My Year with AI in the Pacific - ChatGPT, Codeium, Claude AI, Bing AI, Gemini AI

TL; DR

AI has significantly impacted my business. I have leveraged it to be more productive and more knowledgeable on different aspects of my work. From learning different languages to researching different approaches to a problem. It’s not perfect, but it’s a tool that needs to be used by every developer.

It’s been over a year since I started experimenting with AI. I've been using it in the following ways:

  • Content creation - You can ask it to generate an outline for a presentation, workshop, or blog post. I've also used it draft technical reports and systems specifications.
  • Ideation - Exploring ideas and flushing them out.
  • Coding – From generating code, to code review, generating documentation to writing tests. If you provide the appropriate context, it does a great job.
  • Troubleshooting - Copy and paste errors into the AI to provide an explanation of potential causes and fixes.
  • Research - When you want to find out more about a certain topic.
  • Image generation - It’s probably the worst at doing this, but it’s fun for the simple stuff. Mid-journey is far more superior here. 

 

ChatGPT

I've spent a lot of time with ChatGPT. It's the Swiss army knife of Generative AI's. It can generate content, images and summarise online videos.

 

Community GPTs

ChatGPT allows the community to create their own AIs for others based on their models. Some GPT's I've been using are:

  • Logo Creator - Better than the defaults of ChatGPT (but still not as good as Mid-journey)
  • Drupal Droid - Has the context of Drupal
  • Video Summarizer - Allows you to summarise YouTube videos given its URL.

 

Mobile App

You can access ChatGPT through any web browser. However, they also have an app which makes it even easier to interact with. The app also can set up ChatGPT as a voice assistant. Handy if you are out for a walk and curious about the environment you’re in.

 

IDE Integration

I tried Codium and I've stuck with it. Its currently free and works great with PHP, Laravel and Vue. I'm aware of Co-pilot, but last I checked it was a paid service.

 

Bing AI

Bing AI is the version of ChatGPT that is used by Microsoft's Bing search engine. It is like ChatGPT, but it doesn’t require a log in and also provides links for further reading. Handy when you don’t have access to your devices.

 

Gemini AI (formally Bard)

This is Googles AI product. It’s probably the worst of the AI's I've tried. The UI feels old, and the responses are mostly wrong.

 

Claude AI

This is Anthropic's AI product working in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). I've also used this for a few days and its pretty amazing. The responses are quick and so far, quite accurate. It requires your phone number for verification.

Fun Fact: Their bot has been terrorizing our websites by scraping our search engines up to 3 times a second. I've had to block them from accessing those paths.

 

Image Generation: Mid-journey

This is the most superior image generator I've tried so far. It has a free tier, but you must wait in a long queue for a chance to use it. You can get a paid account, but it can become expensive if you are not actively using it. 

 

From the Pacific

Mostly accessing these tools from Samoa and around the Pacific was not an issue. If you have good internet you are set to go. On days with low bandwidth, the AI would not process my query and I'd have to re-submit it. From discussions with colleagues around the Pacific, ChatGPT is the poster child and they use it to draft reports and do research.

 

Caveats

AI is great but you also use with caution. Not everything it tells you may be correct. You should always vet the responses given. You should also be careful not to give it access to sensitive information such as passwords, keys, or trade/state secrets.

 

Summary

In Summary, AI has significantly impacted my business. I have leveraged it to be more productive and more knowledgeable on different aspects of my work. From learning different languages to researching different approaches to a problem. It’s not perfect, but it’s a tool that needs to be used by every developer.

 

More

This post was inspired by the Talking Drupal #455 - Top 5 uses of AI for Drupal.

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