Why AI Power Users Win

0:00Welcome to the AI Applied Podcast. Today we actually wanted to start by talking about a bunch of new models that have recently come out some of the new use cases, some of the things that we're currently doing with models and just give a little bit of a state of the AI market and kind of what's out there today. I had to start with a tweet that I thought was pretty funny. Apparently SpaceX AI is going to live stream the creation of an entire company from scratch using GrocBot from September 15th to September 17th. And GrocBot is kind of one of these new tools that has recently come out that a lot of people are talking about. So I'm really excited to see where that goes. I think the comments on that particular poster kind of funny, someone said, when you already have tens of millions of followers and multiple businesses, you could sell a turn on a stick and have a successful business. There is some truth to influencers or people that already have a ton of followers like quote unquote, live stream to business. And yeah, what level of it is going to be leveraging it? Okay, but I love this concept. This is something Connor and I've actually talked about a lot on other podcasts where we're talking about how they keep moving the goal posts on AGI from something

1:02that can successfully run a business to something that can do cool stuff. Okay, all these AI's can do cool stuff. We know that. So anyways, I like this because at least they're taking on the challenge. I don't know if they'll be successful. Time will tell. They're taking on that challenge. GrocBot's cool. There's some new cool image models that came out of OpenAI, image 2.5. And then Connor's been doing a bunch of really cool stuff with computer use. So I'm going to kick it over to you. Tell us what you're doing with computer use these days. Yeah, I mean, I like how you set that up because when we hear about Fable 5.1, we hear about Astra, the demos are amazing. And I don't know about you, Jaden. Some of these demos, they're awesome, but I'm like, okay, but that's not going to change my life or change my way at work. And I'm never just going to build a video game that renders instantly. And I'm like, bullying, I think it's awesome. But I mean, I feel like I burned out on that about 18 months ago or something like that. So I'm thinking when I think, Jaden, about GPD 6,

2:03which is Astra Earth or Fable 5.1, the things that I'm finding that are just super, super helpful is how it controls my computer. So first of all, guys, if you haven't done this kind of stuff, just do me one favor. Just download the desktop app of Cloud and of Chat GBT. Okay, that's step one. Just start getting used to that. And again, maybe apologies if this is too basic for you if you've already done that. Just listen along just for a second here. And then when you kind of tap into codex, by the way, the UX keeps changing, Jaden, so I don't even know what to tell people anymore, but I know it feels like the drop down to codex. Or there's like, you can sort of like open CloudCodeCode which essentially functions essentially like CloudCode. This is not an episode on that. But the idea is it just takes over your computer. So what you hear all the time is this. You hear anything that you can do on your computer, you can do, these things can do. So first of all, that's not exactly true. It does, still your Mac or whatever, is still going to have certain guard rails.

3:03Some things like, I've found, because I did a lot of testing with this Jaden, I found that fable, at least for me, was able to sort of like access more things than codex. That was when I did a testing probably like two weeks ago, it might have changed. But here's where I really think that people will be amazed, that people are generally not doing. Which is, if you run into a problem, guys, there's just a usual friction where you're like, oh, well, I guess I'm stuck. I want you to take a second and just write that down. So a couple of things that have happened for me lately. First of all, I needed to sort of like fix this thing on LinkedIn, like there's something happy with LinkedIn. I'm like, can you just go to LinkedIn? Now of course with the API, like it can't go kind of like in the back door and tell LinkedIn things like that. But what it can do with like Cloud, for example, is if you have an extension, the extension is almost like an arm reaching into your browser. And it just like opens. So if you already have LinkedIn open, it just goes in there and it does things unbelievably fast, like it fixes bugs all that kind of stuff. The other thing, Jaden, that was blown away by the other day, was that I wasn't able to print. And so I just asked codex.

4:04I'm like, yeah, I just actually can't print it. And codex is like, do I mean try to fix it? And I'm like, yeah. And so it goes and it starts testing because it's talking to the printer. It starts testing like my whole internet, all that kind of stuff. So guys, I know this sounds basic. I know it sounds like I'm talking in use cases and I'm trying to get away from that. But the computer use is getting, is the thing that I find more and more powerful, instead of like rendering video games and entire things like that, just ask it for help because it can do way more on your computer than you think. Just test it. So just ask it. That's the thing. Don't feel like you're restricted to sort of like things that you can ask it and it's going to give you answers anymore. It really does things that you can never, like, sorry, Jaden, one other example. I'm trying to hook up, like, as you can see, this DSLR camera that I'm pointing it right now, if you're online. And I just couldn't get it to sort of connect because the cam link and Elgato was, I was driving, it was driving nuts. And then finally, it's like, well, let me just ping it all through the Mac mini and the USB ports. And I'm like, what? And it's running all these tests on my hardware. That's where I find Astra and Fable 5.1,

5:06making the biggest difference in real life. That's the stuff I get excited about. 100%. And I think that's one of the most exciting, most useful things is when these can actually use your computer. And we've been talking about Cloud Co-Work for a long time. I think Astra is doing a really phenomenal job. From my testing, I think it's the winning model. It's the best. Sometimes the connections are a little spotty compared to Cloud. So they might have that slightly better. But as far as you mentioned doing the video game, and even in Astra, they have this whole demo of a video game. Actually, it was recently doing, it was for my church, all the 16 year old boys, they wanted to do an activity where they would learn about how to use AI. It was very eye opening for me, because I feel like it's so easy to get into this bubble of everything that people use AI for. And when I started it, I was like, OK, guys, how often are you guys using AI? And like, one was the last time you used it, basically. And there was a lot of them that were like, I used it a lot last year. Yeah, I used Chatcha Pee a lot last year.

6:07I haven't really done anything with it this year. And my mind was blown. And I'm like, yeah, we're not allowed to use it for school or anything. Anyway, so I do think that there are younger, older, maybe people right in the thick of certain types of jobs certainly are using this a lot, but it doesn't mean that it's everybody. So I do think that's an important thing. Anyways, we were just vibe coding for a little bit. We're using Astra. And they did end up creating a video game of just the jet flying through the air, which I was really impressed with. You have this on, right? Jane has this on right now, by the way. I'm demoing so you guys can all see my high score. Brain Rafa. I think that I do think that it's, it was a lot of fun. There's a lot of different things. I basically had them all go around and they wrote, like just voice to text a bunch of features inside and it was able to just spit it out. I, a couple of things that I have noticed as far as like which models you use. I have some like words of caution. And, and I also have some like some learnings that I found in doing this. Word of caution is I tried using GPT-6 Astra.

7:11And while doing that, I set it to ultra. I actually made a post about this on LinkedIn and a whole bunch of people are complaining to me about my post. But I basically set it to ultra and I asked it one question which was go to my website, review my website and give me like feedback on how I could do the design better. It spent two minutes on my website and it burnt through 80% of my weekly tokens. I have the $200 a month tier. 80% of my weekly tokens, which I'd already been using. So it burnt through all my tokens in two and a half minutes just to give me a better website design. So words to the wise, do not use ultra unless you plan on spending a lot of money or you have some incredibly difficult thing, probably not good to just ask it for a website redesign. However, if you just have medium tier on, on Astra, it does a great job. My other thing that I have learned, so this whole game that I was just kind of demoing and talking about this Astra-Aid shooter game, I did two, I tried it two different ways. First of all, I was using Astra and it's number one, slow and number two. It can use a lot of tokens, but on the medium,

8:12it's not too bad. And I was like, I wonder if I could speed this up and make it cheaper. So I switched to, I think, their Terra model or something on OpenAI. So it's, they got like, Astra, Soul, Terra, Loon or something. So it's Terra, it's kind of like one of their lower tier models. I asked it to add some features and it completely broke the game. And so I imagine six months ago, I would have just kept sitting there and been like, okay, change this, fix this, fix that. And eventually I could have gotten into a place where it worked. But I just want to say for what it's worth when you're using something like Fable 5.1 or something like Astra, these models are so good. They do take a little bit longer and they do take costs a little bit more, but they're so good, they get it right the first time. And for that, I am forever grateful to not have to do so much back and forth and it doesn't take so much of my time to vibe code or to create something. So that is a cool learning that I've had so far using all these things. Last thing I want to demo, just while we're on the, what are we using AI for? That's kind of fun. I have no idea how to use Blender. It's a software where you can create 3D objects.

9:15Are you about to talk about Blender? I've every talks about Blender, I don't even know what it is. Okay, so neither did I, to be fair, but I knew that people used it to create 3D objects. So I went and just ask ChatGPT to use Blender and create a 3D object, which was just a person flying through the air on a 3D jet. And it actually was able to go and create this whole thing for me. I have no idea how to do it. It went and downloaded some open source libraries that had, it was like, I'm adding realistic human texture to the skin and doing all this stuff to make this dude flying through the air on a rocket ship. I was gonna use it for the video game, but we ended up not doing it. But it was kind of fun. I have no idea how to use Blender and yet you're able to do basically anything. Like if you download a software onto your computer that you have never used before, it can just use it and control your computer and make it happen.

10:16So there really is no limitations. I think which is like an interesting mental block I'm getting over where I'm like, you know, there was the mental block of like, oh, I'm not a code or I can't vibe code stuff. Well, we're all vibe coding stuff now. We don't know what code is. But then there's like, well, I'm not like a photo editor. I don't know how to use Adobe Lightroom. Download Adobe Lightroom until cloud to do it. And it will edit your family photos how you want. It'll add the presets. It'll use Blender to create 3D objects. It'll be able to help you probably create 3D stuff that you can go print on your 3D printer. So I think there's a lot of stuff where like you don't know how, you don't have to know how to use any software anymore. And these tools can actually control your computer and manipulate and use any software, which is incredibly useful. That's the most unbelievable thing, Jane. You're old enough to remember. And I am too, obviously, like, I went through a phase of just like messing around with Photoshop because I was, I always needed like a hobby. And so I was like, let me try to take up photography. Just for fun. Yeah. And Photoshop, I got like really into it. It was like super fun, all that kind of stuff. And I spend Ions of time just like figuring out like how this

11:18and how different layers work and all that kind of stuff. And now it just like opens it. It just does stuff. Jane, one of my favorite things is watching it do, and this is a very simple example. But if you have CapCut on your laptop and you have whatever, Astro, you have, or you have like I use Cloud Code over, overCore, but it's basically the same thing. And you just say, hey, can you open TikTok and like grab the video that's on my desktop and just put a really interesting set of captions on it and all that kind of stuff. Like that's a fairly simple thing to do. It's kind of a pain in the butt though if like people are doing it. And I'm just like watching as it's doing it. And it's fast and it doesn't. This is the amazing thing. This is sort of like what separates the power user from everybody else. It's not sort of like what you can do or whether it's literally just do you have the ability to sort of like I wonder if it can do this or not. And also, and Jane, let me just sort of say the other thing that I think it's like what defines power users is, are you willing to keep going back to things if it hasn't worked the first time? Guys, I've tried this thing with CapCut a million times

12:20over months and months and months because I saw it in demos. It never worked for me. It never worked. I don't know why. I don't know. Guys, you're going to see demos that don't work for you. That's okay. Keep trying it. Keep trying in the next model, the next model. The thing that sort of like defines AI power users from anybody else is one thing and that's perseverance. That's it. It's not curiosity. It's not anything else. It's just, are you dedicated to just not getting better at AI but just testing things and sort of like seeing if the AI can do it? That's what I get like super, super excited about. 100%. Jane, it is. It's so, so, so cool to sort of like see what you're doing on AI. It's super cool to sort of like see like, you know, chicken nugget things and stuff like that. It's so cool to sort of see what you do. Like Microsoft paint and you know, like paint jaden in a realistic way, all these kinds of things. But guys, I learned from jaden all the time. Like it's just like fine people who are doing the stuff well and just keep on trying what they're trying. That's all you need to do. Also, guys, do not forget to check out AI box. AI is really cool. My favorite thing is that you can make images in cloud now

13:20just with a very simple MCP connector. All the instructions are on there. It's just like this is like a magic tool again, under 10 bucks a month. And my favorite thing is just trying model after modeling and sort of like testing model after model without spending $200 a month on every model. Guys, also just another shout out. This is usually when we say leaving rating review. Nope, not today. You got us over 200. All we can say is we're so grateful for you and we will see you on the next episode.