Thunderbird launches Thundermail and Pro services to offer an open-source alternative to Gmail and Office365, focused on privacy, freedom, and user control.
“AI” or as they were called for the longest time machine learning algorithms can do things like spell check and help with grammar.
The more modern algorithms that they started really calling AI can help format your ideas, can fix sentence structure, and can even translate into foreign languages
Email is probably the most useful place for AI as most of the ones we talk about today are really good at language formatting but don’t really have any intelligence
For example you can write an email cursing out your boss saying “as I fucking told you yesterday” and then ask the AI to rewrite your email in a professional tone so that it says “per my previous email” like sure you can obviously do that yourself but it’s a lot faster to word vomit your thoughts into a computer especially when it’s trivial work related garbage and save your mental energy for your personal time
Trying real hard not to be old man yelling at clouds, but have things gotten so bad people can no longer write a simple email without help with sentence structure?
I’m not sure if “things have gotten so bad”. The native English speakers who actually use this stuff are probably the ones who struggled with writing in school and have always been terrible at it. That’s obviously not everyone though, a lot of people are still competent enough to type their own emails.
I’m a software developer, not a writer or a salesperson, but I have to do sales to sell my software.
I can write a first draft of a sales email to get my ideas across and then have the AI look at it from a specific perspective I don’t have the skills in.
I dont just take whatever it says and hit send though, I have a conversation with it to tweak things i don’t like, remove things that I don’t think are needed or add things it missed.
Do this for 15 to 20 minutes and I end up with a much more polished email that won’t come across as AI slop with all the personal touches I did want to add.
Just a question on the value of time: If you can’t be bothered to write it, why should anyone bother to read it? Is it really that valuable of a message?
I can spend 10-20 min writing an email that basically says “no your idea is dumb and won’t work” to customers in such a way where by the end of it they agree with me.
It can take a bit of effort but with high stakes communication it’s needed.
If you’re just sending an email to your teacher or whatever it doesn’t really matter.
Probably benefits grow when you shift from simple emails to more complex ones. If you have to send quite a few emails per day and if you can do that quicker and/or better then there’s benefit in using the tools.
After all someone came up with an idea to do away something as simple as us writing ’BR, my name, my company’ in the end of the email - and pretty sure no one would give up that simple feature.
You still have to double check for mistakes. But even that takes less time than writing a 3-4 sentences semi-formal email from scratch.
In any case, your emails aren’t safe either, mate. Even if you don’t use AI, the person on the other side most likely will and your emails will be scanned just the same. Nobody is safe. Which is why this Thunderbird feature doesn’t excite me in the least.
Please signature the email with “Sincerely, <your name> and <name of the AI you used to write this email>”. Otherwise people get very suspicious when they meet you in persona and you come along differently than in your email.
You absolutely do not need AI in order to sound different in one context versus another. I mean, I highly doubt most people on Lemmy speak to their bosses in the exact way that they write their comments here.
Hell, I’d be surprised if they spoke to their friends and family the same way all the time (yes, I’m aware that you can generally be more lax around friends - but there’s a time and place for it, whereas comments on message boards tend to just be lax all the time).
That very concept has been around far longer than “AI” has.
Just about everyone can use help with sentence structure, like can you convey your point without help? Sure, but your point can be conveyed clearer and with less effort on your part.
It’s like the benefit of autocorrect you can reread your whole email a few times and double check a few questionable words to make sure everything is spelled perfectly or we can have this integrated tool that highlights words that should be fixed and lets you quickly fix those words.
For bullshit corporate emails I personally see very little negative in using a chatbot to make your words sound more professional besides just more of a brain rot
“AI” or as they were called for the longest time machine learning algorithms can do things like spell check and help with grammar.
The more modern algorithms that they started really calling AI can help format your ideas, can fix sentence structure, and can even translate into foreign languages
Email is probably the most useful place for AI as most of the ones we talk about today are really good at language formatting but don’t really have any intelligence
For example you can write an email cursing out your boss saying “as I fucking told you yesterday” and then ask the AI to rewrite your email in a professional tone so that it says “per my previous email” like sure you can obviously do that yourself but it’s a lot faster to word vomit your thoughts into a computer especially when it’s trivial work related garbage and save your mental energy for your personal time
Trying real hard not to be old man yelling at clouds, but have things gotten so bad people can no longer write a simple email without help with sentence structure?
I’m not sure if “things have gotten so bad”. The native English speakers who actually use this stuff are probably the ones who struggled with writing in school and have always been terrible at it. That’s obviously not everyone though, a lot of people are still competent enough to type their own emails.
I’m a software developer, not a writer or a salesperson, but I have to do sales to sell my software.
I can write a first draft of a sales email to get my ideas across and then have the AI look at it from a specific perspective I don’t have the skills in.
I dont just take whatever it says and hit send though, I have a conversation with it to tweak things i don’t like, remove things that I don’t think are needed or add things it missed.
Do this for 15 to 20 minutes and I end up with a much more polished email that won’t come across as AI slop with all the personal touches I did want to add.
Just a question on the value of time: If you can’t be bothered to write it, why should anyone bother to read it? Is it really that valuable of a message?
I do write something, and then work to refine it. Like I said, I spent 15 to 20 minutes on it after writing it.
Don’t tell that you need so much time to write an email 😳
Depends on the email. Sometimes it’s needed.
I can spend 10-20 min writing an email that basically says “no your idea is dumb and won’t work” to customers in such a way where by the end of it they agree with me.
It can take a bit of effort but with high stakes communication it’s needed.
If you’re just sending an email to your teacher or whatever it doesn’t really matter.
But that is the reason for templates, no?
Different customers are dumb in different ways and different customers have different personalities.
If I sent a template email I would probably offend most of my customers. Lol.
A sales email in a tricky situation due to how the potential client responded or writing a personalized cold call email? Of course!
Edit: As I learn and get better at sales I imagine it’d get quicker, but I’m learning while working with the AI.
Probably benefits grow when you shift from simple emails to more complex ones. If you have to send quite a few emails per day and if you can do that quicker and/or better then there’s benefit in using the tools.
After all someone came up with an idea to do away something as simple as us writing ’BR, my name, my company’ in the end of the email - and pretty sure no one would give up that simple feature.
We probably never sent as many emails as we do today, and there are bigger priorities. Wanna blame someone, blame the overly pompous corporate world.
Well I can’t wait for AI to write an email for a coworker that’s full of misinformation. I can’t wait to waste my time with that!
You still have to double check for mistakes. But even that takes less time than writing a 3-4 sentences semi-formal email from scratch.
In any case, your emails aren’t safe either, mate. Even if you don’t use AI, the person on the other side most likely will and your emails will be scanned just the same. Nobody is safe. Which is why this Thunderbird feature doesn’t excite me in the least.
Please signature the email with “Sincerely, <your name> and <name of the AI you used to write this email>”. Otherwise people get very suspicious when they meet you in persona and you come along differently than in your email.
You absolutely do not need AI in order to sound different in one context versus another. I mean, I highly doubt most people on Lemmy speak to their bosses in the exact way that they write their comments here.
Hell, I’d be surprised if they spoke to their friends and family the same way all the time (yes, I’m aware that you can generally be more lax around friends - but there’s a time and place for it, whereas comments on message boards tend to just be lax all the time).
That very concept has been around far longer than “AI” has.
Just about everyone can use help with sentence structure, like can you convey your point without help? Sure, but your point can be conveyed clearer and with less effort on your part.
It’s like the benefit of autocorrect you can reread your whole email a few times and double check a few questionable words to make sure everything is spelled perfectly or we can have this integrated tool that highlights words that should be fixed and lets you quickly fix those words.
For bullshit corporate emails I personally see very little negative in using a chatbot to make your words sound more professional besides just more of a brain rot