A lot of Generative AI enthusiasts claim that Generative AI will replace search engines/tools and they are partially correct. I recently began research and work on a side project and relied entirely on Generative AI at the beginning for discovering tools and programs but didn’t realize how bad I was limiting my resources.
Generative AI doesn’t list all the options available, only what it knows or what is popular and that severely limited my progress on the project. It didn’t help that it often gave me the same results when I kept nuancing and tweaking the prompt question to see what else it would show me but the Generative AI was almost insisting that what it kept displaying were the only options available.
I then did a deep dive onto Youtube, Google, and my other resources (Alternativeto and theresanaiforthat) using specific search terms and I found out there were actually a lot more options out there.
I told the AI what I had discovered and it suddenly ‘knew’ these existed and listed out their pros and cons compared to what it had offered prior. It was somewhat jarring that the Generative AI would keep tools and resources that were able to somewhat implement what I needed for my project because they didn’t ‘exactly’ fit a criteria. Or perhaps the Generative AI thought it knew better.
Once I told the Generative AI I was going to use the tools and applications found it became helpful again, giving examples on how to use them with existing tools and programs and how to connect software to hardware and to come back with any questions
I am aware that some companies actually use free versions of Generative AIs and talk about their product/company specifically and list all the wonderful things about it so the data can be absorbed and listed out to others who are searching for a service like that but this method seems to limit the actual ‘use’ of the Generative AI for users who are looking for more unorthodox methods of accomplishing things.
My project was not a ‘one size fits all’ type of project. I needed multiple tools, resources, and connection points that were specific to the idea. I did eventually discover what I needed. It’s not perfect but it is somewhat close enough to what I envisioned but I probably wouldn’t have found out about it until much later.
This goes back to ‘Don’t rely on Generative AI for everything!’. It can make mistakes. It can be tricked and deceived. And it can (and will) display tools that are not what is asked or needed for a project.
Always do personal research and hone the skills needed to specify and discover what will work for the project, objective, or end goal.
Thank you for reading.
Stay Knowledgeable!