18 months. 12,000 questions. A whole lot of anxiety. What I learned from reading students’ ChatGPT logs

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• tarknassus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  When AI assistants eulogise their work in this fashion, it is no wonder that students find it hard to eschew their support, even when, deep down, they must know that this amounts to cheating. AI will never tell you that your work is subpar, your thinking shoddy, your analysis naive. Instead, it will suggest “a polish”, a deeper edit, a sense check for grammar and accuracy. It will offer more ways to get involved and help – as with social media platforms, it wants users hooked and jonesing for their next fix. Like The Terminator, it won’t stop until you’ve killed it, or shut your laptop.

  No wonder people are hooked onto this - it’s a saccharine dopamine machine eroding our critical thinking and cognitive processing. It’s designed to be that way.

  Speaking of dependence on AI:

  Rohan found his summer internship in the finance department of a multinational conglomerate with the help of Chat, but, with one more year of university to go, he thinks it may be time to reduce his reliance on AI. “I’ve always known in my head that it was probably better for me to do the work on my own,” he says. “I’m just a bit worried that using ChatGPT will make my brain kind of atrophy because I’m not using it to its fullest extent.”

  Of course, it’s not all about cheating or using the easiest possible methods to submit essays or papers -

  For many, talking to a computer is easier than laying one’s soul bare in front of another human, however qualified they may be, and a recent study showed that people actually preferred the therapy offered by ChatGPT to that provided by human counsellors. In March, there were 16.7m posts on TikTok about using ChatGPT as a therapist.

  Reminds me of the OMM 0000 from the excellent THX-1138 - “My time is yours.” And not in a good way. I’d rather talk to a professional human being, and have found it somewhat beneficial in the past. They had a knowledge of local support groups or events that I doubt would have been offered by AI.

  Finally, it seems that Google’s Gemini adverts may not be far off the mark for seeing how little common sense and logic processing people have these days:

  As I read through the thousands of prompts, there are essay plan requests, and domestic crises solved: “How to unblock bathroom sink after I have vomited in it and then filled it up with water?”, “Preventive Tips for Next Time – Avoid using sinks for vomiting when possible. A toilet is easier to clean and less prone to clogging.” Relationship advice is sought, “Write me a text message about ending a casual relationship”, alongside tech queries, “Why is there such an emphasis on not eating near your laptop to maintain laptop health?”. And, then, there are the nonsense prompts: “Can you get drunk if you put alcohol in a humidifier and turn it on?” “Yes, using a humidifier to vaporise alcohol can result in intoxication, but it is extremely dangerous.” I wonder if we’re asking more questions simply because there are more places to ask them. Or, perhaps, as grownups, we feel that we can’t ask other people certain things without our questions being judged. Would anyone ever really need to ask another person to give them “ a list of all kitchen appliances”? I hope that in a server room somewhere ChatGPT had a good chuckle at that one, though its answer shows no hint of pity or condescension.

  Gah. Puke in a sink? Get some rubber gloves and push the gunk out or extract it and throw it in the toilet to flush it. This is not rocket science.

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  • hisao@ani.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    💡 Lifehack: Unclog Your Sink with… Your Own Urine? Science Says Yes!

    If you’ve ever had a rough night and ended up vomiting in the sink (hey, it happens), you may have found yourself with a gross, clogged mess. But before you reach for the plunger—or worse, call a plumber—consider this weird but effective trick: pee in the sink.

    Yup, you read that right. According to fluidic chemistry enthusiasts and some Reddit plumbing veterans, urine can actually help break down and dislodge vomit clogs.

    ---

    🧪 The Science Behind It

    • Urea & Ammonia Action: Your urine contains urea, which breaks down into ammonia—a compound found in many household cleaners. When urine sits on the clog, the ammonia can start to denature the proteins in the vomit (like partially digested meat, dairy, or stomach mucus), helping to loosen the goop.
    • Temperature Matters: Fresh urine is close to body temperature (98.6°F), which is actually warmer than most tap water. This warmth helps soften fatty or gelatinous chunks that may have solidified in the drain.
    • pH Balancing: Vomit is highly acidic (thanks to stomach acid). Urine tends to be slightly acidic to neutral, and when mixed together, they may chemically neutralize some of the acidity, reducing corrosive buildup and helping dislodge bio-sludge stuck to pipe walls.
    • Flow Dynamics: A good strong stream of urine can generate a pulsed pressure wave, which some claim helps to dislodge partial clogs. (Think of it as “hydro-jetting on a budget.”)

    ---

    🛠️ How to Do It

    1. Remove your pants.
    2. Stand over the sink. (Yes, aim is important.)
    3. Let it flow.
    4. Brag to your friends about your eco-friendly DIY plumbing hack!

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• sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It really is addictive to ask ChatGPT to answer questions that would annoy another human …

  And probably it makes your brain more dependent on trusting an authority.

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