later "I'll never own a smart phone - my flip phone is good enough". All technologies have a downside and can be abused. But they're just tools. Use them wisely. I don't want to end up one of those old curmudgeons who ignore new technologies that can make their life better.

My son is a fairly newly minted engineer. When he's home for Xmas I plan to ask him about how or if he uses AI in his job and if he's not using it I'm going to encourage him to start. It'll make him more marketable.

 

[WinterDeere]

I don't want to end up one of those old curmudgeons who ignore new technologies that can make their life better.

As someone who has spent his whole career in Engineering or R&D, I genuinly look forward to the day I can be that old curmudgeon who ignores new technology. Today, already I understand those older late-career engineers I encountered when I was young, who just didn't want to bother learning to use advanced simulation tools, etc.

New tools are no obstacle, when you are just learning to do everything for the first time. But once you've invested in inventing your own most-productive ways of getting your various tasks done, slowing down to learn new tools feels like more of an unnecessary frustration or impediment your work flow.

 

[BackRoad]

Anyone deep into technology is living on an 18 month life cycle. Technology from 18 months ago is ancient and 9 months is the half life of much leading edge tech.

Working in it is a never ending process of leveraging what you learned 6 months ago to push off into the next new wave of emerging technology.

I started in networking in '82 managing 1200 bps dedicated circuits running 6 bit protocol for the largest private network in the world at the time. Networking turned into the leading edge tech wave at that time, from dedicated circuits to WANs, LANs, routers and the internet expanding and growing into a churning wave into the 2000's and by then commercial mid-range computing and cloud hosting developed into the next wave...and it's still expanding.

I was blessed with the opportunity to surf both waves and the personal effort to constantly reinvent skills and surf the curl had very positive returns.

Nevertheless, I was a very tired and happy man to finally climb off my surf board in '19, and haven't looked back!

Now my wading in the shallow edge of the tech surf is conversing with Claude...

 

[EscapedSuburbia]

As someone who has spent his whole career in Engineering or R&D, I genuinly look forward to the day I can be that old curmudgeon who ignores new technology. Today, already I understand those older late-career engineers I encountered when I was young, who just didn't want to bother learning to use advanced simulation tools, etc.

New tools are no obstacle, when you are just learning to do everything for the first time. But once you've invested in inventing your own most-productive ways of getting your various tasks done, slowing down to learn new tools feels like more of an unnecessary frustration or impediment your work flow.

When we'd let an older engineer go during a downturn they'd always start complaining about "age discrimination". Fortunately we always documented their unwillingness to learn new, more efficient tools and methods so they didn't have a case. "We've always done it that way" never carried any weight with me as my group's lead engineer.

I've got a friend who refuses to use a smart phone for navigation. We did a two month cross-country RV trip with him and his girlfriend. We'd arrive at camp and an hour or so later she would text saying they were lost and I'd have to call and talk them through finding the campground. But, by God, he wasn't going to use this fancy new Google Maps thing.

 

[Oaktree]

I don't want to end up one of those old curmudgeons who ignore new technologies that can make their life better.

I don't either, but the older I get the more likely I am to question whether this fabulous new technology actually makes my life better or if it just adds clutter. It can go either way and sometimes it's a fine line.
Mostly retired now, so no need to stay relevant to an employer.

 

[WinterDeere]

When we'd let an older engineer go during a downturn they'd always start complaining about "age discrimination". Fortunately we always documented their unwillingness to learn new, more efficient tools and methods so they didn't have a case. "We've always done it that way" never carried any weight with me as my group's lead engineer.

What I always found, in my prior R&D role, was that we really needed the full spectrum of age and experience to work more efficiently. The youngest brought in knowledge of the latest tools and an eagerness to push them into our design process. The middle-aged guys were always shouldering the vast majority of the design load, with that unique blend of experience and drive that can only ever converge when you've added some experience to youthful ambition. But no one could touch the speed and precision of the older guys when a new design prototype hit the bench and needed debug work, there's just no replacing decades of experience in that particular area.

The young guys and girls who did the best work on their early designs tended to be the ones who asked the old guys the most questions early in their projects, to avoid known pitfalls. Likewise, those of us in the middle-age group could almost always get our prototype debug work done much more quickly when we'd grab a retiree to come "look at what this module is doing!"

I was made manager of R&D in my early 40's, and had to spend some of my own political capital arguing to hang onto our retired former Director of Design, on the promise he could mentor our youngest engineers. He was no longer the most efficient at design work, I and a few others in my age bracket had long-surpassed him there, but I continued learning debug tricks from him right up until his passing.

 

[scootr]

I pick and choose which new technology I want to use. If I see an advantage then I'm willing to invest and learn... otherwise I don't really need WhatsApp but I do like ChatGPT doing all the legwork on any project...you do have to check them as it is open to mistakes.

 

[EscapedSuburbia]

What I always found, in my prior R&D role, was that we really needed the full spectrum of age and experience to work more efficiently. The youngest brought in knowledge of the latest tools and an eagerness to push them into our design process. The middle-aged guys were always shouldering the vast majority of the design load, with that unique blend of experience and drive that can only ever converge when you've added some experience to youthful ambition. But no one could touch the speed and precision of the older guys when a new design prototype hit the bench and needed debug work, there's just no replacing decades of experience in that particular area.

The best engineers I had were older, experienced engineers who never lost their passion to learn new things. One in particular was in his 70's but always on the bleeding edge of machine vision and robotics. He'd seen it all over the years so was a wealth of knowledge and a great mentor but he wasn't afraid to embrace new technology or processes. The worst were the old curmudgeons who refused to change. One of the last things I did before retirement was introduce new tools for managing and automating the flow of CAD data to other systems for quoting and purchasing. It was complicated software with a steep learning curve but it was necessary to stay competitive so that all of us could keep our jobs. Yet there was a subset of geezers who fought it every step of the way. It was happening whether they liked it or not. A couple of them found themselves retiring earlier than they wanted.

Bringing it back to AI, I don't need it as a tool to make fake tiktok videos. But if it can help me troubleshoot a problem with my furnace or understand how to settle an estate then it's worth learning.