4 ms·

This is a good example for what ChatGPT does: It makes shit up and presents it in a compelling format. You should always keep this in mind when trying to get in

This is a good example for what ChatGPT does: It makes shit up and presents it in a compelling format. You should always keep this in mind when trying to get information on a subject you are not familiar with yourself. I use ChatGPT daily, but always specify the information I want formatted. (In bullet points, a table or for example a news article.)

scottmcdot 4y ago
Can you please share what you use it for daily?
- creativenolo 4y ago
  Proofreading, re-writing, code snippets, basic general information on a topic, boilerplate text, summarising. Makes a pretty good assistant.
- Veen 4y ago
  I use it for first drafts of some less demanding writing work. My workflow is more or less research with Bing Chat for summarisation and key point extraction, then feeding the results to GPT-4 so it uses the research as context for a first draft. Then the longest phase is editing, fact-checking, adding new information as required, etc. I’ve also created vector indexes for large documentation sites I work with and used langchain so I can query them, get sources, and have ChatGPT write summaries. Honestly, it doesn’t save a huge amount of time because then research phase was always the most time consuming to begin with: I still have to read and understand the material. Of course, that’s only possible if the context content exists in the first place. If not, then it’s back to the old-fashioned technique of figuring things out for myself and writing about them.
  - isaacfrond 4y ago
    I'm very interested in this work flow. Would you mind sharing the ChatGPT prompts that you use? Thanks.
- anoncow 4y ago
  Not OP but I am using it to finally shape my blog into what I always wanted. It still takes me up to 100 hours to finish an article (sometimes more than what I used to spend on an article before ChatGPT) but my articles are so much better and the research process is so much more insightful and fun.
- flangola7 4y ago
  GPT-4 literally writes software while I sleep.
- jasonjmcghee 4y ago
  It's great at little tedious tasks, as long as you review its work. Like converting a code sample from one language to another, or one format to another (e.g. raw css to object syntax), or complex replaces where the regex gets tricky- also great at writing simple docs. Also use it for micro tutorials if it's on a topic older than a couple years old.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Or converting unstructured (or semi-structured) text to structured format. My most recent example with GPT 3.5: copy-pasting a piece of a website with a list of dates and events, and prepending it with "Please rewrite it into ICAL format". https://cloud.typingmind.com/share/dc9b6a87-cd00-43e9-a7ea-6a852b3e42d0 https://cloud.typingmind.com/share/dc9b6a87-cd00-43e9-a7ea-6... The result I then could paste into a text editor, save as .ical, and import straight to my calendar.
- Toutouxc 4y ago
  I use it daily, sort of like a professional site/forum where someone immediately answers any question you may have. It may not be 100 % accurate, just like real people, but it's instant and personalized. (And in my experience GPT-4 is just spot on for anything a beginner might ask.) It's like training wheels for anything. How do I set up some backup infrastructure for my home server? How does Btrfs handle read errors? How do I cook X if I don't have ingredient Y? What's the correct syntax for this command? How to analyse and interpret these measurements from this vermicomposting experiment (helping my girlfriend with statistics)? How do noise cancelling headphones REALLY work? Is it okay to have my samba.conf set like this (it wasn't)?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    What was the accuracy and the difference between googling the question ?
    - Toutouxc 4y ago
      I can't say anything specific about the accuracy, other than that it's good enough, but the difference between asking GPT-4 and googling the same question is night and day. And that's comparing it to Kagi, with my own search filters with boosted wikipedia, stackoverflow and generally scientific sources. Do you know the feeling that you want to ask a specific question about a specific, technical aspect of something, and you wish you could just tell the search engine somehow that you're just not interested in hand-wavy popular science average Joe half-incorrect answers? And if you actually find the one good answer on page 14 of some god-forgotten thread from 2006, the question differs in some tiny but important detail from what you're after? Well that feeling doesn't exist with GPT-4. So far we've always been able to come up with something, together. If you don't like the first answer, you ask more questions. You can dig deeper. You can tell it what your guess is, what your intuition tells you about the problem, where exactly your uncertainty lies, e.g.: You: I don't understand phenomenon X. GPT: Oh that's easy, X is just [parrots wikipedia]. You: That's fine, but I don't understand how X differs from Y, they sound like the same phenomena. GPT: I see why you'd think that, but Y and X actually differ in this detail called Foo that makes all the difference. You: I still don't get it, compare Foo to something similar that I know from normal life. GPT: Okay, so Foo is like an elephant who's too large to drive a car. You: Ooh, I get it now.
- danielrpa 4y ago
  Not daily, but often: questions about history. GPT3/4 demonstrates good historical insight and the ability to make nuanced arguments. For instance, I like the mention of some of Reagan's "liberal" policies in this answer: "Can Ronald Reagan be considered a liberal? Ronald Reagan is generally considered a conservative politician. He was a member of the Republican Party and served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Reagan's political philosophy was based on a belief in limited government, individual freedom, and free markets. He advocated for a reduction in government regulation and taxes, increased defense spending, and a strong national defense. He was also a strong supporter of traditional social values, including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. While Reagan did take some positions that could be considered more liberal, such as his support for amnesty for undocumented immigrants and his advocacy for the abolition of nuclear weapons, overall his policies and beliefs aligned more with conservative ideology. Therefore, he is not typically considered a liberal." Now ask this to a human. You will get a polarized answer "No, Reagan is a conservative icon!!!!!!" lacking any nuance.
  - wildrhythms 4y ago
    'Considered a liberal' by who? ChatGPT doesn't tell us. I only mention this because the academic definition of the term 'liberal' is very different from the colloquial understanding.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    > Now ask this to a human. You will get a polarized answer "No, Reagan is a conservative icon!!!!!!" lacking any nuance. Depends on the human. Ask a political science professor and the result will probably be pretty similar, plus an earful on the evolution of the two major US political parties' positions since the 1980s and how that complicates these kinds of retrospective judgements.

scottmcdot 4y ago

Can you please share what you use it for daily?

creativenolo 4y ago
Proofreading, re-writing, code snippets, basic general information on a topic, boilerplate text, summarising. Makes a pretty good assistant.
Veen 4y ago
I use it for first drafts of some less demanding writing work. My workflow is more or less research with Bing Chat for summarisation and key point extraction, then feeding the results to GPT-4 so it uses the research as context for a first draft. Then the longest phase is editing, fact-checking, adding new information as required, etc. I’ve also created vector indexes for large documentation sites I work with and used langchain so I can query them, get sources, and have ChatGPT write summaries. Honestly, it doesn’t save a huge amount of time because then research phase was always the most time consuming to begin with: I still have to read and understand the material. Of course, that’s only possible if the context content exists in the first place. If not, then it’s back to the old-fashioned technique of figuring things out for myself and writing about them.
- isaacfrond 4y ago
  I'm very interested in this work flow. Would you mind sharing the ChatGPT prompts that you use? Thanks.
anoncow 4y ago
Not OP but I am using it to finally shape my blog into what I always wanted. It still takes me up to 100 hours to finish an article (sometimes more than what I used to spend on an article before ChatGPT) but my articles are so much better and the research process is so much more insightful and fun.
flangola7 4y ago
GPT-4 literally writes software while I sleep.
jasonjmcghee 4y ago
It's great at little tedious tasks, as long as you review its work. Like converting a code sample from one language to another, or one format to another (e.g. raw css to object syntax), or complex replaces where the regex gets tricky- also great at writing simple docs. Also use it for micro tutorials if it's on a topic older than a couple years old.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  Or converting unstructured (or semi-structured) text to structured format. My most recent example with GPT 3.5: copy-pasting a piece of a website with a list of dates and events, and prepending it with "Please rewrite it into ICAL format". https://cloud.typingmind.com/share/dc9b6a87-cd00-43e9-a7ea-6a852b3e42d0 https://cloud.typingmind.com/share/dc9b6a87-cd00-43e9-a7ea-6... The result I then could paste into a text editor, save as .ical, and import straight to my calendar.
Toutouxc 4y ago
I use it daily, sort of like a professional site/forum where someone immediately answers any question you may have. It may not be 100 % accurate, just like real people, but it's instant and personalized. (And in my experience GPT-4 is just spot on for anything a beginner might ask.) It's like training wheels for anything. How do I set up some backup infrastructure for my home server? How does Btrfs handle read errors? How do I cook X if I don't have ingredient Y? What's the correct syntax for this command? How to analyse and interpret these measurements from this vermicomposting experiment (helping my girlfriend with statistics)? How do noise cancelling headphones REALLY work? Is it okay to have my samba.conf set like this (it wasn't)?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- moonchrome 4y ago
  What was the accuracy and the difference between googling the question ?
  - Toutouxc 4y ago
    I can't say anything specific about the accuracy, other than that it's good enough, but the difference between asking GPT-4 and googling the same question is night and day. And that's comparing it to Kagi, with my own search filters with boosted wikipedia, stackoverflow and generally scientific sources. Do you know the feeling that you want to ask a specific question about a specific, technical aspect of something, and you wish you could just tell the search engine somehow that you're just not interested in hand-wavy popular science average Joe half-incorrect answers? And if you actually find the one good answer on page 14 of some god-forgotten thread from 2006, the question differs in some tiny but important detail from what you're after? Well that feeling doesn't exist with GPT-4. So far we've always been able to come up with something, together. If you don't like the first answer, you ask more questions. You can dig deeper. You can tell it what your guess is, what your intuition tells you about the problem, where exactly your uncertainty lies, e.g.: You: I don't understand phenomenon X. GPT: Oh that's easy, X is just [parrots wikipedia]. You: That's fine, but I don't understand how X differs from Y, they sound like the same phenomena. GPT: I see why you'd think that, but Y and X actually differ in this detail called Foo that makes all the difference. You: I still don't get it, compare Foo to something similar that I know from normal life. GPT: Okay, so Foo is like an elephant who's too large to drive a car. You: Ooh, I get it now.
danielrpa 4y ago
Not daily, but often: questions about history. GPT3/4 demonstrates good historical insight and the ability to make nuanced arguments. For instance, I like the mention of some of Reagan's "liberal" policies in this answer: "Can Ronald Reagan be considered a liberal? Ronald Reagan is generally considered a conservative politician. He was a member of the Republican Party and served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Reagan's political philosophy was based on a belief in limited government, individual freedom, and free markets. He advocated for a reduction in government regulation and taxes, increased defense spending, and a strong national defense. He was also a strong supporter of traditional social values, including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. While Reagan did take some positions that could be considered more liberal, such as his support for amnesty for undocumented immigrants and his advocacy for the abolition of nuclear weapons, overall his policies and beliefs aligned more with conservative ideology. Therefore, he is not typically considered a liberal." Now ask this to a human. You will get a polarized answer "No, Reagan is a conservative icon!!!!!!" lacking any nuance.
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  'Considered a liberal' by who? ChatGPT doesn't tell us. I only mention this because the academic definition of the term 'liberal' is very different from the colloquial understanding.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > Now ask this to a human. You will get a polarized answer "No, Reagan is a conservative icon!!!!!!" lacking any nuance. Depends on the human. Ask a political science professor and the result will probably be pretty similar, plus an earful on the evolution of the two major US political parties' positions since the 1980s and how that complicates these kinds of retrospective judgements.