Can’t speak for everyone else but I almost exclusively use it for what you mentioned:
> when exploring new solutions and "unknown territory"
If it’s something I have no idea how to do I might describe the problem and just look at the code it spits out; not even copy pasting but just reading for a basic idea.
> how do you compare it with "regular search" via Google/Bing
Much worse if there’s a blog post or example in documentation that’s exactly what I’m looking for, but, if it’s something novel, much better.
An example:
Recently asked how I could convert pressure and temperature data to “skew T” coordinates for a meteorological plot. Not something easy to Google, and the answers the AI gave were slightly wrong, but it gave me a foot in the door.
This is also where I've kind of ended up with it, I've also noticed that when I was at one point using it everyday, I'm opening it less and less, maybe a few times a week and recently cancelled my subscription. It's still pretty useful for exploritory stuff, boilerplate and sometimes it can give you a hint on debugging. Everything else I can write faster and more correctly myself.
> when exploring new solutions and "unknown territory"
If it’s something I have no idea how to do I might describe the problem and just look at the code it spits out; not even copy pasting but just reading for a basic idea.
> how do you compare it with "regular search" via Google/Bing
Much worse if there’s a blog post or example in documentation that’s exactly what I’m looking for, but, if it’s something novel, much better.
An example:
Recently asked how I could convert pressure and temperature data to “skew T” coordinates for a meteorological plot. Not something easy to Google, and the answers the AI gave were slightly wrong, but it gave me a foot in the door.