N. Raghuraman's column: How to get the most out of AI assistants?

Apple orchards were hitherto untouched by automation. But now this is changing. Recent breakthroughs in robotics and AI are doing things that are essential to farms and thus will completely change the way these fruits reach your table. There are already universities and startups that are building robots for every stage of apple production – from pollination of trees, fertilizing them to eventually harvesting apples. Obviously, automation has been driven by high labour costs, and not just in developed countries, but also in countries like India, where labour is adequate but expensive. Like farming, there are many types of work in every job. Corporates are analysing every job at different job levels and finding out which work can be assigned to AI, so that the speed of work can be increased. Which work can be outsourced through AI depends on the work pressure and the current capabilities of AI, which are changing every day. Seeing the surprising start of DeepSeek (which was free) recently, I also thought that I should test how it works. I enlisted the help of a friend in Bhopal who had a paid subscription to a new company to formulate its HR policies. Her speed was exceptional, but the quality of work was far below my expectation. That's when I decided to give this tool some of the tasks I've been avoiding for years. Beginners like me can get things done. Organize cluttered gadgets: I asked the AI to organize the contact list on my phone into a spreadsheet. Not only did it do well, it also suggested two things. First, it pointed out how I didn't categorize some numbers correctly, such as family members, and secondly, I was happy to hear the suggestion. "I can also help create an email template to contact these contacts," it said. And that's when I realised that the first use of AI should be to organize your emails, contact lists, photos, WhatsApp messages, movies, quotes, and all sorts of information that keeps your phone, iPad and laptop stuffy. I gave access to 4000 columns out of my many thousands and asked them to choose the names mentioned in those columns and their companies or cities. Splendid! The list was ready in just 10 minutes. It could be a true personal assistant: you love cheese sandwiches, so you ask the AI if I can eat them. In less than 20 seconds, it will give you a summary of all the scientific information and link to your many medical reports as well as previous reports to tell you whether you can eat or not. Its memory feature tracks your details, generating responses with your preferences in mind. If you go to Settings and Personalize, you can create a small file about yourself. This makes the responses very personal, but if you want to remove them from the history, you can. Some AIs like ChatGPT can learn your personal habits faster, while DeepSec has a memory elephant, it remembers your every chat. Memory means they are gathering data. So be cautious. When you get in the car and tell ChatGPT your thoughts, it notes them like a secretary. And if you ask it later, it reminds you of every word and can also give it as a text file. The funda is that it's time to get the best out of AI, but be cautious about giving your personal information to the machine, who knows what they'll do to us tomorrow.