I Owe AI an Apology

When AI became the latest buzzword a year or so ago, I dismissed it.  Maybe it was out of fear, maybe it was out of ignorance, but I couldn't see the tangible benefits of it.  But lately, I have started to embrace it.  Twice in the last few months, I needed something specific and it found a workable solution almost instantaneously when previously this would have taken a few rabbit trails through Stackoverflow to find the answer.

The first was when I needed to know all of the parameters to pass to ffmpeg for a particular task.  Instead of the usual way of reading through the documentation, searching through old posts, and trial-and-error, I simply asked Gemini to write a formula for me.  Within seconds I had an answer.  I still had to tailor it just a bit but it was the perfect starting point.

The second was when I needed to search through a directory of XML files to look for some Cyrillic text that was not being imported correctly into a database.  In the past, I would have written some sort of script for this, but again I asked AI for a solution.  And again, it produced exactly what I needed in just a few seconds.

Now, don't get me wrong.  This isn't a full endorsement of AI.  I still think too many companies are trying to force it into places that it doesn't need to be in.  And it still makes a lot of mistakes.  But I was wrong to so quickly dismiss it as being a gimmick.  I now see how it can be another tool in my toolbox for doing my job.

AI-Generated Image of a Vibe Coder