I think that's unnecessarily pessimistic view. I have recently started using ChatGPT for mid-hard questions (when I can't get an answer immediately using Google), mostly "how do I" questions. It lies of dreams up fake answers about half of the time, but this still means that 50% of time I get my solution without digging through obscure manuals.
> It is basically like having an incredibly smart engineer/scientists/philosopher/etc that can explain things quite well, but for pretty much every field.
I like to think about it like asking questions to a well read but dishonest student during an oral exam. They know some things, and try really hard to answer every question, even resort to making things up in hope of getting a passing grade.
So it's a coinflip whether it's giving you correct information or something completely made up? And now you're not digging through the obscure manuals to actually verify? Seems objectively harmful.
It seems to me the utility of the 'good' 50% depends entirely upon your ability to recognize it.
How do you know when to dig through those obscure manuals?
It seems to me that it'd be more useful when:
a) I don't care whether the text says things which are not true
Write me a poem about ...
b) I care, and will have to verify it's results, but that cost is worth it
Generate some test data ...
I think we're at a very dangerous intersection between an apparent decline in American's ability to detect nonsense and an automated way to create convincing nonsense.
> It is basically like having an incredibly smart engineer/scientists/philosopher/etc that can explain things quite well, but for pretty much every field.
I like to think about it like asking questions to a well read but dishonest student during an oral exam. They know some things, and try really hard to answer every question, even resort to making things up in hope of getting a passing grade.