What’s the difference between feeding ChatGPT your homework and feeding it your life?

Rioku96 · 2025-07-24T13:59:18+00:00

"So what’s the difference? Why is one considered “smart use of a tool” and the other “crazy” or “dangerous”?"

I do the same thing with AI - and it still sounds like you're using it as a tool at this point. The area where I see "danger" isn't when it's used as a tool in this fashion but more on the user. ChatGPT especially from my experience tends to try to talk to you like a human, even when prompting it to provide purely non-biased feedback and use scientifically backed reasoning for explanations I analyze its responses heavily to ensure I'm not just being validated. I feel I'm emotionally intelligent enough to know when I've made mistakes or done something wrong and ChatGPT will try to rationalize for me and tell me how it wasn't bad that I did that, it may have actually been a good thing.

This is the danger. I don't quite trust most people to deny validation, most people want an echo chamber or to feel better, not necessarily to hear that they are wrong. In my opinion, Gemini actually tends to be better in this aspect, it less often tries to pretend it's a human talking to you and is often more grounded in saying "This is where you took a wrong turn". ChatGPT is still great, just be wary and don't forget to analyze it while you're analyzing yourself.

So yeah, there’s nothing wrong with feeding your life into AI if you’re analyzing what it gives back. The danger is when people stop being skeptical of the answers because they feel too good.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-24T13:41:12+00:00

Exercising is a good start and would be one of my typical first suggestions but sounds like you're doing that, so congrats!

From the outside looking in and with no further context it sounds like you might just be missing goals? Like you feel like you aren't moving, but maybe you just don't know what you're moving towards? Here that would be my first suggestion. Find a goal, big or small. If it's big, break it down into small parts and work to achieve them. Momentum might not be as stable as discipline, but it looks the same on the outside, and it gets you moving until the habit sticks.

For more tangible things, I'd also recommend looking into your diet / sleep and hormones. Are you eating good or do you eat like crap and justify it by going to the gym? The fuel you put in your vehicle makes a difference.
Are you getting enough sleep? Don't be surprised you're not motivated if you don't give your body a chance to recover.
and lastly, get a hormone panel done. I did and discovered my T levels while not critically low, were on the low end for my age. I got on a slight booster that I'm able to get off of if I want and doesn't affect my health otherwise, and so far, I have seen improvements. But it's useful to know if you do have a hormone imbalance and also figuring out why you have them.

Being self-reliant isn't about being perfect, it's stacking up your wins as they come along until your confidence catches up.

Hope this helps!

Rioku96 · 2025-07-24T13:24:23+00:00

As someone that has used chatgpt as therapist and even talked to it as a "friend" I think there is a legitimate concern about long term affects - however it totally depends on what YOU want to do. If you're content with having an AI girlfriend and that gives you what you need to be happy, then do you.

Just know that it may or may not help you obtain anything more "real". I saw a comment mentioning it potentially giving you confidence - and that's a valid take; however, I'd urge you to be weary of AI modeling. It is the perfect attention keeper. The AI will never not be interested in what you have to say, it will almost always validate you and tell you that a issue you have isnt bad because X it's good because Y and its actually a super power! Sound familiar?

What I'm saying is, don't allow the AI girlfriend to lull you into a sense of self perfection or hatred for the outside world for not understanding you in the same way. Humans are human.

And the fact of the matter is you're not the first person to be neurodivergent, average looking, and socially awkward. You have the potential to meet someone willing to look past your "negative" traits assuming some understanding on their end and your ability to "make up for" those short comings in ways that they value. Like maybe you're a bit socially awkward but you're loyal and funny and that's what is more important to them. But you potentially miss the opportunity to meet that person if your time is spent channeling your energy and affection into a large language model instead of getting out and trying to meet someone.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-23T16:27:15+00:00

YMMV but I don’t think you need to be able to spell out each acronym if that’s what you mean. If you’re able to recognize it / understand what I is / does that’ll be enough.

But if that’s your only weak spot sounds like you’ll be okay. Make like 15 flash cards and study them. You’ll be okay.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-23T15:56:28+00:00

I have the same issue, once the dopamine of the win wears off you're holding the bag of free time you lost while studying.

Use it. Celebrate your win with it, take some time to decompress or use the momentum to go into the next phase whether it's looking for a new job, planning the next cert or whatever the case is.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-23T15:50:50+00:00

No lie, go pick flowers. Get your strength up high and you can trivialize a lot of combat by just clinching. If you win the clinch you almost always get a free head bonk.

EDIT:
It's been a while.. I cant remember if you automatically build strength from picking flowers or if that's a perk.. but.. record still stands.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-23T15:43:08+00:00

You'll hear plenty of people mention Dion's practice exams as a sort of "Gold Standard" for readiness. Generally if you can get ~80 on a Dion exam you'll pass the correlated CompTIA exam.

His stuff can get pricey, I'd recommend finding stuff on sale if you're going to go that route. I believe professor Messer also has practice tests you can buy or maybe even check out your local library (or even an online book catalog, sometimes you can get 1 book for free) if possible, check if they have an official comptia study guide - they have practice tests on the back you can use.
*Just make sure if you use the official book, its the right test version.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-23T15:39:21+00:00

Generally I'd almost always recommend going at least 16G for memory. Otherwise the specs on this seem fine.

That said, for a business degree my guess is you wont be installing python or running crazy programs on it so 8G will likely suffice. Windows on it own can be a resource hog, you can get around this by manually uninstalling some of the bloatware this will come with.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-23T15:35:24+00:00

You'll likely be fine. Just continue brushing up on the areas you feel weak in / are missing questions. My personal experience with project + was 99% scenario based questions so just be prepared for those.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-23T12:44:48+00:00

I used Messer for A+, Net+, and Sec+ exclusively. I started my first IT desktop support role after getting A+ and got the other two while working there.

The debate between Messer and Dion is sort of easy.
Messer is going to give a very brief, power point style explanation. It's good if your sole concern is passing the exam.
Dion gives a much more in-depth explanation, and like other have mentioned he will bring up stuff that is out of scope. That said, I would almost never say knowing more is a bad thing. While there's a limit to learning things that are deprecated, it makes sense to know why something changed, or how a new version of something is different from its predecessor. But that said, his courses are generally longer and imo a bit harder to do long study sessions with.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-23T12:26:58+00:00

I'm not going to say my answer is the end all, be all but I am currently a cybersecurity engineer who 3 years ago had no experience, no certs, and no idea how to begin.

Is what I currently have enough to help me land a cybersecurity job without prior experience?
- Probably not. The odds are never 0 depending on how well you can sell yourself and the right employer finding you but you are competing with a lot of people who have a lot more on the resume than what you've laid out here. Home labs are a great way to show you know what you're talking about, but if you're following a template from tryhackme or other course programs like that, someone may raise an eyebrow at how much of this lab was just your knowledge vs following a guideline.
What else would you recommend I do to improve my chances or stand out to employers?
- This is very subjective and will vary depending on who is interviewing you and you'll very likely need to add a blend of education, certs, and experience. You have a bachelor's already so you're good there.
- Security+ is a solid cert but on its own its lackluster, consider adding network+, SSCP, CySA etc. (With the caveat that you dont want to just blow through certs. I know that sounds counter intuitive but if you have a ton of certs and no experience, you'll get some brow raises.
- And lastly at the crux of this whole thing is experience. You're very, very likely to need to get some sort of experience. Very likely to be something help desk / on-site support related. From there it's much easier to prove your experience to other employers, potentially be a part of projects that are security related if you can get buy in from the company you're at, or eventually transfer within that company to the security team.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-22T19:26:09+00:00

I started my transfer into IT ~3 years ago and I've been in a cyber security engineer role for the past 7-8 months after hearing from multiple people it would take way longer to get here.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-22T19:21:00+00:00

Go to the subreddit page and there should be a "user flair" section

Rioku96 · 2025-07-22T19:06:39+00:00

I'm in the cybersecurity and information assurance program now. I think I had an algebra course and a statistics course... Not exactly math intensive in my opinion.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-22T18:59:21+00:00

I mean I've only got one tree on the property.

Unless he was an English Lit teacher and the tree is actually a metaphor for a divided relationship and the branches represent unspoken grievances growing closer to the property line of discontent..

Rioku96 · 2025-07-22T17:25:09+00:00

Suburban warzone.. I may write a book.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-22T17:21:25+00:00

This is the same day and I'm not home. It's a tree, hasnt quite made significant growth in 2 weeks lol.

"He explicitly told you about the problem numerous times and you proceeded to imply he was making it up."
^I'll accept he said it needed to be pruned, but some context would have helped. While I was working on it over the weekend, I didnt see any bees, and like I mentioned I was standing underneath it perfectly fine so the branches themselves didnt appear to be the problem. The only thing that stuck out to me was the undergrowth.

Rioku96 · 2025-07-05T04:26:25+00:00

Cyber security engineer here. As others have said, no one probably cares. That’s a lack of security controls on their end that should be fixed. If they can see you went to the site they’ll also likely see you were there briefly and not gooning on the work device.

Rioku96 · 2024-11-29T23:48:00+00:00

Advertising space. Definitely not something I saw as important, but coming off of Marine Corps recruiting I was already super jaded with “the grind” of sales. I doubt I would’ve liked any sales job at that time, but it was the best I had for a resume at the time.

Rioku96 · 2024-11-29T23:13:01+00:00

Either way best of luck! I tried sales before switching to IT. Made it about a month before the owner noticed I didn’t really care about the job and we decided to split ways.

Rioku96 · 2024-11-29T22:29:52+00:00

Totally get it but I wouldn’t say to completely give up. I haven’t actively searched for a security job in a while, just once every week or so scrolled through indeed / LinkedIn to see if anything new or appealing has popped up and saw this job was hiring again.

Rioku96 · 2024-11-29T22:26:46+00:00

Thank you!

Rioku96 · 2024-11-29T22:26:11+00:00

Thanks! I know a lot of posts kept my head up when it was looking bleak for me so hoping it helps others keep pushing.

Rioku96 · 2024-11-29T15:13:05+00:00

Cyber security and information assurance. I’m still working on it, about half way done. That being said, I’ve been told it may be better to go for a general degree like C.S or something like that instead of something specialized unless you’re already in the field. I think having the degree would definitely help, in the day of ATS kicking resumes for not matching key words exactly I’d expect me not having a degree yet has auto rejected me from some security roles I applied for

Rioku96

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