Internet search, e.g. Google, is now functionally almost completely useless. I use ChatGPT basically as a Google replacement.

I will still search for stuff - I use Kagi - but give up after half a dozen results if none of them are relevant and go to ChatGPT instead. Often, ChatGPT is more helpful. But sometimes it just makes a bunch of nonsense up.

ChatGPT is great for when you need to find something where you kind of know at least the vague shape of what you’re expecting and you have enough expertise to filter out any of the lies it makes up.

Depends on what you mean by “like” lol

It’s nice to generate images of settings for my d&d campaign.
It’s nice that I can replace Google/Siri with something I run and control locally, for controlling my home.

But those aren’t really important things

Regardless of how useful some might find it, there isn’t a single use case that justifies the environmental cost (not to mention the societal cost). None. Stop using it. You were able to survive and function without it 2 years ago, and you still can.

Boilerplate code (the stuff you usually have to copy anyway from GitHub) and summarising long boring articles. That’s the use case for me. Other than that I agree - and having done AI service agent coding myself for fun I can seriously say that I would not trust it to run a business service without a human in the loop

I have a local instance of Stable Diffusion that I use to make art for MtG proxies. Prior to AI my art was limited to geometric designs and edits of existing pieces. Integrating AI into my work flow has expanded my abilities greatly, and my art experience means that I can do more with it than just prompt engineering.

I use chatgpt to make questions for me when my teachers refuse to give me anything to practice on before final exams. Even then, I’d take literally anything they’d give over whatever AI can generate

Good for rephrasing things when I’m having trouble.

Yes:

• Demystifying obscure or non-existent documentation
• Basic error checking my configs/code: input error, ask what the cause is, double check it’s work. In hour 6 of late night homelab fixing this can save my life
• I use it to create concepts of art I later commission. Most recently I used it to concept an entirely new avatar and I’m having a pro make it in their style for pay
• DnD/Cyberpunk character art generation, this person does not exist website basically
• duplicate checking / spot-the-diffetences, like pastebins “differences” feature because the MMO I play released prelim as well as full patch notes and I like to read the differences

It’s done a lot of bad/annoying things but I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t enabled me to completely sidestep the enshittification of Google. You have to be smart about how you use it but at least you don’t have to wade through all the SEO slop to find what you want.

And it’s good for weird/niche questions. I used it the other day to find a list of meme songs that have very few/simple instruments so that I could find midi files for them that would translate well when going through Rust’s in-game instruments. I seriously doubt I’d find a list like that on Google, even without the enshittification.

I used to spend 1 month a year where all I did was write performance reports on people I supervise. Now I put the facts in let AI write the first draft, do some editing and I’m done in a week.

I use it for coding (rarely pure copy paste), explaining code, use/examples, finding tools to use. Better translation than Google translate for Japanese. Asking for things that search engines only gives generic results for.

I used it a decent amount at my last job to write test reports that had a lot of similar text with minor changes.
I also use it for dnd to help me quickly make the outlines of side characters & flesh out my world.

I’ve been finding it useful for altering recipes to take my wife’s allergies into account. I don’t use it for much else. And certainly not for anything important.