Gen AI, why I choose Perplexity

I chose perplexity about Gen AI, this is not a secret, and this is because I’m still not fully convinced that it is a good thing for us as people. Yes I know, the human’s development… the many changes we went through… the manure’s problem in New york…?

This is all true, we evolve and substitute products and solutions with new and more efficient ones all the time. The S Curve was a book by Richard N. Foster published in 1986 that properly explained how advancement happens by first stretching the old technology to its limit, then all in a sudden, but strongly neglected by position’s retainers, when a new technology appears and shows its huge potential, setting the old tech at bay.

Gen AI is not different, it is setting at bay the need to be knowledgeable. Technically humans can now avoid remembering things, they do not need anymore to be able to study, understand and summarise long, heavy books to clarify the theory behind them.

Anyone can easily access the whole knowledge of the world with a click (and if you really really want, with just 20$ per month).

So my perplexity is a quite common feeling among people, even if we may be considered as old fashionable people who want to keep horses on the street.

In using Gen AI something what embarrassed me the most was its text development capability (among many others). But here is where my domain is more challenged and the fear of being binned soon becomes real.

Ok, let’s say that I didn’t find the production of text any way close to human capability yet. But it is getting closer and closer.

So, my use of the AI only implies the refining of content. That is where I found it most useful for my own purpose. But this feature comes with a threat: the most common LLM tools provide users with a full rewriting of the original draft into a more easy to read, with a better flow of text and a better and deeper language in no time.

My concern is that users may overlook mistakes and, mainly, forget how to write without the support of a Gen AI tool -like we did with arithmetic operations-.

Then I came across Perplexity. ?

I like what this tool is trying to provide: a guidance on how to improve your text, and only if you ask it provides you the rewriting job. But the matter is: you can keep your capabilities challenged and see the suggestions that may help you in producing a better output.

Essentially everyone may improve the outcome, not just the output: producing a better output by continuous learning.??

We can’t always be able to produce a perfect output in writing -don’t ask if that matters nowadays- getting support to improve it, fast, is a good thing. Coupled with keep learning become paramount to take back control of the content we produce, the message we spread and ultimately ourselves.

Moreover, Perplexity retrieves the sources of your search queries automatically, it means you don’t have to rely on what it writes, but you can check the sources on the web that support the answers: it enables users to verify the accuracy of information provided.

We can’t be sure the humans will deal properly with Gen AI in future, but at least we can promote the use of tools that do not simply substitute us, but enable us to stay on top of the process of producing meaningful content.

It may be a simpler approach, but it is what I found useful to avoid the feeling of losing control by fully delegating to Gen AI. It is about my own need of a better control while boosting the content creation.

Disclaimer: This article hasn’t been improved with AI.?

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