ChatGPT, AI

AI is very powerful, but you have to know how to use it and it's limitations. If you ask AI a vague question, you will get a vague response - and hallucinations are something you need to be mindful of. Also consider that a lot of data available to AI might not be accurate.

e.g. if you ask AI where you should mount a circulator, AI is going to find a bunch of forum posts where people insist the circulator mounted on the boiler return.

If you ask the same question with a bit more context and tell AI to limit its sources to professional heating publications and boiler installation manuals, you will probably get a different result. The way you instruct AI is called the "Prompt", and the way you do it is critical to the result.

I took a free class called "Google AI Essentials" and I thought it was well worth my time. If nothing else, you can use AI to really speed up the creation of documents that are very similar, and it can be a big help with writing professional communications.

The biggest downside of using ChatGBT or any other AI. I feel like it tries to agree with what your asking. Like if you ask it a almost leading question it will try its best to confirm your side. So you really have to watch the way you word things.

I am curious to know what question the apprentice asked and what answer they got?

My opinion is that most install related questions are not great to trust with current public AI models. Think of a few very specific install related questions that you know the answer for and ask it, see if it gets it right. sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. then ask it do some math, I bet it gets that right. I'm not going to use my toaster as a replacement for a heat gun, it won't really work, but it toasts bread a whole lot easier than my heat gun would. learning how to leverage your tools in the correct way is a skill in itself that goes beyond the trades.

Gut feeling is not always quantifiable.

AI seems great for data collection and some math related items. I think it will get a lot better. I'd rather talk to a human if possible.

The AI phone prompts ive used have worked great.

I remember the first time I heard about "AI". I thought the comments were about basket ball player Allen Iverson. I was told that AI does not refer to basket ball. So it must be Artificial Insemination, Right". No it means Artificial Intelligence.

Oh really? Well I prefer Actual Intelligence over anything artificial …and that is hard to come by today!

I'm not a plumbing professional, but I use AI at work and work with others that use AI.

Where it is really helpful - for carefully constrained answers on well-described topics (e.g., read this manual and help me understand where it describes solving this problem), or for speeding up a time-consuming task (transcribe this video into English and correct any grammatical mistakes the speaker made).

Where it is not very helpful - when people ask it something very complex with very poor instructions and then use the answer given as if it came from God.

I'll have to try that. When I ask AI questions on certain subjects of which I am close to being an expert (there are truly few experts on anything in the world), I often get answers which are often misleading or mostly wrong. I believe this is from information culled from forums.

While forums might be one of the best sources of information, a lot of it is simply wrong, and if the debate of two competing theories ends with the person taking the wrong tack no longer responding, AI may assume the last to comment is correct.

For that reason, I no longer use AI. Someday perhaps we'll have a truly sentient box (like Star Trek computers), but we've got a long way to go. At my age, I don't think I'll see that come to pass.

But getting back to this comment from the Captain, I may try asking AI some questions again asking it to avoid forum information entirely.

@HomerJSmith …. Are you saying that the internet can't be trusted? I thought that everything on the internet was true! I always hear my friends tell me that they found the answer on the internet, so it must be true!

THE QUESTION IS: is AI going to replace you as a technician in the Heating Industry? The answer is YES and NO.

Although, AI is pattern recognition and consensus, presently, in 20 years it will most likely become a repository of knowledge, easily accessible. Guys like @hot_rod, @EdTheHeaterMan, @DanHolohan , @RayWohlfarth , etc. whose learning and experience has served this site and the posters seeking solutions to personal problems, well, AI will make them irrelevant. The technicians of the future will not need the learning and experience of a bygone era. They will only need to know how to access AI and input the symptoms the customer is experiencing with his boiler and AI will diagnosis the problem and provide a solution with greater accuracy. Knowledge not required.

Technicians will still be needed to change out parts. That's the No part.

Do it your self, individuals, will use the easily available AI to diagnose their problem and make the repairs themselves. There will be less work for technicians and less need for technicians. Competition for work will increase. That's the YES part.

Even this site will radically change, if it even exists in the future. The problem with technology replacing knowledge and experience is if the technology goes away for some reason, knowledge and experience are lost and we are back in the dark ages, trying to rebuild society again. AI, a blessing and a curse!

https://healthranger.substack.com/p/the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-why?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1225906&post_id=188141161&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=13chh&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email