Are you using AI?

That’s a really interesting point, thank you. It sounds like you can see the potential value, but the current tools aren’t flexible or context aware enough for industrial systems yet.

The restrictions you mentioned are useful to hear too. It sounds like the issue isn’t only whether the answer is good enough, but whether the tool will actually let you use it in a work context without blocking, warning or avoiding the detail you need.

What kind of work task would you most want AI to help with if those restrictions and accuracy issues were less of a problem?

Thanks, that’s really useful. It sounds like AI can be a helpful starting point for coding, especially when you need a quick example or hint, but the output still needs quite a bit of checking against your actual development environment.

The point about it being either too generic or too specific is interesting too, that seems like one of the bigger frustrations with AI generated code.

When you get a code sample from Bing or a VSCode AI extension, how often does it save you time overall once you’ve checked and adapted it?

That’s a really fair point, I should have included an “I try to avoid AI” option in the poll. It’s useful to hear from people who are actively trying not to use it too. Apologies for that!

Your example is exactly the kind of thing I’m interested in. It sounds like AI/search can be quite frustrating when it gives a confident answer based on incomplete product information, especially for older equipment or less common setups.

When something like that happens, what do you usually do next?

OH please you could have added another option " I try to avoid AI"

but these days it is incorperated with google  so what search engines dont use it,

3 months ago i tried to google using OKI mb470 multi function with centronics port with old computer   

google kept saying  oki mb470 only had USB or network, i tried to submit user manual with page with parrell port 

A week later it had not accepted my info.  I see it now does 

Maple is ancient. The chemists I used to work with a million years ago used Maple. 
I can hardly believe that AI hasn't found enough training data for Maple. But legit, 
if its proprietary AI don't know nothing. 

Im especially amused when IDK, like android studio has an AI agent in side of it now, , and that AI doesn't know anything about google, or android, so it cant do anything specifically helpful.  AI is generically helpful at best. I kinda suspect that IP holds humanity back in terms of learning. The educational bits are not published, or behind licensing, or paywalls. Which is fine, if the goal is to protect a profit. Therese all this Knowledge that will die the moment it stops being profitable. 

Humans Have that problem, and AI will as well. On the flip side, old AF projects could get revitalized relevance from the AI hype train, but will miss out, having not provided enough training data. These products, garner use, by having been used. XYZ research group uses XYZ software, and they got a 35million $ grant. Next thing you know everyone in that space is using XYZ software.  .. 

Ah, but is that not automation - you tell it do this and it does it. In my mind, I don't think that's what AI is about. What it can or what it should probably do is give you the components, or a short list of components within spec, to achieve the result you're after. It can certainly tell you which pin to connect to what component etc.

AI cannot draw a "proper" schematic of even a simple circuit, and certainly it cannot design a PCB layout. Even if you supply datasheets and reference designs, it cannot copy the symbols properly.

Try asking your AI to draw a schematic of an inverting operational amplifier with a gain of 10.

It can sort of describe some simple circuits with text in a net list type of way, but that doesn't help in my workflow.

AI is improving dramatically every week, but the last time I checked, it had not been trained on schematic capture.

In what way. I'm curious.

I recall this glib remark which has stuck with me... The quality of the answer starts with the quality of the question.

AI certainly won't do the work for you (as in, produce a wonderful set of gerbers), but it does make design decision making quicker, especially if you view AI as a sounding board. E.g. I needed to include an microSD card holder on a PCB. It's not something I would do often. I couldn't quite remember how the card detect pin works for the part I wanted to use as it usually differs depending on the manufacturer. Choose an unknown oem part and risk escalates. Asking AI saved me 10's of minutes searching for the answer. As such, it's an accelerator.

Yes, sometimes I use AI tool for coding.

For example, I am using Microsoft bing search engine. For that, If I need a code sample for something, than I paste that query in the search engine and I get the response. That is quite useful. 

But there frustrating part as well. The code is sometimes not compatible with our development environment. The code is very generic or specific. 

Another thing is VSCode extension also has AI to write the code, That can give us some hints but not always a true. 

In PCB designing there are some tools that are useful but I have not used it so far. 

I want desperately to use AI, but its simply no good for most industrial systems. Unfortunately, I think AI will get restricted before it can learn to be useful.

AI tries to stop me ever time I use it, .. that a cybersecurity risk, thats copy righted. thats propietary... I cant use it for work yet.