It feels delightful when technology helps you do something useful or cool.

It’s fantastic to point your phone camera at an unfamiliar tree and see that it’s an eastern redbud. Maybe you remember the first time you pulled up Google Maps directions or summoned an Uber, and it seemed like wizardry.

The hottest technology now, a type of artificial intelligence that generates humanlike text or images, can sometimes give you that immediate “aha” jolt. But often it doesn’t.

I’ve had the experience — maybe you have, too — of feeling underwhelmed when I’ve asked ChatGPT for help with vacation planning. I recently couldn’t remember the name of a pastry and tried describing it to three different AI chatbots. It didn’t work. (The pastry was a frangipane tart.)

Disappointments like those don’t mean AI is useless. It can be handy. But there is often a mismatch between the reality of AI and how companies encourage you to think of their AI as magical brains that know and do everything.

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