AI is really good. This won’t go away, and you should definitely try it

I’m assuming most readers have tried some form of the AI already: OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Anthropic’s Claude. Google’s Gemini (or Bard before). X’s Grok. (If you haven’t, please give it a try). And most of you agree that AI is really good. People ask for advice on relationships, health, finance, or academics. But why do I say it’s good?

First, I can get the answer to my question a lot faster.
25 years ago, I had to use physical encyclopedias to look up stuff. But it was definitely limiting: I had to look up the exact term (not phrase).
15 years ago, I could search for it on Google. We had classes on tips/tricks on how to Google more efficiently, and we had to shift through the list of websites that Google returned to further find my answer.
With AI, I just type my question and it gives me the answer straight.
It’s no surprise that Google queries dropped after the ChatGPT was released, and why Google is taking AI seriously.

Second, it has completely changed my life as a software engineer.
Before AI, most of my days were spent on trivial stupid nitty gritty stuff.
Now, as long as I have a clear picture of what I want to implement, I can get AI to write most of the code for me.

Third, software implementation is cheaper.
Before, I wouldn’t have time to implement a side project.

So AI had a tremendous effect on my life and I can see how it will have a big impact on most people. That being said, even if AI labs or governments try to curtail the usage of AI, since there are open-sourced models that exist on the internet that people can download on their consumer hardware devices, the Pandora’s box has been opened, and it’s not going away anytime soon.

Background
I worked as a software engineer for 6 years in SF, and I have a master’s in ML. With AI dominating the landscape, many people asked me about my view on the AI industry, landscape, etc. Here’s my best effort at writing the answers I’ve been giving verbally to family, friends, and peers. To make this genuine, I’m writing this without any AI. When I talk about AI, I’m mostly referring to LLMs/Agents. AI existed long before the AI boom (2002) (e.g. Autonomous Vehicles, Computer Vision). But since the focus of the AI bubble, meteoric rise is about LLMs, this is what I’ll focus on.