Using AI Every Day Doesn't Make You Good at It

Chris Daigle (0:00)

It's like if you gave a caveman stones, flint stones, that they could start a fire, or you gave them a flamethrower. I think if they know how to use it, they'll say, oh, this is a lot easier than using the flint.

Most of them, in my experience, overestimate their prowess, and they confuse frequency of use with proficiency. They might use it all day long writing emails or summarizing documents. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're getting the most out of the model.

Darin Pope (0:33)

This is DevOps Paradox, episode number 372 Using AI every day doesn't make you good at it.

Darin Pope (0:43)

Welcome to DevOps Paradox. This is a podcast about random stuff in which we, Darren and Victor, pretend we know what we're talking about. Most of the time, we mask our ignorance by putting the word DevOps everywhere we can, and mix it with random buzzwords like Kubernetes, serverless, CI-CD, team productivity, islands of happiness, and other fancy expressions that make us sound like we know what we're doing. Occasionally, we invite guests who do know something, but we do not do that often since they might make us look incompetent. The truth is out there, and there is no way we are going to find it.

Yes, it's Darren reading this text, and feeling embarrassed that Victor made me do it. Here are your hosts, Darren Pope and Victor Farsi.

Darin Pope (1:35)

Victor, I have a question for you. What do you think when any kind of C-level says, why can't we just have AI do that?

Do you actually think they believe what they're saying?

Viktor Farcic (1:50)

Some do, most don't.

Actually, no, and I've changed my answer. Most of them do. Your question was wrong. Do you think that they're right?

Darin Pope (1:59)

Okay, do they believe they're right? That's the question.

Viktor Farcic (2:02)

Yeah, they believe that they're right, yes, yes.

Look at it this way. CEO is really primary preoccupied about the finances of the company. They make changes because they think it's going to be more profitable. Whether they do the right changes is a non-separate question, right? But if they do fire half of the people because they think that AI is going to replace them, they do think that.

Darin Pope (2:28)

On today's show, we have Chris Daigle on from DeepBreath, chiefaiofficer.com. Gio, I wonder what he talks about at chiefaiofficer.com. Chris, thanks for joining us today.

Chris Daigle (2:39)

Thanks for the opportunity, guys. Thank you.

Darin Pope (2:42)

What do you think of the question when a C-level says, why can't we just have AI do it? What's really going through their head?

Chris Daigle (2:48)

I think that they have talked to some peers who are hyperbolic about the impact in their own business, and they're believing what other CEOs are saying. And they think that it can actually, that it's magic.

Darin Pope (3:01)

It is magic.

Chris Daigle (3:02)

It is magic.

Darin Pope (3:04)

But it's not the kind of magic that they necessarily want.

Viktor Farcic (3:07)

Excluding the scope of the AI is touching, so ignore the scope. Is that any different from previous cases where CEOs are convinced that switching to Cloud will change everything, or adopting Kubernetes, or any of the other technological changes, right?

Chris Daigle (3:26)

I do think it is different because their kid is using it, their wife is using it, their husband is using it, the frontline staff is using it, and it's making it accessible to anybody who can type in a chat box.

Viktor Farcic (3:39)

Fair enough.

Darin Pope (3:40)

What do you do with that, though? Because you've got the wife, the kids using it, but that's not using it for a business case.

Chris Daigle (3:49)

They're having an, oh my gosh, reaction to the output or the speed of the output or whatever. So I think that they're understanding that, oh, this translates into anything that I do. I could use it for business. I could use it for a hobby. I could use it for planning the diet. So I think that they do understand that it does translate.

Viktor Farcic (4:08)

Are they wrong or what do you think? And I'm not asking about their capability to implement that change, but Ville AI actually have such an impact.

Chris Daigle (4:21)

It's like if you gave a caveman stones, flint stones that they could start a fire, or you gave them a flame thrower. I think if they know how to use it, they'll say, oh, this is a lot easier than using the flint.

Most of them, in my experience, overestimate their prowess, and they confuse frequency of use with proficiency. They might use it all day long writing emails or summarizing documents. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're getting the most out of the model. So I guess that would be my answer there.