I used AI to help do my job for a week. Here are all the ways it went sideways — and the few things it got right

I should probably admit that I watched the first rollout of generative AI for the masses the way one might gaze upon an advancing herd of wild boar — scary, likely to reorder most of my surroundings, and a threat that, even if I started now, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to outrun. Better to just avoid any sudden movements.

But it’d been over a year since OpenAI released its first demo of ChatGPT, kicking off a tech arms race. The latest models were more sophisticated than ever. It’d been weeks since a group of Canadian newsrooms, including the Star, banded together to sue OpenAI, alleging the tech was stealing their content. My stance felt increasingly like actually ignoring a wild animal on a collision course.

When I pitched my editor on using AI for a week to do my job, we agreed on ground rules. I’d use AI as much as possible, though not for communication with anyone outside the company, nor would I send it any of my work. (The new Star AI policy forbids it.)

Opening up a generative AI program that first morning did feel a bit like letting down the side. At least among the general public, criticism of AI has pooled into two camps — that AI is overhyped and not useful, or that it is all-powerful and going to replace us. Some journalists see any collaboration with AI as helping to train our own replacements, and there’s no question AI has funnelled a lot of slop into the world, from recipes for poison sandwiches to pictures of a fashion-forward pope.

AI as personal assistant

But AI already powers websites and translates text and pushes some stories and not others to the top of social media. Now generative AI promises to make the technology readily available to all. With that in mind, it seems increasingly important to understand a technology that could rock our world, for good or ill.  Or, as the saying goes, the best devil is the one you know — and it seemed time to get to know that devil. Here’s what I found out.

One of the biggest claims made by the creators of generative AI is how much more efficient it will make workers. How, exactly, was not immediately clear. According to OpenAI, ChatGPT recently cracked 300 million monthly users and just in the last few months, people have said they used AI to accelerate drug development, trick users into falling in love with bots and piece together the missing bits of the ancient epic of Gilgamesh. So it seemed probable that AI could do something for me. But what?

While ChatGPT quickly captured the public’s imagination, becoming the default brand for generative AI, there are actually multiple programs now competing for eyeballs. I started with Claude, the flagship AI program from a company called Anthropic. It has a reputation for being better at writing. (For this story, I used the free versions of most programs, though many now have paywalls so I paid roughly $30 for a month of Claude Pro.)

I tried off-loading some of my usual morning tasks. Here’s how it works. First, a user types (or increasingly, asks) a question, and then the program responds, often with questions of its own. But its architects say — as will Claude, if you ask him — that built-in safeguards and training limitations dictate what they’re able to do. Claude won’t tell you how to make a bomb or who to vote for, for example.

Could Claude give me a roundup of the news of the day? Nope. Claude said its training ended sometime in early 2024. That also meant I was out of luck on any insights into the assassin who’d shot an American health insurance CEO. I wasn’t about to set Claude loose on my emails to sources, but I asked it to write a message to a colleague. Claude demurred, saying it wouldn’t be “genuine or respectful” to pretend to be me when speaking to a friend.  We compromised. Claude agreed to write the message if he could include a disclaimer about AI and I copy and paste the output into the company Slack channel. “Hey Omar! [AI disclosure: I’m experimenting with using Claude to help draft messages.] Hope you’re day’s going well. Just wanted to check in and see what you’re up to lately. How are your things in your neck of the woods?”

Did it make me more productive?

Omar pinged back immediately: “it took an AI to write THAT.” (Because I like drama, I reported Omar’s response back to Claude, who conceded it was a “fair response” to his message, which had been pretty “basic.”)

Read the full article here.