# What practical tasks are AIs already good at today? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Tags:** ai\ **Created:** [March 24, 2026, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737 "2026-03-24T20:49:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2026, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/101 "2026-05-01T21:53:57Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Our website is [www.B **ookkee** perSA.com](http://www.BookkeeperSA.com) Sorry for any off topic… but I just reckoned that Bookkeeper must be one of the few words in English with 3 consecutive doble-letters ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2026, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/102 "2026-05-01T22:47:21Z")
No, it did not. To be honest, this was a very general prompt - had I developed it more to include those instructions, it probably would have gone in that direction. Once we fix the issues highlighted in the report (and they _are_ issues), I’ll likely do a deeper dive into improving our website. I’ll still keep our web-person. Not interested in replacing her or doing this myself, but I do enjoy having the ability to ask “someone” to review the website and come up with fixes… and then sending the report over saying “fix this”. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2026, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/103 "2026-05-01T22:48:16Z")
> [@Al128](#): > > Sorry for any off topic… but I just reckoned that Bookkeeper must be one of the few words in English with 3 consecutive doble-letters I think it… and its variant “bookkeeping”… are, in fact, the only commonly used words in English with three double-letters. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2026, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/104 "2026-05-01T23:27:36Z")
AI says there’s also “[tattooee](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/tattooee_n?tl=true)” and the archaic job “[subbookkeeper](https://tcampbell.substack.com/p/the-strange-path-of-the-word-subbookkeeper)”. Guess we’ve come a ways from ‘How many Rs in “strawberry”?’ ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2026, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/105 "2026-05-25T15:59:54Z")
Inna and I are replacing our kitchen cabinets. We need measurements, but our drawing abilities are laughable at best, useless at worst. So I took pictures of the kitchen, uploaded to Gemini (nano banana) and said “please render this as a line drawing suitable for measurements”, which it did a great job at. [![Imgur](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55292591346_c68810f144_b.jpg "Kitchen measurement 1") ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/68782016@N08/55292591346/) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2026, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/106 "2026-05-25T16:11:26Z")
Which is amazingly better than a floorplan that an AI hallucinated for another thread from a set of pix of the property on Zillow. Admittedly that other problem was harder, to stitch together a coherent whole from partial pix of various aspects of the whole. But the tool you used and how you used it was vastly better and only a couple months apart. ---
**Author:** ![EnglishGrey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/englishgrey/32/14111_2.png) [@EnglishGrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnglishGrey)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2026, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/107 "2026-05-25T23:06:33Z")
Not read the whole thread. I use it, amongst other things, to create RAMS from templates, given some basic parameters. It searches for FRZs, watercourses, location plans, nearest A&E etc. Quicker than I can do it. It customises the text to suit the types of work required. Definitely a net gain. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2026, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/108 "2026-05-25T23:31:00Z")
I have used AI to recommend a few purchases and provide feedback on a few estimates. The responses vary in quality but can be pretty useful. If you call attention to some points, it clarifies things. I am not sure if it is giving better answers or just patronizing the user, where every suggestion is brilliant and thought provoking. It calls all my questions “great”, but does not use my preferred title of “Your Excellency”. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2026, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/109 "2026-05-25T23:54:39Z")
RAMS, FRZs, watercourses, locations plans, nearest A&E, being what exactly? We are not all your co-worker. A bit more context would be helpful for the folks not in your line of work. Whatever line that may be. ---
**Author:** ![EnglishGrey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/englishgrey/32/14111_2.png) [@EnglishGrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnglishGrey)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2026, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/110 "2026-05-26T05:06:32Z")
Risk assessments and method statements, flight restriction zones… In other words… routine paperwork. Sorry for the jargon. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2026, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/111 "2026-05-26T14:54:46Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > ’m sure this was already mentioned in some fashion but, even if you’re opposed to AI for “art”, image gen and manipulation can be useful for prototyping or brainstorming. Yes, I’ve used it for ideas in decorating for a room. I don’t like the look of most of AI art–I didn’t mind, at first, but once it started appearing everywhere and my eyes got used to seeing it, I couldn’t unsee it. It’s amazing what it can do, but it just looks awful to me, and there’s a growing backlash against businesses who use it. The practical things I use it for is troubleshooting. Like how to accomplish something on Logic. How to disable a certain feature on Lightroom. The other day I was on assignment photographing something on the Field Museum and noticed my flash was locked and I didn’t feel like wasting time looking up the manual, so instead asked ChatGPT how to unlock it and it got me there from typing to fixing my flash in 15 seconds, so I didn’t have to be unprofessionally fumbling around on my phone for a minutes or two. I had it help me diagnose what the problem with my Kurzweil K2600X keyboard could be, as there were two hardware cards about $200 each that could have been the problem, and it picked the right one. I’ve had it write me shortcut droplets to put on my desktop so I can drag & drop files to my website. I had it help me price photography express delivery fees, which ended up being a little less conservative than what I would have come up with, but the client accepted. I’ve used it to help me brainstorm ideas for photograph titles. I use it all the time to find tip-of-the-tongue words or words to illustrate a particular linguistic idea. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2026, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737/112 "2026-05-28T13:39:00Z")
I’m taking an online class, and the .pdf of the syllabus has the course schedule. It’s a mess. I sent the file to Claude and had it pull the schedule stuff out, reorganize it by date, and present it in a more readily usable form. Fairly simple, but would have been a bunch of annoying copy/paste and formatting for me to do manually. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-practical-tasks-are-ais-already-good-at-today/1028737.md?page=5)