How are you using AI in your personal or professional life?
NEWS | 20 February 2026
First, a didactic comment - looking up the word "rational" in a dictionary yields the definition: based on or in accordance with reason or logic; endowed with the capacity to reason. Human rationality, such as it is, is probably the most important quality that has led us humans to be so "successful" on the earth. But our rationality is highly flawed and we apply it only sometimes; our long term thinking regarding cause and effect is almost non-existent. No so with advanced LLMs like ChatGPB - the AI is built on being rational and it's ability to make inferences about long term effects of man's technology and the damage we're doing our planet, is to be envied (and emulated) by us humans. Being retired, I use Chat only for personal ends, like discussing recordings available of William Walton's Violin Concerto, audio recording technology of the fifties onward including the period when audio was recorded on 35mm film stock, changing weather patterns here in Southern California, where storms are now coming UP the coast rather than DOWN the coast. Home insurance here has gone through the roof so I scanned all five of our insurance policies - home, earthquake, auto, liability, and personal property, and fed this data to Chat. The AI gave me a complete assessment of the insurance we have and related it to the market here and the risks faced. It summed up all considerations in layman's terms that made the fine print of our policies easy to understand. This task would be nearly impossible for a human to perform and would have cost a pretty penny to have done - if anyone would take it on. I also use Chat for my health issues so when I do engage with a doctor, I come having done my homework and with a good idea of the issues. Chat has diagnosed (though the AI would never use that term) that three dermatologists were stumped by. The AI has the most extensive resources available for sussing out answers like that. Engaging on questions of technology and how complex systems works is fascinating and informative and, yes, entertaining. I feel that having access to this vast store of knowledge, all applied to my personal context has improved my life and range of my own understanding. It is invaluable.
Author: Eric Sullivan.
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