please vote anonymously and boost this poll for transparency and participation:

[rwwh@mastodon.social]

@falcennial note: I only use locally run models.

[ann_in_a@livellosegreto.it]

@falcennial I would not do it at all, but my job has a new travel policy that requires us to book work-related trips via a chatbot. Only if the chatbot doesn't return suitable options (which is quite frequently tbh), I can book myself and claim reimbursement. But I have to chat with the bot first.

Additionally, there's the odd occasion in which I need to contact some customer service, and the first/only option is a chatbot.
This adds up to a few times per month

[adam_wysokinski@fediscience.org]

@falcennial I don't chat with LLMs, I chat with people. However, I frequently (each day) use LLMs for researching information, OCRing and translating documents, proofing my formal writing for language, style and grammar, checking code for hard to trace errors, explaining topics out of my fields, comparing products before purchasing and much more. I run some open, local models, but also use others.

[selvari21106@mastodon.social]

@falcennial not so far as I'm aware, though I can't fully rule out the possibility that I've spoken to one masquerading as a human and not realised

[shadsterling@mastodon.social]

@falcennial I voted “not at all”, but I am forced to use a customer service chatbot a few times a month

[shadowwwind@mastodon.social]

@falcennial when someone sends me a schedule in plain text, I use an LLM to turn it into an ics file to import into my calendar. I think that sums up my use in the past two months.

[rnichols1@mastodon.social]

@falcennial I suspect you'd get better results if you asked how often people use, rather than chat with, LLMs - chat is too vague

[sarahw@mastodon.green]

@falcennial
I actively avoid using any form of AI.
Unfortunately, it's occasionally unavoidable at work. I switch it off whenever possible.

[dave@europhiles.uk]

@falcennial this is a confusing question. I don't chat with LLMs; I use them to obtain and distill information that would take me a lot longer and multiple web searches to obtain myself. I do that several times a week, but I have never used them to generate pointless videos or just have a fake conversation.

[urlyman@mastodon.social]

@falcennial thanks for doing this.

It’s very hard to phrase a poll like this so that there is no ambiguity.

I suggest to people asking “what do you mean” or “does chat mean…X” to just vote with what feels closest.

Fwiw, I feel the poll is quite a lot about a general disposition, more than it is about precision

[daftwullie@freiburg.social]

@falcennial @_tillwe_ unfortunately I have to if I don’t find the information in our universities shitty intranet platform. Sometimes the stupid chatbot is the only help I‘ve got to get a hint where to look for the required information. More often than not its answers are wrong, but at least it gives me a starting point for further exploration.

[leonavis@mountains.social]

@falcennial I have a local setup and use that exclusively. Good for learning Chinese and physics

[christo_459@mastodon.me.uk]

@falcennial
Avoid it like the plague

[jhb17@mastodon.online]

@falcennial

"Chat" vs. make a search request?

[sunflowerinrain@mastodon.online]

@falcennial
I agree with some comments about defining the question, but that's the usual problem with a poll. If you tried to define it thoroughly, the question would be too long (and still not cover all possibilities).

It's interesting that some responders define "chat" as voice only. Chat was always any medium, and "chatroom" was a popular term for online discussion groups. Perhaps some commenters are too young to remember. I feel old now.

[sunflowerinrain@mastodon.online]

@falcennial
I never got into shooting-type computer games, but now I realise that's what I do when a bot-thingy appears. Zap! Zap!

[bobthomson70@mastodon.social]

@falcennial as evidenced by the comments, chat is a loaded word for many use cases. In common with an awful lot of IT pros I know who are also anti Gen AI and big tech, I use it for work often, near daily, but not to chat to, but as a replacement for Google / SO searches, precisely because Google and this AI bubble have ruined the ability to search for answers for IT problems now sadly.

[falcennial@mastodon.social]

@rwwh sounds interesting and clever. I'll keep an eye out to learn from your experiences doing that if you share them.

thanks heaps for participating, and for sharing this context which I suppose we should all add to our repertoire for understanding the data we're putting together in our poll.

[howrd@veganism.social]

@falcennial I wish I could put none at all, but Claude is ubiquitous at work. I've limited it to one condition. If I'm pretty sure the person I'm going to ask will ask Claude and paste me the response, as frequently happened, I cut out the middle man. It's damn depressing though.

[aedius@lavraievie.social]

@falcennial

I'm using it ... To keep my job ,,:(