That's a really useful distinction to have explicitly articulated. It's also why plan mode feels like a super power. Research vs Generative AI are different: I'm going to use this.

I guess I was more referring to just using generative AI when learning new subjects and exploring new ideas. It's a really efficient tutor and/or sidekick who can either explain topics in more depth, find better sources, or help me explore new theories. I was thinking beyond just generating code, which is incredibly useful but only mildly interesting.

Well, the research is sometimes 10x quicker with AI assistant. But not always. Building phase is maybe 20-100% quicker for me at least, depending on the complexity of the project. Green field without 15 years of legacy that is never allowed to break is many times faster, always has been.

Okay, this is a pet peeve of mine, so forgive me if I come off a little curt here, but-- I disagree strongly with how this was phrased.

"Generative AI" isn't just an adjective applied to a noun, it's a specific marketing term that's used as the collective category for language models and image/video model -- things which "generate" content.

What I assume you mean is "I think <term> is misleading, and would prefer to make a distinction".

But how you actually phrased it reads as "<term> doesn't mean <accepted definition of the term>, but rather <definition I made up which contains only the subset of the original definition I dislike>. What you mean is <term made up on the spot to distinguish the 'good' subset of the accepted definition>"

I see this all the time in politics, and it muddies the discussion so much because you can't have a coherent conversation. (And AI is very much a political topic these days.) It's the illusion of nuance -- which actually just serves as an excuse to avoid engaging with the nuance that actually exists in the real category. (Research AI is generative AI; they are not cleanly separable categories which you can define without artificial/external distinctions.)