Watched a guy refuse to trust ChatGPT's math on a tape measure at Lowe's yesterday

3 comments

3 Comments

Nah, I'm on the other side of this. Eyeballing is overrated when you're dealing with fractions of an inch and a tape measure that's seen better days. I've seen guys "trust their gut" and end up with a 2x4 cut 1/8th too short, then try to fudge it with a shim. If ChatGPT can spit out the exact decimal for a 30 degree angle on a weird corner cut, I'm gonna take that over my own rough estimate any day. The real trick is knowing when to double check it with a physical ruler, not writing the whole tool off because it's a computer. A gut feeling won't give you the right thread pitch for a random valve stem you've never seen before, but a quick search and some math just might.

victor_jones9925d ago

Betting on ChatGPT over eyeballing is risky at the hardware store.

rubys8025d ago

Oh for sure, @victor_jones99, but what happens when your eyeball fails you on something tricky like a bolt thread pitch or a weird metric vs standard mixup? I've been burned too many times by guessing wrong and having to drive back across town, so I wonder if you've actually tested ChatGPT against your own judgment yet or if this is just a gut feeling situation. Like, I get the whole "trust your gut" thing at the hardware store, but some of these specialized hardware stores have stuff nobody's seen before. The real question is whether you're talking about simple stuff like picking out a 2x4 or more complex things like matching a specific valve stem.