That view is so dumb – and you are nothing of the sort!

I finally took the plunge a few days ago and upgraded my 4-year-old Samsung Galaxy smartphone/smartwatch combo.

Parts of the big changeover were pretty easy – it did a fine job of moving all those apps over and keeping their layouts much the same (sure I had to re-download or log in to many)

But, oh man!

Getting all the settings right, close to the way things worked on the old, tired phone/watch that – as many of you probably know all too well – it can be a freakin’ nightmare! So many places with different options and layers of controls and arrgh!!!

But this time, I had a great, patient and very knowledgeable “friend” help me wrestle with and survive the process, with (most of) my sanity intact.

Yeah, in my case it was … Perplexity.

Please don’t roll your eyes! It – note I didn’t say he – had a perspective and breadth of knowledge about where the settings lie buried, how to fix what wasn’t working right – not perfect, but always willing to explain and commiserate.

Maybe you, like I, have read sooooooooooooooooo many articles and newsletters about AI these days, my inbox overfloweth.

And so many of these “wise guys” (and gals) turn up their nose at anyone who just uses their favorite chatbot as “a glorified search engine.”

Not when it can do SO MUCH MORE!

It can build full apps in a single bound, make you the smartest person in the room, yadda yadda yadda.

So those of us – the many of us – who use it for anything less/simpler are sort of looked down upon – and that’s not just rude, but ridiculous.

To many of the “it’s not Google!” crowd, our transgression is much like only using a hammer to pound one nail in the wall to hang a picture, when you COULD use it to build a whole house – a whole neighborhood!!! In just seconds!!!

Really?

I know the agentic-fueled capabilities of today’s AI tools blow last year’s … make that last week’s … hold on, last hour’s tools out of the water. (If you can easily, confidently navigate that fast-rushing AI tide, you’re “a better man than I am, Gunga Din”!)

The analysts, columnists and yes, the marketers are telling us we MUST learn AI deeply to thrive and survive the world of tomorrow … make that today.

Lately, some also say you aren’t using AI “properly” unless you push back, don’t just accept its first answer but challenge them – not just hunt for slop or hallucinations, but tell it to give the totally opposite view on whatever you’ve asked about.

That’s not a bad approach, but sometimes you just want help and answers. Sure, it helps to remember the old Reagan line, “trust, but verify.” But Perplexity links to its sources, like the great, extremely footnoted Wikipedia.

So what’s wrong with that?

Yes, AI is changing the world, dramatically, for the better and … well, all the hype on one side, fear-mongering on the other doesn’t really help anyone (except those trying to sell you something).

So as the headline states, we can all marvel at the latest tools’ marvelous capabilities, and I have no doubt much of that amazing progress will filter down to us regular users, in ways we may or may not notice.

It will get better and more amazing. And we’ll go along for the ride, some more engaged than others.

But I also hope the need for true HI (human interaction) will survive and thrive as well.

It’s not a binary, black/white utopia/dystopia choice. We can all meet in the messy middle – as usual.