I asked it to design a new patio for me. It's only suggestion was to move the bin.

I suspect that you didn't give it enough info Debster. Apply the - "what info would a human need in order to help me?" test. Plus, if it disappoints with its first answer, tell it that is not what you want, rephrase or give more info, just like you would if you were chatting it through with a friend.

Plus, the tech is developing week by week. For example, Google's Gemini will now give you additional options if you just highlight a word or phrase in an answer that you want to investigate further.

Mr BW has taken a while to convert, but this last week, getting info on the best way to keep hungry adolescent lambs (who have eaten all the grass in their field, so fancy climbing our fence and braving the barbed wire summit to feast on our garden) and a baby badger (seen by chance on the wildlife camera) out before they make a new sett has been so quick and easy.

Council Planning Officers are now using AI to summarize responses from the public and statutory consultees, to aid decision making. Anyone involved in this process needs to ensure that any comment they have made is included and represented appropriately in the written report, as I've already noted several reports that are just plain incorrect as no-one has checked the AI's work. This is going to become much more of an issue as housing developments are pushed very rapidly through the statutory process in order to meet the new legislation.

I use AI quite a lot. Most recently, "Suggest a good restaurant near [name of hotel] open on Sundays." An easy query, and we went to the one at the top of the list and had a great meal. But the AI engines are not all equal. I have tried several, and usually end up using Gemini/Nanobanana. It was extremely helpful recently in helping me to design a new bespoke desktop PC.

Tim - agree totally with not all AI engines being equal. Also, as they are all developing and adding features so rapidly, I think that trying to use lots at once would be confusing (for me at least!).

I'm using Google's inbuilt AI for quick research of a lot of sources on Google (where it's not obvious it's part of Gemini) as I think that one company's AI probably works best on the same company's output, and Microsoft's inbuilt Co-Pilot for summarising and precising of lots of my own documents, or changing the presentation mode of something I have written.

I did try ChatGPT but gave it up when the adverts started appearing.

As a very small user I'm not into paying for anything yet.

I haven't looked at any of the imaging AI as that is not my area of interest and they all seem to need fairly heft subscriptions or complicated work arounds via 3rd party sites to use the free versions.

And I can confirm that Amazon's Rufus is getting scarier by the day.

On Friday I ordered some 10mm stainless steel staples to secure weldmesh to our exterior wooden fence. I'd already held it up with normal staples but realised that they would quickly rust through. When the stainless steel staples arrived on Saturday I discovered that our existing staple gun (30 years old, well used, and still going strong) would not accept staples longer than 8mm.

I went onto Amazon again and asked for staples guns that would take 53/10 staples. Rufus told me that any of those it listed would take the staples that I had had delivered yesterday.

We have someone on a forum I visit who uses AI paid versions professionally and he recently gave us an online lesson writing an essay about a well known person in the area. It required a series of questions, some took 20 mins to gather a response but in simple terms required questioning of a nature you might see on an episode of your favourite police series. Ask for refinements, ask for proof or its answers, ask to list its references and ask why it said one thing and not another. It is most definitely a skill but in abut an hour he had posted a detailed biography with references, proof and a very detailed story which revealed some story lines no-one knew of despite him having a well documented racing past.