Idiots guide - on-line AI tools

[Ranger 6]

I'm new to all this AI 'stuff'. Can see massive benefits in places and huge damage in others.

I'd like to use it for personal stuff and would appreciate some info about what's out there and which could be a good tool to use.

I don't do coding or programming, so nothing as deep as that - I think it's more like a very deep and extensive google search type tool along with the occasional letter or document. I want to be able to 'brief' and see results.

Now, there's been all sorts of scare mongering about 'don't use the Chinese ones' etc. Is there the 'truth' and are they as bad as the media would have us believe?

Ones I have used are google, chatgpt, and co-pilot. What can I use that doesn't always require a sign-in, that can be used for multiple results on the same question - i.e. when you find out something and want to dig deeper etc.

Use words with few syllables and no jargon please

Which free one/s do I register for?

[lord dubington]

i would just use google in your case, the free ai mode is fine for all you describe. No need to overcomplicate it.

[Whoozit]

Free ChatGPT is better than Google I have found, especially with the followup questions. One limitation is if you upload a picture or document, you hit the free limit quickly. To give you an idea of how useful that is, in the past few days I have:

- pasted screenshots of car searches to turn into a comparison table including whether price is reasonable or high
- identified brand and quality of a Chinesium tyre on a car I'm looking at
- troubleshooting wifi connectivity for a smart tv
- step by step guide for removing a new floating button from my mobile
- compared and contrasted US vs UK contractual terms of a specialist transaction

Caveats apply, it isn't always correct so everything needs to be checked, but no more so than one would have to do on work done by a junior team member.

[Ranger 6]

lord dubington said:

i would just use google in your case, the free ai mode is fine for all you describe. No need to overcomplicate it.

Thanks - but quite often with Google the follow up question doesn't actually work

[Ranger 6]

Whoozit said:

....Caveats apply, it isn't always correct so everything needs to be checked, but no more so than one would have to do on work done by a junior team member.

Oh god yes!!

Regularly find little details missed or incorrect

[Baldy881]

Proceed with caution indeed. That's twice AI has had to apolgise to me this week

It's pretty good in the main though...

[lord dubington]

Ranger 6 said:

Thanks - but quite often with Google the follow up question doesn't actually work

It might help if you gave an example of the kind of queries and follow ups.

How sensitive is the data? Are you under any kind of contract to protect the data?

Do you use gmail already?

If you want to ask follow-up questions, you might be better off signing up for a free version of ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini.

If there's any kind of numbers involved, I would look at with using an agent within a spreadsheet, rather than using chat itself.

[Ranger 6]

Simple answer is that there's never any PII involved and it's really quite basic questions about cars, options and other house stuff.

I don't use Gmail, and would appreciate some thoughts on which of those tools are better

[Baldchap]

The paid versions are really quite astonishing for certain tasks nowadays.

[Phil.]

£15pm for Claude Pro and access to Opus 5.5 is well worth it compared to the free tools.

[skinnyman]

I'm still confused as it what I'm supposed to use these AI models for?

My social media feeds are full of people yapping about how good claude is for agentic workflows, and they have AI agents working away for them. I'm still confused as it what it is they're doing.