Hello,
This is my first post on Lemmy! Glad to join the Fediverse.
I’d like to ask for advice from people who might have tips on how to do research and learn things without using AI.
I’m starting to get sick of it, it’s very addictive, and I must have spent over €50 developing crap on Cursor.
When I discovered AI in 2023, I was the first person at my high school to discover ChatGPT. In fact, I’d even been playing around with the OpenAI Playground before that.
But over time, I became addicted, it turned into a real drug. I didn’t even use search engines anymore, just ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and so on…
Since I discovered this in high school, can you imagine what it’s like to discover this while you’re in the middle of a specialized digital studies program? Yeah, you don’t learn anything new, you gradually fall behind. I’ve lost some of my Python skills, like how to create classes and stuff like that, even though back in 2021 I built a client for downloading pirated games that I was pretty proud of. I’m really disappointed in myself about that.
Now, I’d like to relearn computer science, learn how to code, use Linux systems, and so on... but how? Not only have I regressed a bit, but what AI has really brought out in me is a reluctance to do things and a tendency to leave everything up to the AI.
Today I’m in college, and everyone uses it in graded group projects; no one follows the university’s guidelines, which require you to disclose when you’ve used AI. There is a climate of mistrust nowadays.
I’d love to hear your tips, how do you manage without AI, and how can I relearn to live without it? I’ve made up my mind: I don’t want to use it at all anymore, except as a translator (I use DeepL, which I don’t think is the same thing as a generative AI).
Yes!
I was afraid to bring it up. I almost didn't. But I just wanted to convey "if your future employer MAKES you smoke, if it absolutely cannot be avoided, be aware DIY nicotine patches exist as an alternative," as it seems like OP hasn't done much with self hosted stuff.
I am just more specific!
For text models, or multi-input models? I use "text generation" or "LLM."
For media generation, I use "diffusion" as basically all those models are diffusion models.
I use "computer vision" for image recognition stuff. "Machine learning" as a more general term.
Basically, I pretend like I live in 2021/2022 before "AI" became a catchphrase, but the field of machine learning was racing away. TBH I hate the term "generative AI" as ALL machine learning is generative in some way, yet old school machine learning isn't normally included in that term.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I'll definitely tweak my vocabulary.