Erin Stellato, a program manager at Microsoft, asked a very interesting question on LinkedIn: "why do you *not* want a Copilot in SSMS?"

That got me to stop and think a minute. Why don't we want to use an AI to help us? It's a good question, given the hype and (maybe) potential of the technology. While it might not help you now, or with your specific thing, it might help others, so are there good reasons not to use AI technologies, like the GenAI LLMs?

Let me know today. What are you reasons for not using them (apart from cost or restrictions at work)?

I will say that I rarely use AI tech to get work done, or even in my home life. I just don't enough places where I think I need help outside of a search. I search a lot, but I haven't found AI to be faster than searching. Sometimes it is, but sometimes not and the unreliability of the tech bothers me. That being said, I do have a tag where I write about the AI things with which I am experimenting.

I think for many of us, AI is too amorphous and unclear. We don't quite know when it helps or doesn't. We don't know how to judge the quality of it. It's also not a habit or integrated into life. Most of the suggestions I see in various places aren't things I'd ask. The default page in my local mode has these suggestions:

• tell me a fun fact
• show me a code snippet of a website header
• give me ideas for what to do with kids' art
• help me study for a college entrance exam

That last one might be the only question I ask, not for college, but maybe for something like an MS exam. However, is the AI better than a search? Maybe, but I'd have to try it. Right now I'd be tempted to just search for a list of things to study. Maybe the AI helps me find those better, but really I'd want it to quiz me on different things.

The problem is I don't trust it to ask good, relevant questions, or necessarily give me the right answers if I asked it to quiz me.

I guess ultimately is I don't have enough "I think an AI is better" reasons over the do what I normally do. Without substantial evidence AI is better, I don't use it much. Do you feel the same way?