There’s a been a lot of talk about AI and all that it can do. Healthcare, the environment, finance and the list goes on. How do you use it personally? Do you use it personally?
In this article I’ll ease you into AI, what I’ll call practical AI. Things you can do to start before you decide how much and where you can use AI.
If you’ve already gotten your feet wet with practical AI, you might enjoy my article titled AI At Home.
Getting Started
Years ago I got my feet wet using the Amazon Alexa device. I started with one and set it up in the kitchen which was a central location in my home. To get my feet wet I started simple.
- Using my home assistant as a timer when cooking.
- Alarms – I’d set all kinds of alarms (cooking, for breaks when working, when it’s time for my child to go to bed, etc)
- Lists – primarily grocery lists. I could simply call out to add or remove an item from my grocery list by speaking. This lead to lists for Xmas shopping, birthdays, school supplies, etc.
- With a couple months, I integrated my google calendar to my home assistant. This allowed me to ask what was on my calendar today as well as add, change and delete entries.
- Playing music. I could ask my home assistant to play music based on genre, artist or song.
Moving Forward
At this point I was feeling much more comfortable with my home assistant. I was setting timers and alarms. Setting up lists for grocery shopping, holidays, school supplies. Next I had integrated my calendar and of course playing music. It was time to expand.
Working from home, I bought another home assistant and set it up in my home office. I continued to use it as I did when I just got started, especially the music. I loved to play instrumentals when working. However, now with the device setup in my office, I could use it as an intercom when I needed to reach out to my kids.
I decided to up my usage and I researched how to integrate other home devices. The easiest way for me to get started was to start with light. I purchased compatible plugs and setup my home office desk light and room light. Now with a simple command I could activate or de-activate the lights. For example, I could ask to turn on only my desk light, or office light.
Expanded My Usage
Now that I had 2 home assistants working, one upstairs in the kitchen, the other downstairs in my home office, well I wanted more. My usage was expanding.
I added another device to my upstairs bedroom and another for my kids room. This stopped all the yelling up and down the stairs, you know dinners ready, or come down here, etc. We would use the intercom feature and can now speak in a normal voice. My kid started creating their own lists, integrate their own calendars, listen to their own music.
As you may have guessed, it didn’t stop there. I added more smart lighting into the bedrooms and living rooms. I even tied our thermostat into the home device enabling me to control that too by voice.
Now my home lighting, office and bedrooms were all connected up. You’ll notice none of this was ground breaking technically speaking, but it was for me. I could talk with my home assistant, ask questions, control lights and temperature. I could create lists, check my calendar, play music and communicate to others in the house.
All this started with a single device to see what all the fuss was about and it grew from there.
Today
Today I’m retired but I still use my home device. I still enjoy the ability to check my calendar, create, modify and use lists, ask questions and control my TV. Timers and alarms are still a simple yet easy to use feature. I don’t need to change the world, I just add in convenience.
While I still use my home assistant, I also use AI chatbots a lot. My personal favorite is Gemini, which is googles AI chatbot, but there are plenty of other options here.
AI Chatbots
So what do I do with AI chatbots? Like most, I started to use the AI chatbots as a search engine, well a search engine on steroids. Now instead of having a list of static links returned to me and having to review each for the answers I sought, I would get a summarized response. The beauty here is that it’s interactive.
For example, I could ask for a recipe and get a response. I could follow up and say I didn’t have all the ingredients, could I use this or that. I’d get a reply and ask, well I want to use an air fryer instead of an oven, can I do that? I’d get an answer. This is a simple example, but it shows how easy it is to interact with AI chatbots. It’s a back and forth and well worth the effort.
Once again, over time, I got more comfortable and began to try other things. I had a digital image that had words on it. I needed to extract the words for a small project I was working on. I’ve always struggled with digital images, so I asked Gemini if it could assist. The response was to upload the image, which I did and the response was the exact text I needed.
This lead to asking Gemini to generate images for me. Gemini also became my research assistant for writing articles. It also became a sort of teacher for me. I’d read something and not understand it, ask for clarification and got it.
Summary
None of above is ground breaking, but it was for me all those years ago with my first home assistant. I went at my own pace, using features I needed when I needed them. I took it step by step and just kept adding more features. You see, you don’t need a degree in computers science to utilize AI in practical ways.
You don’t trust the technology to automate your finances? Then don’t use it. Organize your finances as you always had. What you may want to try is talking to your favorite AI chatbot. Don’t give specific account details or dollar amounts, but you can ask about scenarios. For example, I’m retired now and have 60% of my retirement savings in stocks. Should I reduce that percentage? Which other investment vehicles might I consider? Things like that. Privacy is and I think always will be a concern, so never give your account numbers or amounts to any device.
AI is here to stay. There’s usually some level of fear or trepidation around anything new. Start where-ever you’re comfortable and ease yourself into it. I mentioned earlier in the article that I’ve written about AI at home previously. I’ve also written about ways to be more productive and get better use out of your AI chatbots. Check out the following.
AT At Home – This isn’t really an introduction, so once you’re done here and started to use AI at home, then the article AI At Home will help you increase your scope of usage.
10 AI Productivity Hacks will show you ways to ramp up your productivity using AI tools.
The Secret Formula to Writing Better AI Prompts will really help in getting the most out of your conversations will AI chatbots.
Give it a try and let me know how it’s working for you. As always thanks for reading and I hope your interactions with AI are useful and fruitful.