Inspired by a post/call to action by Damola Morenikeji
update (july 29th 2025)
after finishing reading blood in the machine i'm increasingly reluctant to use ai anything, as very vaguely touched on my boycott post.
- i use copilot because i need to work out how to turn it off
- kagi still has ai stuff embedded even if i don't use it
- google search is still on my (android) phone and uses ai so ugh, will think about that
- stopped using duolingo
- stopped using hemingway
- back to using capacities, ai off
- stopped using goblin tools
- stopped using descript
- stopped using speechify
previous updates:
Before I start; I'm increasingly an LLM hater! I keep going back to a conversation with a friend raving about how cool it was that LLMs could "write well" now when one of the earlier Open AI models launched. I struggled to think of any use cases for what it was doing! To be fair, I expected this level of interaction back in 00s when I was chatting with SmarterChild on MSN Messenger. I am older and even less impressed now. Anyway, "y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance", so here's the breakdown:
- I've occasionally used Hemingway Editor Plus' sentence rewriting feature to make word count for applications (I have yet to receive good news from one I used it on but I'll keep you posted. edited: rejected, yey!).
- I've occasionally used GitHub Copilot for coding in VSCode, and Cursor after I got particularly enthusiastic about the idea of LLMs during Recurse Centre, but I don't think they actually help that much? I keep being told it's the prompts I'm writing but I'm not apologising for wanting a tool I use to make coding easier to be easy to use, lol? The way I ended up using it was sceptically; checking if I'd missed any glaring errors and checking against search results to see if what it suggested was in the realm of possibility. This is after a lot of false turns in one particular side project in Svelte lol. edit, march 2025: i find it's useful for grunt work; building json objects or helping me edit variables, you can tell i'm not impressed by this discovery probably.
- I use Capacities which has AI capabilities if you want them on; I think I have them switched on from brainstorming for a video script but I will turn them off as soon as I finish writing this. It can... add your tags! Do the normal prompt stuff and have it as a first class kind of object in your notes! Use your notes as context for its rambling! etc. Nothing that currently really helps me? edit, march 2025: i went off capacities but not for ai reasons, simply the lack of templating, and am back on obsidian, where i don't use any AI for anything.
- I've tried Claude and ChatGPT but not for a good while now (I think at least a few months for both?). edit, march 2025: i used chatGPT to help with some goal planning i promptly ignored for Q1, what a waste.
- I used to use Goblin Tools, though again not in a few months now. If they ever add tools for prioritising between tasks I might finally be converted.
- AI images mostly give me the ick.
- Oh, video editing is another area right? I have only recently started to get back into video making proper and was considering using Descript for a while, and am also considering Adobe Premiere as it also has a text based editing function, as well as audio editing AI stuff that can punch up the crispiness. I need the crispiness (though am VERY open to other ways of achieving it) as I blur my words together, mumble and speak very fast. You may question why I'm doing video and that would be because I think it's cool, it's hip, it's fresh and it's where the people and money are!
- I'm gonna pay for hand-transcribed subtitles for my videos in the future, but I have also used descript and other similar programs to create (awful) subtitles.
- I also use Speechify but mostly for concentration reasons; I saw someone ragging on this the other day and I'm split whether this is an accessibility thing for me or if I am doing it for nebulous "productivity" reasons? Maybe the latter is valid anyway. Tell me your thoughts! edit, march 2025: i cancelled my speechify as i was using it less and now spotify has audiobooks i get less use out of it, or maybe my reading concentration has just been better? i might get it again in the future but it not working in Firefox really drove me to use it less.
- edit, march 2025: Duolingo probably makes extensive use of LLMs now, and i paid for a year's sub on a family plan before thinking about that and their other transgressions. another one where i was filled with enthusiasm and used it loads to begin, and have now completely fallen off, but hopefully i'll get back to 15 minutes a day (until my sub ends).
I'll add to this if I think of more LLM or other AI tools I do actually use!
Last updated 4 weeks, 2 days ago
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