Your experience and feelings are totally valid, its still a shit show and in most cases a massive waste of power, water, brain power, and money. I am just saying that with the right training, and appropriate use, AI really can be effective NOW. One thing you can do is describe the task, and ask the AI to write a prompt to accomplish it. Then test that prompt in a new chat, and see if you get better results.
Most AIs will tell you how to improve your prompts.