A friend pointed out that Musk’s AI, Grok, was a useful resource for some things I was researching. But, I was curious…I know some people use Grok for creative purposes so I decided to test it and the results were…not bad. Check this out:
“write a haiku about the browning hipower” and Grok spit out this:
Steel curves gleam coldly
Thirteen rounds wait in silence
Browning’s final breath
Interesting…lets try another….
“write a haiku about preparedness”
Quiet dawn whispers,
Supplies stacked, mind calm and clear—
Storm comes, we stand firm.
But haikus aren’t as challenging as a real poem. So….
“write a short poem about survivalism” …and we get:
In shadowed woods where echoes call, The survivor stands alone, With knife and fire, through rise and fall, He carves his fate from stone.
No grid to cradle, no light to borrow, He reads the wind, the stars, the rain, In chaos born, he finds tomorrow— Endurance etched in every vein.
When empires crumble, cities fade, The wild heart beats, unbowed, unafraid.
After that point it just devolved into me having Grok write haikus about various sexual kinks. But the point is, artificial intelligence….free consumer grade AI…can do some pretty interesting things.
I was reading the other day about how people are using AI to scam DoorDash and GrubHub for free food. They take pictures of their food, have AI doctor the picture to show the food as undercooked or contaminated with insects, and then they demand (and receive) refunds.
And, of course, the AI generated videos we now see everywhere do nothing but nmake you critical and suspicious of every ‘breaking news’ video you see online.
I can see where AI has some very cool uses, but its also paramount to remember that theres a lot of people taking advantage of it for nefarious reasons. But…it does have some utility for those of use interested in preparedness… looking up the tow capacity of various vehicles, trailer dimensions and capacities, etc, all related to locating a trailer for hauling the side-by-side to the beta site.
https://www.backwoodshome.com/building-a-ferro-cement-shed/
iirc you asked about this not long ago. took me this long to find it. hope it helps.
I’d read that article before but couldnt remember where. Thanks!
I love the poems!, especially the Hi-Power. I am a Grok user, but infrequently. I log on to ask “big, existential” questions….for example: “If an elephant represents the maximum size a land animal on earth can grow to, how did the dinosaurs get so big?”. The answer was interesting, and not what I expected…the vegetable foodstuffs way back then were much more nutritious than now…ok, acceptable, until I come up with a counterpoint. It’s fun, informative and useful. I log on about once a month and ask “what is new with Grok? and it gives me a summation of the progress, newer versions, various enhancements, etc. I have not used any of the other LLMs, I find Grok to be just too convenient and user friendly.
My wife has an Etsy shop that she uses AI to design and build products she sells. Her main designs are for clothing but she has good success selling digital files you can purchase. She hasn’t used grok but uses a bunch of others. The main thing is to proof read what it prints. Nobody is interested in 5 legged horses or 3 armed people! It’s a great resource since it opens up new ideas.
Genestealer Cult activity detected. Inquisition inbound.
It can do basic things, and I have used it as a research assistant for projects. It does engage in creative license at unpredictable times. I have enough of an online footprint that I asked the Bing Copilot about myself. It credited me with things that I have no knowledge of. It sounds like I should have some patents, in fact… I guess that’s useful for resume padding, but still–caution is definitely warranted (particularly if asking about anything politically sensitive, because all may be subject to tampering to yield “correct” information rather than the truth).
AI lies a lot. Just plain wrong. Strong filters are required, and doesn’t that point to us actually doing the work with our wetware instead of seeking shortcuts. YMMV
True. Id say that while it may not give the right answers, it definitely narrows down the field so you can find it on your own.
True. But it does cut down a lot of legwork. Even if the answers are sometimes inaccurate, it still usually points you in the right direction to find the answer on your own.
But a bigger question would be, Is this really the AI’s creation or did it just find this already done on some prepper’s website? I have seen lots of bad to outright wrong info being put out by these things.There are data bots crawling all over the web copying stuff and claiming to have created it,so who knows what level the alleged AI really is. Lots of money spent for a toy for the masses.
Melody Wright has some some real interesting podcasts on whats being claimed as AI by companies is really a bunch of indians or pakis in a call center.
Had a neighbors son blow up a very expensive rifle by getting loading data for ammo from AI vs researching and building it up himself. FYI, they found out you cant sue these things for bad info. You are supposed to verify it according to their lawyers consult.