Excellent commentary Jeff. I use Grok, Chat GPT and Copilot, which is embedded in Microsoft's EDGE browser. However, I asked all three a question about a complex subject and I got three completely different answers. AI helps me in my work and I agree the U.S. will become more productive. As for electricity, some of these major companies have the foresight to acquire electrical infrastructure to keep their AI projects running and up into the future, i.e. Microsoft and Constellation Energy are going to rejuvenate the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island and the renamed facility will be the Crane Clean Energy Center. However, our government(s) are well behind and there will have to be another major winter storm like the one in February 2021 in Texas where the Texas ERCOT (their energy department) almost had their entire grid failure (they were about five minutes away) and hundreds of people lost their lives because of freezing temperatures and most of the state had no heat or electricity. Our electrical grid is failing and in disrepair and none of our government agencies are doing anything about it.
I use Grok *all* the time instead of any search engine. I've also been using it for the kinds of things you describe, although apparently I'm not at your wife's level to leverage it so well for my farm & garden / herbal / medicinal / guild / permaculture queries! It just occurred to me to use it for recipes recently, with a deep dive comparing certain veg on nutritional value, bioavailability of same, prepared different ways, etc. which was enlightening.
I'll leap to a generalization springing from your wife, an X post by esr (Eric Raymond), and my own experience: AI is a tool that helps the best and most experienced the most. My epiphany using Grok was an in-depth search and synthesis around an oft-repeated but never cited claim regarding validation of a certain metric in specific circumstances. Since then I've used it to cut the drudgery at work by about a third, generating research outlines, summarizing flaws or gaps in an analytical plan, and a host of other small tasks where I know what to do and how to do it, but Grok does it in 20 seconds instead of taking 20+ minutes from me. Suddenly my whole day opens up with a lot more time to think and do interesting work, instead of staying behind the 8-ball, scrambling just to keep up.
I very much doubt the Landscape Architect you mentioned likes how AI steals his intellectual property and his customers. As a commercial interior designer, I do not. Mildly speaking.
If it's a private transaction, the only way for it to be "stolen" is if one party lets AI suck it into its LLM. If you publish stuff on the web, it's fair game.
I am empathetic to your point. However, there is enough written in books and the web that is public for LLMs to generate ideas.
There are two broader points here: First, if you are very good at what you do, you will be able to do more with AI. It will help you service more customers, and you will do it quicker and more efficiently than before. The people in your industry who are coasting or not adding value will go by the wayside.
Second, for individuals, AI does two things. For projects like my daughter's, it helps her build a workable and affordable design. For larger more complex projects, it helps the customer ask the right questions of the professional so they get a better outcome.
For example, if AI had been around, we could have worked better with Brian, I am pretty sure we wouldn't have taken that project on alone. It was a vacant lot with a house on it. Adjusted for inflation, it's a $55k project today (in today's dollars the home would have cost (974k to build)! But the scope of this project was LARGE. It involved grading, seeding grass, installing sprinkler systems, getting and planting the entire plan, AND putting a large amount of hardscapes in. Even as frugal as my wife and I are, along with the incentive to DIY, we wouldn't have done this one.
Did you have an estimate done on your landscaping project then? You are the client, the designer's goal to please you and deliver whatever you want, at agreed on price and fee. What you mean by "could have worked better with Brian if AI was around" - are you implying he deceived you in estimate and if you knew the actual price tag you'd lowered the scope of work? Why didn't you do it then w/o AI? You are the one who ordered it and had the checkbook. I don't understand how AI would assist your designer- in lowering the SOW?
Something doesn't add here.
Again, AI doesn't deliver good design. It generates it based on people's work. It doesn't mean these people provided their work willingly. "Published on the web" is often by the third parties, not by designers. On a given project there are always 3-4-7 consultants involved: MEP, structural, lighting engineers, acoustical, even photographers for LL. They all have their own portfolios, and don't hesitate to post drawings and images from a project - not disclosing their own protected content but making no precautions for protecting other's property. The owner of that CD set does not even know who and where and how got his work published. That doesn't mean the work is not his - he never gave permission to publish!
A typical ad on Linked-I for the myriad new AI plugs looks like this:
<b>Over the last yr it's been trained on 250 real projects (soon to be 2000+) and delivers 95% accurate construction costs estimates &&&. </b>Readers focus - like you - on how quick they get an estimate. I focus immediately on that phrase: "was trained on". It's a theft.
I’ve found the same thing. Grok has replaced Google for searches because it does a better job summarizing the results which id have to do manually before. It’s 10:1 a better time saver. Maybe more. I’ve also used it for food and recipe assistance and gardening help. Spot on post! I have to look you up next time I’m in Vegas. Love to talk food and economics more.
I agree MP Goergen. I asked Copilot about the economic analysis about the stock market from April 2 to May 2, and I got a generic response. Grok. gave me a huge detailed analysis including reports from financial institutions that report information to their clients. I am not going to use Copilot anymore for this kind of information.
I should’ve included a caveat, that I do still review Grok’s responses critically because it is a learning model and when something seems “less than” I expected I want to make sure to dig in further. Sometimes garbage in = garbage out but it is still the most neutral AI especially when compared to Google and its AI.
Wow! I'd never used Grok before, (I had to google it, to find it, lol) but, even though it couldn't answer my question, I'm tres' impressed! And, I bet if a year from now I ask the same question, Grok will know the answer.
Here was my question: How many home runs did Ryne Sandberg hit during his career at Wrigley Field?
Grok's response: Ryne Sandberg hit 282 home runs during his MLB career, primarily with the Chicago Cubs. However, precise data on how many of these were hit specifically at Wrigley Field, the Cubs' home stadium, is not explicitly detailed in the provided sources.
To estimate, we can consider that Sandberg played 15 of his 16 seasons with the Cubs, appearing in 2,164 games total, with roughly half (approximately 1,082) being home games at Wrigley Field. His home/road home run splits are not provided, but MLB players typically hit slightly more home runs at home due to familiarity with the ballpark. Wrigley Field’s dimensions and wind conditions could also influence this, though effects vary by era and player style.
A conservative estimate assumes an even home/road split: 282 ÷ 2 ≈ 141 home runs at Wrigley. Sandberg was known for opposite-field hitting early in his career, which aligns with Wrigley’s layout favoring right-handed hitters to left field. Later, his power developed, with 40 home runs in 1990, suggesting some seasons may have skewed toward more home runs at Wrigley.
Without specific game logs or splits, the best answer is approximately 140–150 home runs at Wrigley Field, based on his career total and typical home/road distribution. For an exact number, you’d need to consult detailed game-by-game records, such as those available through Baseball-Reference or Retrosheet.
I use it everyday. I needed know a function on a kitchen appliance where the manual has been long gone, and Perplexity gave me the exact model info I needed.
There’s all these things that we stopped asking search engines since they got so bad, but AI can answer them. We kind of have to retrain ourselves a bit. I’ve even asked it things like “best book on early Christianity” and it gave me some good choices and reasons they were good books.
Their suggested follow ups are also things I usually never considered. If you ask a follow up question on your own, you do not have to restate the subject. So if you asked “2024 Chevrolet Corvette length”, in your follow up question you could just type “fuel capacity” and it will provide it for the Corvette.
Jeffery, surprised no one has said it, but that is an absolutely wonderful house. Four sided brick, three car garage, mature trees, deep back yard. Gee if that was your starter home in the 1990’s we can imagine what oasis you have in Nevada. 👍👍
I have been reading your substacks from time to time and your posts are always quite timely and informative. I have been using chatai as a resource but have been hearing and reading about grok but based on your previous posts feel it's time to learn more. Thanks for bringing this about to the larger public.
Disagree. As my LI friend says: stop calling it AI: there is no intelligence there. No creativity. It's a text and/or image generator. It is trained on fruit of other people's labor, on stolen intellectual property. I disagree with you on 100% here. A creator doesn't need a robot generator, he has a source inside. Routine, mandaine stuff we have tools for, they are exactly that: tools
This is not. This is a grand theft as T love to say : like never before
Excellent commentary Jeff. I use Grok, Chat GPT and Copilot, which is embedded in Microsoft's EDGE browser. However, I asked all three a question about a complex subject and I got three completely different answers. AI helps me in my work and I agree the U.S. will become more productive. As for electricity, some of these major companies have the foresight to acquire electrical infrastructure to keep their AI projects running and up into the future, i.e. Microsoft and Constellation Energy are going to rejuvenate the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island and the renamed facility will be the Crane Clean Energy Center. However, our government(s) are well behind and there will have to be another major winter storm like the one in February 2021 in Texas where the Texas ERCOT (their energy department) almost had their entire grid failure (they were about five minutes away) and hundreds of people lost their lives because of freezing temperatures and most of the state had no heat or electricity. Our electrical grid is failing and in disrepair and none of our government agencies are doing anything about it.
I use Grok *all* the time instead of any search engine. I've also been using it for the kinds of things you describe, although apparently I'm not at your wife's level to leverage it so well for my farm & garden / herbal / medicinal / guild / permaculture queries! It just occurred to me to use it for recipes recently, with a deep dive comparing certain veg on nutritional value, bioavailability of same, prepared different ways, etc. which was enlightening.
I'll leap to a generalization springing from your wife, an X post by esr (Eric Raymond), and my own experience: AI is a tool that helps the best and most experienced the most. My epiphany using Grok was an in-depth search and synthesis around an oft-repeated but never cited claim regarding validation of a certain metric in specific circumstances. Since then I've used it to cut the drudgery at work by about a third, generating research outlines, summarizing flaws or gaps in an analytical plan, and a host of other small tasks where I know what to do and how to do it, but Grok does it in 20 seconds instead of taking 20+ minutes from me. Suddenly my whole day opens up with a lot more time to think and do interesting work, instead of staying behind the 8-ball, scrambling just to keep up.
I very much doubt the Landscape Architect you mentioned likes how AI steals his intellectual property and his customers. As a commercial interior designer, I do not. Mildly speaking.
If it's a private transaction, the only way for it to be "stolen" is if one party lets AI suck it into its LLM. If you publish stuff on the web, it's fair game.
I am empathetic to your point. However, there is enough written in books and the web that is public for LLMs to generate ideas.
There are two broader points here: First, if you are very good at what you do, you will be able to do more with AI. It will help you service more customers, and you will do it quicker and more efficiently than before. The people in your industry who are coasting or not adding value will go by the wayside.
Second, for individuals, AI does two things. For projects like my daughter's, it helps her build a workable and affordable design. For larger more complex projects, it helps the customer ask the right questions of the professional so they get a better outcome.
For example, if AI had been around, we could have worked better with Brian, I am pretty sure we wouldn't have taken that project on alone. It was a vacant lot with a house on it. Adjusted for inflation, it's a $55k project today (in today's dollars the home would have cost (974k to build)! But the scope of this project was LARGE. It involved grading, seeding grass, installing sprinkler systems, getting and planting the entire plan, AND putting a large amount of hardscapes in. Even as frugal as my wife and I are, along with the incentive to DIY, we wouldn't have done this one.
Did you have an estimate done on your landscaping project then? You are the client, the designer's goal to please you and deliver whatever you want, at agreed on price and fee. What you mean by "could have worked better with Brian if AI was around" - are you implying he deceived you in estimate and if you knew the actual price tag you'd lowered the scope of work? Why didn't you do it then w/o AI? You are the one who ordered it and had the checkbook. I don't understand how AI would assist your designer- in lowering the SOW?
Something doesn't add here.
Again, AI doesn't deliver good design. It generates it based on people's work. It doesn't mean these people provided their work willingly. "Published on the web" is often by the third parties, not by designers. On a given project there are always 3-4-7 consultants involved: MEP, structural, lighting engineers, acoustical, even photographers for LL. They all have their own portfolios, and don't hesitate to post drawings and images from a project - not disclosing their own protected content but making no precautions for protecting other's property. The owner of that CD set does not even know who and where and how got his work published. That doesn't mean the work is not his - he never gave permission to publish!
A typical ad on Linked-I for the myriad new AI plugs looks like this:
<b>Over the last yr it's been trained on 250 real projects (soon to be 2000+) and delivers 95% accurate construction costs estimates &&&. </b>Readers focus - like you - on how quick they get an estimate. I focus immediately on that phrase: "was trained on". It's a theft.
I’ve found the same thing. Grok has replaced Google for searches because it does a better job summarizing the results which id have to do manually before. It’s 10:1 a better time saver. Maybe more. I’ve also used it for food and recipe assistance and gardening help. Spot on post! I have to look you up next time I’m in Vegas. Love to talk food and economics more.
I agree MP Goergen. I asked Copilot about the economic analysis about the stock market from April 2 to May 2, and I got a generic response. Grok. gave me a huge detailed analysis including reports from financial institutions that report information to their clients. I am not going to use Copilot anymore for this kind of information.
I should’ve included a caveat, that I do still review Grok’s responses critically because it is a learning model and when something seems “less than” I expected I want to make sure to dig in further. Sometimes garbage in = garbage out but it is still the most neutral AI especially when compared to Google and its AI.
Wow! I'd never used Grok before, (I had to google it, to find it, lol) but, even though it couldn't answer my question, I'm tres' impressed! And, I bet if a year from now I ask the same question, Grok will know the answer.
Here was my question: How many home runs did Ryne Sandberg hit during his career at Wrigley Field?
Grok's response: Ryne Sandberg hit 282 home runs during his MLB career, primarily with the Chicago Cubs. However, precise data on how many of these were hit specifically at Wrigley Field, the Cubs' home stadium, is not explicitly detailed in the provided sources.
To estimate, we can consider that Sandberg played 15 of his 16 seasons with the Cubs, appearing in 2,164 games total, with roughly half (approximately 1,082) being home games at Wrigley Field. His home/road home run splits are not provided, but MLB players typically hit slightly more home runs at home due to familiarity with the ballpark. Wrigley Field’s dimensions and wind conditions could also influence this, though effects vary by era and player style.
A conservative estimate assumes an even home/road split: 282 ÷ 2 ≈ 141 home runs at Wrigley. Sandberg was known for opposite-field hitting early in his career, which aligns with Wrigley’s layout favoring right-handed hitters to left field. Later, his power developed, with 40 home runs in 1990, suggesting some seasons may have skewed toward more home runs at Wrigley.
Without specific game logs or splits, the best answer is approximately 140–150 home runs at Wrigley Field, based on his career total and typical home/road distribution. For an exact number, you’d need to consult detailed game-by-game records, such as those available through Baseball-Reference or Retrosheet.
I used Perplexity AI and it gave me 164 home runs at Wrigley.
After just one day as an AI guy, I guess I'm ready for the leap to Perplexity! The speed is AMAZING. Thank you!
I use it everyday. I needed know a function on a kitchen appliance where the manual has been long gone, and Perplexity gave me the exact model info I needed.
There’s all these things that we stopped asking search engines since they got so bad, but AI can answer them. We kind of have to retrain ourselves a bit. I’ve even asked it things like “best book on early Christianity” and it gave me some good choices and reasons they were good books.
Their suggested follow ups are also things I usually never considered. If you ask a follow up question on your own, you do not have to restate the subject. So if you asked “2024 Chevrolet Corvette length”, in your follow up question you could just type “fuel capacity” and it will provide it for the Corvette.
Jeffery, surprised no one has said it, but that is an absolutely wonderful house. Four sided brick, three car garage, mature trees, deep back yard. Gee if that was your starter home in the 1990’s we can imagine what oasis you have in Nevada. 👍👍
Jeff:
I have been reading your substacks from time to time and your posts are always quite timely and informative. I have been using chatai as a resource but have been hearing and reading about grok but based on your previous posts feel it's time to learn more. Thanks for bringing this about to the larger public.
Disagree. As my LI friend says: stop calling it AI: there is no intelligence there. No creativity. It's a text and/or image generator. It is trained on fruit of other people's labor, on stolen intellectual property. I disagree with you on 100% here. A creator doesn't need a robot generator, he has a source inside. Routine, mandaine stuff we have tools for, they are exactly that: tools
This is not. This is a grand theft as T love to say : like never before