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How often do you use "AI" to reply to your messages, if at all?

The recent chat bot advances have pretty much changed my life. I used to get anxiety by receiving mails and IMs, sometimes even from friends. I lost friendships over not replying. My main issue being that I am sometimes get completely stuck in a loop of how to formulate things in the best way to the point of just abandoning the contact. I went to therapy for that and it helped. But the LLM advancements of the recent years have been a game changer.

Now I plop everything into ChatGPT, cleaning out personal information as much as possible, and let the machine write. Often I'll make some adjustments but just having a starting point has changed my life.

So, my answer, I use it all the fucking time.

92 comments
  • No. I have the same problem you do, which is harming my friendships and networking.

    But I definitely am not going to reach for the solution you did. Because if anyone notices, it will effectively nuke that relationship from orbit.

    • Putting myself in the position of a friend who realized that you were using gpt or something to form thoughts...

      I'd be impressed that you found that solution, and then I'd want to check be sure that the things you said were true.

      Like, if I found out that 90% of your life as I knew it was just mistakes then computer made that you didn't bother to edit, I'd be bummed and betrayed, and it would turn out how you said.

      On the other hand, if everything you sent is true to life and you formed the computer's responses into your personality, I'd be very much impressed that you used this novel tool to keep in contact and overcome the frozen state that had kept you from responding before.

      • @Usernameblankface that's a kind and generous interpretation, and I hope it's the one OP's friends will come to.

        I suspect it's likely to be seen as an outsourcing of the friendship, though.

  • First of all, I can really empathize with your anxieties. I've lost contact with a few penpals years ago because of similar issues and I still hate myself for it.
    I don't use chat-gpt for writing my replies, because my English is crap and my manner of writing distinct enough that any friend can immediately spot a real response from a generated one (not enough smileys for one :)
    But I still have similar anxieties. So if I feel anxious about writing something, I do sometimes give a general description of the original mail ("A friend of mine wrote about her mother's funeral", "a family member lost his cat", etc.) and give it the reply I've written so far (names and personal details removed).
    I then explain that I feel anxious about my reply and worry if I hit the right tone. I never ask it to write for me, only to give critique where necessary and advice on how to improve (for good measure I always add some snide remarks on how it sounds too fake to ever pass as a human so don't even bother trying, which it always takes in good humor because.. well.. AI :)
    I ignore most of the suggestions because it sounds like a corporate HR communique. But, what's more important is that it usually tries to tell me that I was thoughtful, considerate and that that little light-hearted joke at the end was just sweet enough to add a personal touch without coming across as insensitive.
    Just to get some positive feedback, even from software that was designed specifically for that purpose, gives me that little push to hit the send button and hope for the best. I wouldn't dare to ask someone else for advice because it would be an admission of how weak and insecure I feel about expressing myself in the first place, which would ramp up my anxiety by making it a 'big thing'.

    Anyway, I can understand the animosity people show against AI. And I'm happy for those who don't need or want it.

    PS: This reply was 100% written without any use of AI, direct or indirectly. I did spend a good half hour on it before feeling confident enough to hit "Post" :)

  • I use it whenever I need to write in Corporate Speak. Resume, cover letter, important email.

    I also avoid putting in sensitive information, so it needs editing. I found that usually it will leave me places that need specific information, (name here) for example.

    It is soooo much better than smashing out some sloppy attempts and rewording it until I get the style right.

  • I try not to. With work email, you should write it as short and to the point as possible, no one really has time to read an essay instead of trying to get their job done.

    Part of the reason I use Lemmy is for writing practice, because I want to prove that as a person that I can't be replaced by an AI. This place basically forces me to think on my feet to write quickly on an ever changing set of random topics and get my point across clearly and effectively.

  • Showing ChatGPT how to respond to my messages sounds like more work than just replying to them myself.

  • I mostly just use it for laughs. I'll usually ask GPT to explain things from the nihilistic viewpoint and get amazing results.

    I also use it to rewrite emails that I need to send for work. I have a tendency to over-explain things and use a cold tone when I write, so sometimes I'll tell it "rewrite this to be more concise and empathetic" and it does a really good job of cleaning it up.

  • I have a problem with writing out my thoughts in a concise way that flows well. I can't think of the correct word. I think it starts with "C". So I use ChaGPT like so:

    1. I write my thoughts out as a stream of consciousness.
    2. I tell ChatGPt what I am trying to communcate.
    3. I paste the stream of consciousness.
    4. It assembles it as a reply formatted as a message or email.
    5. I read over it to ensure it got everything correct and worded everything the correct way.
    6. I tell it what I want changed or explain why I don't like a certain part, and it adjusts as needed.

    Then I edit the output as I need. I don't always do the editing and just send the output, depends how I feel and how well it does. I am thinking I am just going to start appending a default "Due to my brain injury, ChatGPT may have assisted me in composing this message" in my email signature, with a link to a screenshot of my process on imgur or something.

    I look at it like a psychologist or speech pathologist helping me write/assemble a letter. It's awesome.

    And I can usually tell immediately when something has been written by ChatGPT lol. Unless they've gone through and edited the whole thing.

  • Never done that, I used AIs for help in essays, but never for personal massages

  • I used it once to tone down a comment I thought was too cutting. Edited, of course.

  • I am using Github Copilot to automatically generate commit messages. So far so good 😊

92 comments