How has ChatGPT improved your life?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I hate it. It is ruining kids.

That’s what they said about the Internet…. That it would ruin books and libraries and reading, research skills, writing papers, etc…. and make kids all dumb.

And it did to a degree when students cited Wikipedia as an authoritative source.... and teachers began accepting it as such. Wikipedia has gotten better over the years, providing links in most of its entries, but many of these are paywalled. Likewise, digital publications can be stealth edited like Wikipedia.

If this is a WAPO intern, do better. This kind of research is fine initially much like Wikipedia can be a starting point, but get out there and interview people too. Garbage in, garbage out.

If this is PR team, tip of the hat. Garbage in, garbage out.

If this is an engineer, get off of the forum and go take a poetry class for fun and professional development. Garbage in, garbage out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I hate it. It is ruining kids.

That’s what they said about the Internet…. That it would ruin books and libraries and reading, research skills, writing papers, etc…. and make kids all dumb.

It has done all of that and more.

Anonymous wrote:I, my husband, and I use it pretty frequently. Here are our recent questions:

"I have a list of 80 words in Excel. Each word is in its own row. All words are in the same column. I need to convert the list of words to a single string of text that combines all of the words and places the word "OR" between each word, with a space on each side of the word "OR." Is there a quick way to do this in Excel?"

"Make an image of 2016 makeup." (this was mine, it was hilarious.)

[Image upload of a plant from our yard] "What plant is this?"

"Which mascaras are on my safe shopping list?" (I have skin allergies and using chatgpt is actually the easiest way to keep track of what I can and can't use.)

"How to rationalize the denominator when the denominator is a fourth root"

"the elements of establishing personal jurisdiction in a civil case in Texas."

"Create an obfuscated C# code example." (DS is really into coding and uses chatGPT all the time).

My son is really into AI and he uses the openAI API a lot. The API doesn't have the same restrictions that Chatgpt and the stuff he does on the API is pretty hilarious. Recently he had it write me a manipulative message to convince me to buy some apple home pods. It said things like "if you want the best for your son, you will buy an apple home pod" and "they're on sale for a limited time!" He has also gotten really good at making custom GPTs give up their prompts. Obviously none of this is necessary for a regular adult but it's really fun for an 11-year old.

I know other people who use ChatGPT in similar ways - someone I know, who is pretty reclusive, basically just "talks" to it all day, typing in her random thoughts and questions and getting feedback. I think it helps her digest information. To each their own! But personally I prefer to put a shorter and more search-like phase into Google.
This is going to sound judgey and I honestly don't mean it that way, but it makes me think of those co-workers and bosses who will think aloud for 5 minutes on the way to getting around to their actual question, which is often not the quesiton they opened with. My personality is to process quietly and then ask really narrow questions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I use it in leiu of google. it's very good at laying out things that you might want to consider, ti's not as helpful at making decisions, but Google is now a cesspool of sponsored links and SEO-optimized websites. ChatGPT is much more efficient.

Does ChatGPT still hallucinate or is it more reliable?

It will never be reliable because of the way it's trained. The danger is that people think it would ever be reliable.

If you want to write something that "sounds like" a particular style of writing, it's fine. If you want to digest a large body of information that is largely uncontroversial and consistent, fine. If you want it to do anything else, including understand controversial or nuanced topics, it will never be a good source.

It's given me a new internet wormhole in the same vein as Wikipedia when that first came out. I have the app on my phone which allows you to talk to it like you would Siri or Alexa. It's very...calming.

I know that it can make mistakes, but I usually ask things that don't require 100% accuracy. During the school lottery, I explained my rationale for picking certain schools and asked it to help me see my ex-wife's point of view on her thoughts. It did a good job helping me realize that I was wrong.

I upload photos sometimes and it helps me identify things like flowers, bugs, and types of military planes flying overhead. Not too long ago, my car wouldn't start. I described the problem and told it to ask clarifying questions. It narrowed down the problem for me and gave me step by step instructions on how to fix it. Before I started doing what it suggested, I asked it to cite sources for its suggestion. It gave me links to two different websites and a youtube video of the exact problem for my make and model.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I, my husband, and I use it pretty frequently. Here are our recent questions:

"I have a list of 80 words in Excel. Each word is in its own row. All words are in the same column. I need to convert the list of words to a single string of text that combines all of the words and places the word "OR" between each word, with a space on each side of the word "OR." Is there a quick way to do this in Excel?"

"Make an image of 2016 makeup." (this was mine, it was hilarious.)

[Image upload of a plant from our yard] "What plant is this?"

"Which mascaras are on my safe shopping list?" (I have skin allergies and using chatgpt is actually the easiest way to keep track of what I can and can't use.)

"How to rationalize the denominator when the denominator is a fourth root"

"the elements of establishing personal jurisdiction in a civil case in Texas."

"Create an obfuscated C# code example." (DS is really into coding and uses chatGPT all the time).

My son is really into AI and he uses the openAI API a lot. The API doesn't have the same restrictions that Chatgpt and the stuff he does on the API is pretty hilarious. Recently he had it write me a manipulative message to convince me to buy some apple home pods. It said things like "if you want the best for your son, you will buy an apple home pod" and "they're on sale for a limited time!" He has also gotten really good at making custom GPTs give up their prompts. Obviously none of this is necessary for a regular adult but it's really fun for an 11-year old.

Lawyer here. I wouldn't rely on ChatGPT for this. But I'm old and set in my ways with regard to legal research. I guess people are using it for this?

Oh you don't *rely* on it. ChatGPT hallucinates all the time. But it's an excellent place to get started, and with a question as simple as that, I am guessing it's more likely to be right than google is.

That said, Westlaw, LexisNexis, etc are already using AI. I would be surprised if law firms with big clients could stay competitive without incorporating AI in some way. Chat GPT won't be the vehicle but don't get too comfortable with the way you're practicing law.

I have heard of tools that will analyze all of a judges opinions, orders, etc. to identify case law he is most likely to cite or find persuasive. It will also help mimic the judges writing style. Its like a super charged “know your audience” tool.

I've been having it create workouts for me, grocery lists, recipes, and even research for work projects. You always have to double check and edit, but it's definitely a first draft starter. The more detailed you are in your request, the better your outcomes will be.

I have used it to make an itinerary for trips abroad. You can tweak - more outdoor adventure, museums, beach, rainy day, etc

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I use it in leiu of google. it's very good at laying out things that you might want to consider, ti's not as helpful at making decisions, but Google is now a cesspool of sponsored links and SEO-optimized websites. ChatGPT is much more efficient.

Interesting. Agree that google is not what it once was.

Something that's going to be important to remember is that one of the main reasons Google is not what it once was is that it started getting gamed. The "gaming" for AI chatbots thus far has mostly been limited to ensuring it gives answers politically acceptable in California, but this is going to change once SEO types really start figuring out how to inject their content into the training stream.