Hi. Has anyone read this article about the use of AI in repairs? Would be interested to hear your thoughts. How can AI benefit Repair Cafés? - Repaircafe
Sadly it’s hard to browse the internet searching for a brand and model number without google or other AI butting in and making comments you don’t need. I’ll admit that is has simplified the search for one or two specific parts and things I don’t know the name of, but it would be much much simpler to have a parts and service manual with each product rather than have vast computer data centres pour over billions of permutations and documents just to give you want you needed in the first place. It’s great working with older products that do have propert parts, wiring, pcb drawings and service manuals. An AI search is a poor alternative IMHO.
bring back a right to repair with access to all the technical specs that the manufacturers produce anyway to make the product.
The rise of planning applications for data canters and the carbon and environmental impact of them and the infrastructure required to run them should be a clear reminder to us all that we need to move rapidly towards a zero carbon lifestyle and not one feeding machines like in the Matrix !
Tech detox and deep nature immersion and care should be our priority and not a digital vortex. Just look at the massive job losses at Oracle recently. Even the IT specialists are facing a shrinking hobs market.
I say, lift up your screwdriver and soldering irons and rebel by focusing on fixing stuff. If something broken comes in that relies on AI to work then decline it.
Which coloured pill will you take 
Thanks Alan - really appreciate your perspective.
As someone who works in the IT space (as an open source consultant for what it’s worth), it probably comes as no surprise that I do use AI, probably on a weekly if not almost daily basis in various forms.
Whilst I retain a concern about the resources being put into it, it is also something that it is important I understand for my job. Not just how it can be used, but it’s strengths and limitations at any given point in time.
AI is a tool. If used well it can definitely make me more effective in performing some tasks, however it is important to not blindly follow what it suggests or use what it provides without further evaluation or scrutiny. It is however generally pretty good at providing relevant information with even quite loose questions, though just like with using search engines, some understanding of how to best utilise them can get to good valid results quicker.
The article certainly seems to match my broader understanding and experience with AI, though I’ve not used it that extensively when doing repairs. How useful it will be depends very much on the information that the AI in question has been trained on, so it might have quite large holes in it’s understanding depending on the task at hand.
One thing I’d add about the power consumption is that AI is still very much in it’s early days. Just about every technology out there was inefficient (from cars to solar panels) when they were first invented, but they became more efficient over time as understanding of how to build the technology improved.
I don’t know what the future holds, AI is very much at the tail end of a VC bubble at the moment I think. I wasn’t a particularly early adopter of AI by any means, but even in the time I’ve been consciously evaluating it, it’s got better and those that have been looking into it for longer say it has come a long way. I suspect at some point there might be more of a financial impact to utilising AI for things, especially if relying on the “frontier” models (the latest and most powerful ones).
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I have found it useful. The thing is, punters bring in anything, often something you’ve never seen before.