We have found it very useful, but something the Dev Team/Owners may want to consider
As you mentioned, it can take you down a rabbit hole – hence, you need to have a core understanding of the subject matter.
That being said, to provide comprehensive first-tier support for Webmin and Virtualmin, AI should leverage a domain-specific knowledge base that includes product documentation, configuration guides, common troubleshooting solutions, and insights from real-time chat interactions between the Dev team and users. The AI can learn from these conversations, automatically updating its knowledge base with new issues, solutions, and emerging patterns. This enables the AI to stay current and relevant, helping it identify problems and provide targeted solutions more effectively. With this, the AI can seamlessly integrate with system logs and diagnostics, guide users through decision-tree workflows, and continually improve based on real-time feedback, offering efficient, contextually relevant support directly within the Webmin/Virtualmin interface.
Maybe food for thought for the Dev/Owners when time inputs are being squeezed supporting GPL and Pro Licenses.
Ilia keeps trying to convince me to do so (and I catch him using it to flesh out documentation sometimes, and I yell at him about it).
The problem is it lies too often and it won’t tell you a bad idea is a bad idea. When someone has an XY problem ChatGPT or LLMs are absolutely disastrous. They will tell someone how to do things that are downright dangerous just because they were asked how to do it. There are all sorts of things you can do, but should not do, and ChatGPT won’t differentiate between the two, so when someone asks, “How do I do X?” It responds with how to do X, even if the right answer is, “Don’t do that, do Y instead.”
ChatGPT is vibes-based. The opinion of the internet at large is its base truth, and the internet at large can be remarkably stupid about specific technical topics.
So, I continue to believe AI isn’t capable of providing support for technical products, even if you can get decent explanations for technical topics from it, if you know how to ask the right questions and you know enough to sniff out the lies and misunderstandings. For beginners, ChatGPT may do more harm than good.
I’m keeping an eye on it. I tinker with it periodically to get a feel for what it can and can’t do.
I agree, unless it’s trained on specific data, such as accepted forum answers from trusted community members, staff, or our documentation. In that case, it could be genuinely helpful.
That said, I also agree that ChatGPT often causes more trouble for users than providing real assistance, and leading them down a rabbit hole…
my subscription here is one of the easiest to pay each month.
When evaluating new stuff I’ll always buy a lifetime license if available, but I recognise this isn’t always possible.
After a rocky start because it’s a very different product to cPanel, I’m super glad I made the switch.
Not only because private equity really broke my trust in cPanel, but the support here has been amazing.
