How To Start Using ChatGPT Correctly
ChatGPT is not Google. It's not going to write a book for you. It's (probably) not going to take your job - at least not yet. This post includes 6 ways you can use right now to improve your life.
We’re getting close to the two year anniversary of when ChatGPT went mainstream. Of course, the tech community probably saw this coming years ago but until late summer early Autumn of 2023, ChatGPT was niche.
Roll forward 18 months and it’s about to take over the planet and destroy the human race.
Well, that escalated quickly.
Indeed. But hold it right there. Until I see AI robots parading down my street rounding up everyone who was rude to Siri I’m not overly concerned. In the interim period between the birth of AI - thank you Sam Altman - and the AI apocalypse we have an opportunity.
But what exactly is that opportunity
This is where I think a lot of people are losing the plot and hence are missing the massive opportunity right at your fingertips.
It’s easy to put together a list of 100 risks AI brings and it’s true there are risks out there. The prevalence of AI written essays in schools, endless social media posts automated by these tools and of course the growing risk of video fakes that topple governments. Vigilance is clearly needed and it will be for governments and organisations to step up and deal with these as best they can.
As individuals we have to try and separate ourselves from the apocalypse that will probably never happen. We can campaign for change of course - as we should as good citizens - but ultimately there is very little we can do.
ChatGPT is not there to (just) replace Google
Of course it could replace Google and many people are now using it as a google replacement.
We used to sit in front of the TV, a well known actor would appear and the question of how they are would inevitably be asked. In the olden days we would pull up Google or Safari and type in the question.
Now, the first thing we say is “let’s ask ChatGPT”. And of course ChatGPT will oblige with (usually) the correct answer plus a little bit of side info and for some reason it has also started asking if I’d like that in a printable PDF that I can pin on my wall - maybe that’s a little dark AI humour there. Who knows.
But asking ChatGPT these inane question is a little bit of a waste really.
It’s a little like buying a Lamborghini and only using to take a few bags of garden waste to the tip and the weekly food shop two blocks down the road.
The real benefits of ChatGPT another such AIs very much lie elsewhere.
So let’s explore a few here.
So where are the opportunities?
Firstly, you need a mindset shift.
As I said above, stop thinking about ChatGPT as a question and answer machine. You have at your fingertips one of the most powerful tools the human race has ever seen.
The second thing you will have already noticed, which has been the case since the dawn of this AI era, is that it doesn’t come with a manual. There’s no menu upon opening the program - no button that says “write me an essay”, “draw me a picture of an elephant squashing a car” or advice for what to do when your teenage daughter turns into a monster.
Nothing.
All you get when you open ChatGPT is this screen. Not exactly inspiring.
And that’s the actual beauty with ChatGPT. You need an imagination.
So many of the scare stories with AI have been around it taking away creativity from humans.
And of course it might in the long run - no one really knows where this is going - but to make the best use of ChatGPT you need to get creative about what you could use it for - experiment, iterate with it and see what it spits out.
Here’s that elephant we talked about earlier.
If you want to create some interesting pictures the tool clearly has a use here but I admit this is still a rather silly application for the technology.
You can almost feel ChatGPT giving you a teenage style eye roll when you hit return on that prompt.
So lets look at some useful applications to get your ideas flowing…
Becoming “AI first” is a good mindset to have.
Not dissimilar to my point above - “Let’s ask ChatGPT” but more “Let’s work with ChatGPT”. We must move towards seeing these tools as collaborators that we work alongside rather than have them work for us (or us work for them!).
Think of ChatGPT as your personal AI assistant along the lines of a very intelligent intern that will never judge you, get bored of you or tell you how ridiculous you are being - unless you tell it to that is. We will come to that another time….
6 Ideas for using ChatGPT properly today
I’ve built up a bank of ideas for using these tools over the past year of using this tool in anger but here are a few to get your create juices flowing.
Journaling using handwritten notes
You can create prompts that ask you the usual journal type questions and these can be really useful. If you do this day after day in a ChatGPT project area the algorithm will be able to draw on multiple days of entries when asking you questions. This also allows you to ask questions for advice based on this too.
But many people prefer to journal on pen and paper. ChatGPT now allows you to do this. Journal away in the normal way you do on paper and then upload a picture of that journal page to ChatGPT.
It’s amazing - I think I can understand my hand writing better than me now!
Helping you build a brand based off one photograph
Need help creating a brand for a business or for your newsletter?
Upload a picture that encapsulates the vibe and colours you are looking for. This could be a picture of a mood board for example.
Then ask it to create a prompt based off that picture which will apply that brand feel to any concept you then throw at it.Editorial help
Written an article that you’d like a professional editor to check and offer advice on?
Now you can.
Use a prompt that asks ChatGPT to become a profession editor and ask to provide honest feedback on your writing. Ask for suggestions for how to improve the writing. (this gets past ChatGPT’s instinct to say that everything you do is wonderful! Very annoying at times.
Building a personal Exec Team for your life
This is a nice one to use as a ChatGPT project.
Set up the prompt to respond with advice as though you were a mentor in the field of the question being asked. Ask it it have different personas based on the question. You can even ask it to respond as though it were someone famous you respect.It’s just like having that person at your fingertips 24/7.
Exploring the suitability of a house for solar panels
This one may sound niche but I tried it on the house we are hoping to buy and it worked.
I uploaded the pictures and layout diagram of the house. It then estimated the roof size and even the aspect of the house based on the shadows cast in the garden - admittedly it got this a little wrong but good try!
It then worked through a few ideas to refine the system I will need and offered to provide a summary I could use in discussions with suppliers.
Vibe coding
Ah, vibe coding.
Not that long ago coding was the one skill we were teaching all our children. Now, ChatGPT is starting to take its place.
You still need to know what you’re doing to some extent but coding in natural language is here - otherwise known as vibe coding.
Think of the barriers this breaks down for those people who have an idea for a new website or app. These people can now just have a go and see where they get to.
Prompt engineering is really a thing
The key to all this is your prompting.
A one-line prompt into ChatGPT will create a bland response that is no use to anyone - it needs to have nuance and specificity that brings out the collaboration between your ideas and experience and the skills of the AI.
There is a real skill to writing these prompts. If you’d find it useful I will covering these plus some downloadable prompts in future newsletters.
Would you find this useful?
So what’s your most imaginative use of ChatGPT?
Feel free to drop your best one in the chat below.
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Martin
Brilliant. We need to use ChatGPT to augment intelligence, not replace it .
Nice article Martin, but I had some trouble understanding what you meant in number 4. The sentence structure wasn't of a quality that I could get the gist of the meaning. However, the uses are of ChatGPT are quite ingenious.