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One of my local car dealerships is using an chat system of some kind (probably an LLM?). It's awful and a complete waste of time. I'm not sure if LLMs are gett

One of my local car dealerships is using an chat system of some kind (probably an LLM?). It's awful and a complete waste of time. I'm not sure if LLMs are getting good use yet / general chatbots are good or ready for business use.

lancesells 2y ago
But this is like companies forcing self-checkout at retail. Companies get to cheap out on their customer support by paying a monthly fee instead of paying a person to do it. It doesn't matter if it's worse for you, as every business is getting sold on using this technology. You misery and wasted time is their improved stock price and bonus package.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  This works if you have a dominant market position, like Meta or Amazon, but a business like a local car dealership might be very ill served with this model since their customers can just go elsewhere.
dyauspitr 2y ago
Who cares. I literally use ChatGPT 30 times a day. It answers incredibly complex queries along with citations I can verify. Isn’t “this not good enough yet” line getting old? There nothing else that can estimate the number of cinder blocks I need to use for a project and account for the volume of concrete required for it (while taking into consideration the actual available volume available in a cinder block and settling) with a few quick sentences I speak to it. I can think of literally thousands of things I have asked that would have taken hours of googling that I can get an answer for in minutes. I think the problem is you haven’t shifted your mindset to using AI correctly yet. Edit: More everyday examples from just the last 3 days - Use carbide bits to drill into rocks. Googling “best bits for drilling rocks” doesn’t bring up anything obvious about carbide but it was the main thing chatGPT suggested. - gave it dimensions for a barn I’m building and asked it how many gallons of paint I would need of a particular type. I could probably work that out myself but it’s a bunch of lookups (what’s the total sq footage, how many sq ft per gallon, what type of paint stands up to a lot of scuffing etc.) - coarse threaded inserts for softwood when I asked it for threaded insert recommendations. I would have probably ended up not caring and fine threaded slips right out of pine. - lookup ingredients in a face cream and list out any harms (with citations) for any of them. - speeds and feeds for acrylic cutting for my particular CNC. Don’t use a downcut bit because it might cause a fire, something I didn’t consider. - an explanation of relevant NEMA outlets. Something that’s very hard to figure out if you’re just dropped into it via googling.
- preordained 2y ago
  "I think the problem is you haven’t shifted your mindset to using AI correctly yet" There is an indictment of AI "products" if I ever heard one
  - Fricken 2y ago
    How come this spoon won't hold my soup? Don't tell me I'm holding it wrong!
    - ewoodrich 2y ago
      I mean if my dentist adds a Helpful Super GenAI Infused Chatbot that can't book appointments or answer any questions about their services no amount of "you're holding it wrong" insistence about LLMs in general will actually make it useful to me. The point is ChatGPT's wild success doesn't automatically mean consumers want and possibly will never want a chatbot as their primary interface for your specific app or service.
      - Fricken 2y ago
        I feel like I'm being too obvious but maybe try using it for something it's good at.
  - dyauspitr 2y ago
    That’s a glib, low effort dismissal but it makes sense if you consider it. It’s like people that kept going to the library even with Google around. You’re not playing to the strengths of AI and relying on whatever suboptimal previous method you used to find the answers. It does really, really well with very specific queries with a lot of looks ups and dependencies that nothing else can really answer without a lot of work on your end.
- axitanull 2y ago
  Not sure if this is a sarcasm or "you are holding it wrong" moment.
honestjohn 2y ago
Some of these are just text matchers with hardcoded options, no ML involved. Essentially phone trees, except worse because they don't tell you your options. There are some more advanced ones using ChatGPT now. I'm guessing they simply pre-prompt it. Can lead to funny results like a customer making the Chevy bot implement an algo in Python.

lancesells 2y ago

But this is like companies forcing self-checkout at retail. Companies get to cheap out on their customer support by paying a monthly fee instead of paying a person to do it. It doesn't matter if it's worse for you, as every business is getting sold on using this technology. You misery and wasted time is their improved stock price and bonus package.

AlexandrB 2y ago
This works if you have a dominant market position, like Meta or Amazon, but a business like a local car dealership might be very ill served with this model since their customers can just go elsewhere.

dyauspitr 2y ago

Who cares. I literally use ChatGPT 30 times a day. It answers incredibly complex queries along with citations I can verify. Isn’t “this not good enough yet” line getting old? There nothing else that can estimate the number of cinder blocks I need to use for a project and account for the volume of concrete required for it (while taking into consideration the actual available volume available in a cinder block and settling) with a few quick sentences I speak to it. I can think of literally thousands of things I have asked that would have taken hours of googling that I can get an answer for in minutes. I think the problem is you haven’t shifted your mindset to using AI correctly yet. Edit: More everyday examples from just the last 3 days - Use carbide bits to drill into rocks. Googling “best bits for drilling rocks” doesn’t bring up anything obvious about carbide but it was the main thing chatGPT suggested. - gave it dimensions for a barn I’m building and asked it how many gallons of paint I would need of a particular type. I could probably work that out myself but it’s a bunch of lookups (what’s the total sq footage, how many sq ft per gallon, what type of paint stands up to a lot of scuffing etc.) - coarse threaded inserts for softwood when I asked it for threaded insert recommendations. I would have probably ended up not caring and fine threaded slips right out of pine. - lookup ingredients in a face cream and list out any harms (with citations) for any of them. - speeds and feeds for acrylic cutting for my particular CNC. Don’t use a downcut bit because it might cause a fire, something I didn’t consider. - an explanation of relevant NEMA outlets. Something that’s very hard to figure out if you’re just dropped into it via googling.

preordained 2y ago
"I think the problem is you haven’t shifted your mindset to using AI correctly yet" There is an indictment of AI "products" if I ever heard one
- Fricken 2y ago
  How come this spoon won't hold my soup? Don't tell me I'm holding it wrong!
  - ewoodrich 2y ago
    I mean if my dentist adds a Helpful Super GenAI Infused Chatbot that can't book appointments or answer any questions about their services no amount of "you're holding it wrong" insistence about LLMs in general will actually make it useful to me. The point is ChatGPT's wild success doesn't automatically mean consumers want and possibly will never want a chatbot as their primary interface for your specific app or service.
    - Fricken 2y ago
      I feel like I'm being too obvious but maybe try using it for something it's good at.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  That’s a glib, low effort dismissal but it makes sense if you consider it. It’s like people that kept going to the library even with Google around. You’re not playing to the strengths of AI and relying on whatever suboptimal previous method you used to find the answers. It does really, really well with very specific queries with a lot of looks ups and dependencies that nothing else can really answer without a lot of work on your end.
axitanull 2y ago
Not sure if this is a sarcasm or "you are holding it wrong" moment.

honestjohn 2y ago

Some of these are just text matchers with hardcoded options, no ML involved. Essentially phone trees, except worse because they don't tell you your options. There are some more advanced ones using ChatGPT now. I'm guessing they simply pre-prompt it. Can lead to funny results like a customer making the Chevy bot implement an algo in Python.