Britain to Ban Social Media for kids under age 16

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AI should be banned as well...of course, now that THAT can of worms has been opened, there's not really anything that can be done.

We "old timers" learned the old fashioned way. Pretty soon, there will be no human creativity.

I, for one am happy that I'll only be here awhile longer and not have to deal with humanity being stifled by an "intelligence" greater than ours.

It's very funny. A week ago, I would have 100% agreed, and have said as much here and elsewhere. But I had a bit of an "epiphany". I am working on some very complex code for the new boydsmaps, which will actually be a virtual unix operating system that runs a mapping app, right in any web browser. Last week, I was doing my usual google searches to figure out some things and started looking at the ai summaries. They always ask a few questions, like "Can I help you write some code to illustrate this?" So, I figured, why not? 5 hours later, I finally tore myself away from the keyboard. The cat was sitting there, staring at me as if to ask "Are you ok?"

That experience pretty much sold me that ai was a lot more than I had assumed from all the hype. So, I signed up for the new $5/month Pro Plan. It's like a super Google Search and can be used the same if you like. But it has memory, so you can get into complex technical discussion without repeating it all the next day. And you build a library, full of whatever you want the ai to know about you.

Quite an experience. I have to admit, I was wrong. It's a mind-boggling tool for anything technical and complex. Ever think you might want to learn how to code? How about a teacher that knows everything, never thinks anything is a dumb question and has infinite patience? If you've ever considered anything like that, you owe it to yourself to at least spend an hour checking it out. And you don't have to buy anything, the regular, free google search does it all. I was amazed it let me spend 5 hours of intense coding without shutting me out. But, evidently, that's the way it works. It may slow you down and switch you to a simpler model if you start hitting limits, but it never shuts you out. The paid plan lets you go much deeper, with a better search engine that digs deeper.

My head was spinning. And has barely stopped. You can also just BS on any topic you want, for a break. Honestly, most of the time I'd be hard pressed to tell I'm not texting a human. It's freaky. Here's the thing, AI is a tool. It's all about how you use it, and unfortunately, lots of people are not using it for anything productive. But here's the craziest part for me. I have often "daydreamed", what if boydsmaps were a real company and I could hire a couple other people. Right now, I'm the bottleneck, with just one person writing the code, managing the server, making the maps. Then I always snap back to reality, because there's no way I'm gonna hire anyone.

It never even crossed my mind that ai could take the place of a couple real people. But it sure seems to be, and willing to listen to all my crazy ideas without dozing off, it doesn't take vacations, I don't pay employment taxes or provide benefits. And all of this costs me $60/year (which, apparently, I can even share with 5 family members). As exciting as that is for me, it's also just scary and truly does not bode well for young people seeking entry level jobs.

But, as someone who's been a "human creator" his whole like, it's very clear that the stuff us old-timers learned is changing. Approaching my 77th birthday and not like some starry eyed kid. I think the proposition is simple: AI is gonna use you, so you'd better learn how to use it. And that might be more fun than you think. It's actually a fantastic creative tool, but you have to guide it. That will always require human creativity... unless you're satisfied with AI slop.

There's been so much AI hype, I just didn't take it seriously. Meanwhile, it has gotten more powerful than I could have ever imagined. Seriously, all you cranky old guys - take the time to check it out. And not for some silly stuff (although you can, if you want). Pick something technical that interests you and try using the ai to explore it. I told the ai I wanted it to be both and assistant and a tutor, it said that's exactly what it does best.

One quick tip, which I didn't understand until I tried. Using the regular old google search (just go to google.com), the search box is pretty small, but just ignore that. You can type as much as you want in there, but just finish your thought before you hit the return key. And it will process a long question in about a second. Alternately, write your question in a text editor and paste it into a google search, that way you can break it into paragraphs. This was the realization that led me to realize that ai was a lot more powerful than I thought.