We found stuff AI is pretty good at

0:03Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of testing cursed technology. I'm your friend, V-Song, and I'm here with a special Sunday bonus episode. Yay! We're calling this AI for Normies. So here's the concept. AI can be so open-ended. It's really hard for the average person to know what it's good for. And if you ask me, I don't think big tech is doing such a great job at explaining that either. But we here at TheVerge.com are a bunch of giant nerds and we test all of this stuff for a living. So I've asked a bunch of my colleagues to join me in talking about how they've used AI in their everyday lives.

0:49And I'm not talking about the canned demo examples that you hear at product launches that don't actually seem all that useful in real life. I wanted to know what they found to be actually helpful. And I also wanted to know what doesn't work. We have a mix of practical applications, some quirky ideas, and personally, I think my main use is a little unhinged. So stick around for the Vergecast, and we'll see you after the break. So your AI agents, they make the team that uses them more productive, right? But if they aren't connected to other agents, or your data, or your existing workflows, how productive can they really make your teams?

1:38Any business can add AI agents. IBM connects your agents across your company to change how you do business. Let's create smarter business, IBM.

1:54Hey, you're back. So Esther Cohen is our director of subscriptions at The Verge, and she recently used ChatGPT to help gather the information she needed before making a really big decision. So as of last week, our family of four made the really, really big change of moving from New York City, Upper West Side in New York City, to Miami Beach in Florida. Yeah. Moving is really tough. I moved not a couple of years ago to New Jersey and I never want to do it again. I never want to move ever again. I probably will. But, you know, it's really tough. It's really hard. And you said that you were using AI to help you figure out how to manage this logistical nightmare.

2:41Yeah, so I found myself using AI surprisingly a lot for my move in terms of planning, finding out information, finding out kind of how things work locally. Because when you're moving to a new state and a new city, like the way things work are just totally different. But I would say the most helpful and surprising way in which I used AI for this move was actually for budgeting specifically. When you move from Manhattan, New York to Florida, your taxes are extremely different. And things like how much utilities cost, how much gas costs, how much traffic there is during the day in your commute and still calculating how many miles your car lease should have.

3:31I was like hanging out with Chad GPT all day asking those questions. So I was very surprised. I surprised myself by how much I used it every day. So one of the things with AI that, you know, people have trouble with is having to double check that information. Did you find that it's so far? I know you just moved. So some of this will bear out over time. Did you find that those calculations were realistic? Were you worried about double checking stuff? Yeah. So I'll take an example, like basically figuring out what our new salaries and take home pay was going to be given the new tax situation. So I did a lot of chat GPT prompting of like, if I make this much before taxes and I live in Bell Harbor, Miami, Florida, and I'm withholding as a single or whatever information I input, what's my take home pay going to be?

4:27um the first few times I did different versions of that I did double check just to make sure but part of why I leaned into JetGPT was because um I find doing math that is like related to different facts and like tax rules extremely extremely daunting and overwhelming so I before I even get to the math I'm like do I even have the setup right so I found JetGPT super helpful because all I did was feed it like what I needed to know and then it did all that math for me it explained all that math for me. And I'm happy to report we just got our first or second paycheck as a family based in Florida. And the math pretty much checked out down to the scent.

5:10So this is not a CHAT GPT endorsement, but for tax and budget and salary planning, it was very accurate and helpful. Would you say that this was basically kind of making your life a lot easier as far as like pre-planning the move? But also, were there any things that you tried to like use ChatGPT for your move that didn't work out? And you were like, oh, this is not what I should be using AI for. Yeah. So I would say, great question. So I did make my life a lot easier because I got to a couple of dead ends where I would have had to like hire an accountant. for example, to figure things out for me.

5:51And I was able to just like chat GPT it up. And that was like an expense saved and time saved and kind of like having to hire one more service or one more person like that got taken off the plate. And that was really helpful. Where it was not helpful was for, I found, for shopping around or getting estimates of things. So like I wanted to figure out, I think that would have been extremely helpful for me was like, what's the right car for us given the kind of size that we need our budget and also thinking about what the cost to insure it is so again this is moving and car rabbit hole but sometimes even if a car lease is cheaper it'll be more expensive to insure it if it's not as safe of a car or sometimes like crossovers are cheaper to insure than sedans so um i would have loved for chat to be told me okay get this particular car model because even though the lease will be a little more the insurance will go down.

6:45So it sucked at that. It did not give me accurate lease pricing. It did not give me accurate insurance pricing. I had to get on the phone with the insurance broker and figure all that out and call all different insurance companies before I got to the right one. So it was really, really bad at that. Same with movers. I wanted to get a sense of how much will it cost to move a family of four in a three-bedroom apartment from Manhattan to Florida. and it did a lot of like basic Google answers. Like it could be anywhere between$6 ,000 and$27 ,000 depending on the following factors. So I did not find it helpful when it came to shopping around.

7:23That would have been really nice if I could have had more help with that. Another question I had is like, how long did it take you to kind of figure out that, oh, this is something like, this is something that I can do. Here's how I ask the AI the appropriate prompts to kind of get the answers that I need. Because I found that like when I'm experimenting or using with different AI models, like the real key is learning how to ask the question correctly. And I spent a lot of time in the beginning while testing, just learning how to ask the questions. I'm just curious how long that took you to kind of get in the groove.

7:59It took me a minute to figure out what the right way to approach this was with ChatGPT. I did a lot of like, explain to me how taxes in Florida work. kind of prompts in the beginning. And those were utter failures and did not get me the info that I needed. I thought I could get the tools to do the math myself. And then I finally realized, oh, what if this, I really just treated like an accountant and I'm like, here's how much I'm making. Here's my paperwork, figure out how much I'm going to take home every month. Once I did that and I figured out, I can literally read you my prompt. It was like, if I make X amount of money and have this many dependents and live in my neighborhood, how much take home pay will I bring every paycheck or something?

8:43And it literally was able to do the math, explain to me what all the different like deductions and with sorry, withholdings are laid out all out for me and then give me a yearly amount and a monthly amount. So that was amazing. But it did take me a minute to get there because I think as someone who is a collaborator and likes to figure things out on my own, my first approach was like, OK, let me ask ChatGPT for the tools to figure this out. And it took me a few steps before I was like, no, the whole point is that I don't want the tools. I want ChatGPT to do the figuring out for me. Once I did that, it was smooth sailing.

9:19Yeah, it's sort of like a catch-22 because you have to know what you want, but you're also trying to go in without knowing what you want and figure these things out. So I find that I spin wheels a lot of times when I'm trying to really get my answers. So then if you could do this move all over again, or if we have listeners out there who are on the verge of a move, do you have any advice for them? If you need to lay something out very clearly before making a decision to move, like whether it's your budget for moving, what your new salary is going to be, any kind of logistical problem that you're trying to solve as your decision making, GPT is your friend.

10:04I find sometimes we were making a really, really big, daunting life decision. What I personally struggle with is when there are so many moving pieces before you can even make the decision. Like, so like I, I personally really struggle with like the whole, there's so much to figure out before we even do the thing of it all that it's actually been really, really nice to have a tool that like got rid of, I would say three quarters of that, right? Like there isn't that much to figure out. We can figure it out with our computer and like with a glass of wine and two hours, I can do a lot of that, like figuring out like the groundwork before actually having to make a decision or do the big thing.

10:51And that was like personally and like emotionally a huge, a huge crutch and a huge help for me. I love that. Thank you so much. I'm how far along are you on unpacking? Are we are we like 10 % of the way there? 0 % of the way there? We're like 3 % of the way there. I mean, I moved over a year ago, I think 18 months ago, maybe and I'm still somewhat unpacking. So yeah, yeah, that's just how it goes. Godspeed. Good luck. All right. Thanks, Esther. Thanks, V. Love talking to you. Bye. Next up, Allison Johnson is our senior smartphone reviewer, which means she's had to test a lot of different AI assistants over the last two years.

11:40Here's what she found most useful. Definitely my favorite, like, and it's not even close, is using AI to put stuff on calendars. I don't know how it's possible to be bad at calendars, but I am bad at doing calendars. If there's like a way to mess up putting something on a calendar, I will do it. Like without fail, I'll put something on the wrong day or the wrong calendar. And my husband's like, what are you talking about? You don't have an appointment this weekend. I'm like, actually I do. So the bar is already really low. I think that's important that like AI really can't mess this up more than I'm already messing it up.

12:21So it's the perfect candidate for like, maybe AI can do this. This has been something that's been like in the works with Gemini on Android phones for a while. And I like to be honest, the first like few weeks, maybe a month I tried it. It like consistently got stuff wrong and like would insist that I was leaving. I had a flight out of the wrong airport. I was like ready to give up on this whole concept. But it's I don't know what they did. They did something behind the scenes. It works. It like works so well that I am just like never going to do my own calendar again. I think on an Android phone, you'll like summon Gemini and you tap something that says, ask about this screen.

13:16And then if there's, it'll kind of like take a screenshot and it looks for dates and stuff. And if this sounds like, did we need AI to do that? Yes and no. It'll, it's really smart, actually. It'll ask you like follow-up questions about what's on the screen. It can sort out like time zones. Like it will, will put something on my calendar for the correct Eastern time time zone. And that will be reflected. So it's like, it's the ideal kind of like AI tool, I think, where it's, it's sort of low stakes. I wasn't doing it great to begin with. And it's pretty easy. So that's like my first AI on a phone thing where I'm like, yes, 100 percent.

14:11I want this and I'm going to keep using it for the rest of time. And so this is like Android phones only. There's no hope for us on iOS yet. There is hope. iOS has it. It is an Apple intelligence feature. It's like pretty good. I would say not as good as Gemini. It doesn't do the like follow up questions. It did get tripped up on a time zone thing once. But again, if the bar is very low for you and it is for me, it's like something to start with. And then you you fix a couple of things and you usually get there. So like what's been most useful for you in terms of like these calendar adding? Is it like flights?

14:58Is it I don't know. I don't have kids, but I have been told by parents that kids schedules are absolutely banana bonkers. Appointments, everything like is there a particular thing that this calendar AI magic is best for? It is 100 percent the kids stuff. and I didn't fully grasp it until you have a kid in school or like my kids in daycare, but it's like a preschool program. And you will get an email with the most insane list of dates. And it's like crazy hair day is Friday. And it like the information will not be complete. You know, it's like raptor visit on such and such day. Wear your pajamas to school on this day.

15:44and going through all those things and adding my calendar manually is a nightmare and also it sucks if you send your kid to pajama day and they're not wearing pajamas like it's so sad um but this is like a thousand percent the best use case for it because you do the screenshot it scans the whole thing and it's like i added all this to your calendar and then then your kid isn't like sad when they show up on crazy hair day. But to be fair, my kid has crazy hair day every day. So we're covered there. But my immigrant parents would have been like, you're not doing that. Just be sad. So yeah, maybe I'm depriving him of like a learning experience where it's like, well, sometimes you don't do crazy hair day on the right day.

16:31But for the most part, I think it's been good for everybody. Yeah. Is there anything else that you found particularly useful. We were having like the worst time with kid bedtime. This is a thing that happens throughout like early parenthood. Like kids sleeps great. You're like, this is amazing. I can read a book and like relax at night. And then all of a sudden it goes completely off the rails and you're like negotiating every little tiny thing. And you're like, please, dear God, I just I need this hour to myself. So I was like kind of desperate. And I went to the AI and I was like, describe the situation we're having his age.

17:14And like, I was like, help me. Like, what can we do? And it goes and finds whatever relevant like things on Reddit there are. Like it's it's always Reddit. Like there's so many parenting things on Reddit. But it kind of like brought it all back and was like, you could try this, this and this. And I was like, OK, I want to try this thing in this thing. Can you put this all together in a call it a playbook? Because like I need to communicate it to my husband and he he will get overwhelmed if I just kind of sit down. And I'm like, we're doing this thing. He has two passes. He can use a pass. We sit for five minutes.

17:56And, you know, it's like so convoluted. But it spitted all. It like explained everything. There were subheads. It was very like logical. And the funniest thing is the thing it could not do. I was like, great. Can you put this in a Google Doc for me? And I was like, I'm sorry. I can't. i don't even understand though i know i'm like google platform yeah like i have all the little like plugins for all the i don't know why it couldn't do a google doc but it literally was like you can use command you know v or whatever it'll like copy and paste it and it the i was like okay let's don't explain copying and pasting to me machine um but the the kicker is like this honestly did work.

18:49Like it's, it's probably a little more complicated than it needs to be. And we've, we've like tweaked the system a little bit, but like I sent my husband the playbook, he read it. We, we went into bedtime, like just ready. We were like a united front, uh, and, and it has worked. So did, did Gemini just like read a bunch of Reddit threads back to me and like format it probably um do i feel good about that i don't i'm not 100 sure but like i need i need that kid to go to sleep and that has happened so i i'm like well all right my real life bedtime story ai thing was like for a while i was just like really struggling to fall asleep so my spouse actually was just asking ai to generate bedtime stories for me like i was a child based on just like based on our family so like they generated a story about my cat pd becoming a cult leader and how pablo our other cat brought upon his downfall and i don't know what prompt they used but it was like kind of good and oh my god if i were to like try and publish the story i wouldn't because it's just so hyper specific but if i just needed like a quick really funny bedtime story to listen to for myself to fall asleep we've actually kind of done that every once in a while and just been like absolutely shocked.

20:34So yeah, it was like, I forget the title of it, but it was just like, Petey Starts a Cult was the title. And I was the number one cult follower. I didn't use any critical thinking in this AI story. And I was like, oh, that's actually quite accurate. Pablo, our other cat, would be the one to - What is a cat if not a cult leader? where they like you do their bidding they're a little bit evil yeah i mean like ideally it would have meant more if my spouse had actually written that story um and and like presented it yes but i needed i am the child in this scenario i need to go to bed right away so they just like whipped it up.

21:21And that was like a good running saga for a week. And I was like, yeah, this is actually kind of cute and adorable. So, you know, I would 100 % read Petey the cult leader, by the way. I'll see if I can get the transcript because that was truly just fundamentally the most, I, you know, I actually almost didn't go to bed. I was laughing so hard. Right. That's the danger. That is the danger. But we're just trying to help people go to bed, help their kids go to bed. We all just want some rest. That's all we want. Thank you, Allison. I'm sure the parents will now have some other tools in their arsenal.

22:06Please, yeah, message me on threads. We'll brainstorm. We'll bring Gemini into it. Yeah. We'll get through it together. So we're going to go to break. And when we come back, Jake will tell me his tips for how to best use AI for search. Because, you know, AI sometimes do be lying. See you soon. Amazon has everything for everyone on your list. Like your teenage son, who won't give up the peach fuzz currently posing as a mustache on his upper lip. Get him an electric razor. Amazon has early holiday deals on gifts everyone wants. like the latest kitchen gadgets and toys and some they don't even know they need like that razor.

22:51Grab him a mirror too so he can see how pretty he is without that dirt on his lip.

23:01We're back. So it's pretty hard to search for anything on the web these days without an AI large language model butting in and telling you to put glue on pizza or something like that. Jake Castronakis is our executive editor and he's been figuring out how to use AI to help him find actually accurate information, a thing that I thought could not be done. Well, for one, it is actually changing how I search online. You know, I think for good reason. People are very skeptical of using ChatGPT or Gemini as a search engine, right? Sometimes it's wrong. That is, in fact, very true. But one thing that's interesting is that over the years, I've heard Google executives saying like, Like, oh, you know, all these kids, all these people who grew up smartphone first, you know, they don't search the same way all of us do, right?

23:49And I'm in my mid-30s. I think anybody, you know, my age, anybody who's been using Google for decades, when you do a search, right, you're very precise and specific, right? You enter a couple keywords to get exactly what you want, right? If you want to figure out how much RAM the iPhone 16 has, you just type in iPhone 16 RAM. You're not going to type out that whole question. There's a bunch of extra words. They're going to get filtered out. They might pull up search results you don't want. With ChatGPT, you really do just type in the question. And that allows you to get more specific and get nuances that you wouldn't be able to get.

24:26And this might, okay, my example right now is one that I use for work. But I think it shows what these tools can do in a way that a normal search engine couldn't. So recently we covered that Reddit says it wants to become a search engine. That's really weird. That's a big idea. And so I wanted to make sure, OK, has Reddit said before that it wants to become a search engine? So I went to Google, right? Typed in Reddit search engine. Well, that's not a very good search because, number one, first off, you just get a ton of results from Reddit, right? All the results are from Reddit about search engines.

25:03OK, well, so now you've got to know how to filter out Reddit searches. That's easy. So I filter out Reddit searches. Now it's just a bunch of stories about how everybody is using the Google hack where you just type in Reddit to your search. Okay. So because the keyword search is too messy, there's too many results, I can't actually find what I need here. So I go to ChatGPT to see, okay, can it find this for me? So I type in, hey, I'm looking for examples of Reddit the company or its executives saying that they want the company to be seen as or operate like a search engine. And that's like pretty specific, right?

25:41And it's able to sort through all of that. And it came back to me with a bunch of results. And it says, okay, Reddit hasn't said it wants to become a search engine. But here are some similar quotes from executives. where they're saying things about how Reddit's thinking about search or how search is a valuable opportunity. And so it's able to, you know, sift through all these other stories that are irrelevant but have the right keywords and find the specific things. Now, here's the trick, right? Everybody's worried about AI being wrong. And I think when it comes to quotations, that's an area where AI is really likely to make stuff up.

26:22And so particularly for our jobs, we have to make sure everything is correct. And so fortunately, now ChachiBT does the thing where it will give you web links. So I clicked through these, and in this case, they were all right. And so that was fantastic. That was really useful, and I was able to use this to help me suss out whether they had made claims like this before. I will say as a counterexample, I tried a very similar thing when Apple said, okay, we're going to make all of the glass for the iPhones in the U.S. and I was like, okay, Chachy Bt, how much of the glass is already made in the US?

26:58And it just made up a quote. It just made up a quote for me. Yeah. So you got to check. You have to check. But I think it's the same thing with Google where you have to have the skill set. I know this is like a super interesting example because I have a much sillier problem that really mirrors what you were saying. Like, so I have been watching Law & Order SVU because I found out my spouse had never seen an episode of Law & Order recently. And I was like, what? This is blasphemy. Aren't there like 900? There's like 24 or 25 seasons of Law & Order SVU. I actually wasn't aware that it was still going.

27:36But we started watching it. And, you know, he had seen clips before. And he's like, does Ice-T always have a ponytail? in in law and order svu and i was like well you know he changes up his look i don't recall him wearing suits all the time either in the first season uh because i think normally he wears something more like a leather jacket so i went into google and i was like when does ice tea lose the ponytail in svu uh i got nothing useful and then i was like okay let me try the reddit thing let me see if there's a reddit community that talks about it all i found were reddits voting on whether they like bald iced tea or ponytail iced tea better.

28:19I could see that there was like some sort of - It was pretty even. There were like people just who were pro ponytail iced tea, pro bald iced tea. But, you know, I wasn't getting a when does he change his look thing. So I went to perplexity because, you know, I'm trying, like you, I'm testing all these things. And perplexity calls itself an AI search engine first. And it told me like the exact season. And I was like, oh, my God. And there were like links saying the exact season. So I was like, oh, at the end of season three, beginning in season four, that's when he changes his look. That's early.

28:55It's very early considering there's 24 seasons of this show. But it gave me the answer of like exactly when that like I'm in season three now. So we'll see if at the end that when we switch to season four. whether he becomes bald. But it's a very silly example, but it's kind of what you were referring to. No, I think that's so interesting. And I think it really speaks to the fact that the types of searches you can do are changing. And I think that is the big thing to tap into, right? And so I do think there are people who are maybe missing out as a result of being too skeptical that AI can be useful.