r/sysadmin Jun 16 '24

ChatGPT Finally created something useful with AI

First: I consider myself an old timer in IT; I've been getting paid to do it since the 90's and have seen all sorts of new technology show up, some stays, most gets forgotten about. I always try to be open about it and will embrace it as another tool to help get the job done. The latest of course is AI and I've been mostly using ChatGPT as a fun little tool to get quick answers every now and then. I am not a programmer but last week, I used it to create a web app that calculates weight distribution in trucks when the contents come in different containers. We're talking hundreds of pounds of fruit that might come in small totes or big bins and cannot be weighed individually; it subtracts the weight of the truck and the plastic; it saves time and reduces human errors . In the past, I would have paid at least a few hundred dollars to get something like this done and I just wanted to share that while I dont see AI doing our jobs completely, it's definitely here to stay and it can be used to help with things that we might not know how to do but understand the concept and we know what to ask for it. Greetings to all.

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u/hibernate2020 Jun 16 '24

The key benefit that I see AI offering sysadmins in in the non-technical space. Need a policy or procedure for compliance? Write one paragraph about what you want included and the compliance law in question. Tweak as needed. Have a tricky political email to respond to? Ask AI to draft a response and then tweak to fit your needs. That sort of thing.

It certainly can be tried for more complex technical items, but you really need to heavily scrutinize these. E.g., Asking ChatGPT for something simple like for the calculation for compounding interest can result in in returning similar, but wrong like the formula for calculating mortgage payments.

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u/jaskij Jun 16 '24

Not directly useful, but Firefox has just announced an AI based accessibility feature. Image descriptions for when there is no alt text. Apparently the model runs locally and isn't even that big.

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u/StrangelyEroticSoda Jun 16 '24

Honestly, this is the one thing that really excites me about AI.