Chat GPT is amazing

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I know AI can be scary but I've struggled with something for over 30 years and last night chat gpt framed it for me in a way that years of therapy never has and it's given me peace.
It's fabulous.

No point to this post, just wanted to say!

No. Im dyslexic.

@TheMimsy yes there can be issues with ChatGPT due to some users and I’m not sure how they can work that out but their has to be a way with the coding. If you ask it straight out about suicide it doesn’t encourage or support it.

Yes, sometimes I read articles which almost make it sound like people are saying "hi ChatGPT I'm feeling a bit down :(" and it's just straight up replying with "kill yourself" - it really isn't like that at all. You have to go to some effort.

To me the danger of ChatGPT in a therapy context is more subtle - it reflects back opinions and agrees with the user with everything they say, which for some people has the result of keeping them in a solo spiral where they never get any independent sense-checking of their worldview from other people.

It is ideally used in exactly the way you and a couple of PP describe, "give me some ideas for something I can go do in the real world", rather than just spiralling inwards.

Up till recently I used to think that ChatGPT was a waste of time.

Then I actually found a use for it: I use it to learn languages.

It’s like having a 24/7 tutor who never gets bored of correcting your mistakes or explaining a grammar rule for the 50th time. I don’t use it to tell me the answers, I still want to use my brain.

I think we can either let it take over our critical thinking skills and put our brains on the back burner, or we can use it to enhance our lives.

Gen Z onwards will have brains like mush and no ability to summarise or think critically. It’s not great at all.

Teachers are often told to use AI to reduce their workload so I asked it to generate me a maths worksheet and it produced the most absolute pile of shit you have ever seen. Not only did it not save me time, it was a waste of my time.

I know of a teacher who uses it to write reports. I know that it will probably save them time, but I was quite shocked as it just seems so... impersonal!

It definitely has its uses, even if more as a starting point to direct you to things to look into further, rather than definitive answers. The main advantage is being able to get tailored information out of it. I have used it for financial information, for diet and nutrition information and for shopping for a new car.

It has designed my garden. I moved into a new build house which had nothing but a patch of weeds/grass. I have no experience in gardening so I didn’t know anything about what sorts of plants would grow well in certain areas, what process I needed to use get it all done, what time of year I should do it. I have a very small garden, and for something bigger I probably would have called in an expert to do it, but for my small area it wasn’t worth it.

Currently using it for DD who is in Year 11 to choose subjects for next year. It’s so helpful to be able to find out in seconds “x degree at x university requires x for entry.” Of course there are other ways of finding out this information but this is the quickest way that I can find.

@TappyGilmorequestions like “what are the entry requirements for this course” are exactly the kind of question where chatGTP often gives a plausible but wrong answer. It doesn’t know the difference between this years course and last years and the one with a similar name at a different university. You need to double check all these things so using chatGTP doesn’t save time. It just gives you more checking work to do.

Yes, I said I used it as a starting point, not as a definitive answer. It’s helpful to have everything in one place to be able to think “this is something I would like to know more about” or “oh no I’m actually not interested in that”. For a Year 11 child we only need a rough idea not an exact answer, as things might have changed again by the time she is applying to uni.

Edited to add - and my experience is that it definitely does know the difference between different courses.

It rewrote my cv for me, I'll take stuff out and put my own slant on it but it's much better than what I had which I hadn't changed in about 10 years.

I use it for work as well. It helps me prioritise my inbox, and worded my objectives in a better way than I could (I waffle).

It really is amazing. As long as you use it alongside critical thinking it's absolutely brilliant.

Yes, until it encourages lost and lonely people to suicide. Such a case on BBC only yesterday.

Have got along very well without it for 61 years, thanks.

I use it for writing student feedback within my role. For example 'please write 500 words about Sue. Refer to her strong work ethic, attention to detail and strong team spirit. Comment positively on areas for development such as planning before challenging meetings' - I've used it so much now it knows my writing style. I see no issue with this - I obviously read the text and check it but it takes 5 minutes to write something that would have taken me 20. Not impersonal as it's still my feedback.

It's not even AI, it's an inept pattern matching program

People like it because it also serves as an ego stroking agreement machine

That's when it isn't telling people to top themselves

You have a damned nerve charging students for that.

It has totally transformed my business. I love it.

I’ve found it really useful for planning travel, also recipes and how many calories and protein I should be eating. We call it my new mate in our house “I’ll just ask my mate”

We use it as a tool at work. We need to write hundreds of 200 word product descriptions which is enormously time consuming (not to mention brain draining) for a human, but it can produce them in seconds. It takes a lot of checking though, often it’s pulled out of date or incorrect information. Checking takes maybe 10 minutes per piece, whereas writing them from scratch can take an hour.

To add it’s not done anyone out of a job, it just means that the person responsible for product descriptions has more time to do other more engaging things within the team too.

I’ve never used it for anything personal. Can’t get my head around asking it for relationship or parenting advice, for example.

I’m in the love it camp. As others have said, it’s far from perfect but used wisely and with critical judgement it is amazingly helpful.

I work in a role that would have had secretarial support years ago. Getting Chat GPT to draft the first phase of things and do basic research means I can work more effectively.

I haven't used it much, but think it is great for summarising large amounts of information.

For example, DH was doing a boys' trip to France and Spain this summer. He had to do all the leg work with reservations. He gave ChatGTP access to his booking confirmations for trains, planes, hotels and it produced a one page chronological itinerary.

He also had to give a really boring presentation, and had ChatGTP put it into verse.

I plan to put all my Thanksgiving and Christmas food requirements into ChatGTP so that it will provide me with a bespoke shopping list.

‘Inept pattern matching program’ is a great description. It can generate text in a certain style, and as long as you’re not relying on it for factual accuracy, it will do that ok. But if it lacks data it will simply produce something that sounds plausible. It doesn’t have any checks or safeguards about accuracy. You can never ever trust anything written by AI to be accurate unless you check every single bit of it by hand.
Sometimes that’s really obvious to the user, for example I saw a scientist the other day posting about AI insisting that a scientific paper existed, authored by him. Obviously he knew he’d never written it. But sometimes these invented facts are put online, picked up by others and spread. I saw someone describing the task for future generations of removing AI bullshit from the information environment as like taking out asbestos.
And obviously it’s a massive climate problem - we need to cut our emissions drastically and still do all the important stuff like grow food, heat our homes etc or we’re screwed. Meanwhile AI is expanding and creating a huge energy demand.
Oh, and AI companies steal people’s copyrighted work.

I don't charge students for anything! It's part of my role (which is not an educator) to provide feedback on students who pay their education provider for education. I provide some workplace based feedback, as a minuscule portion of my paid role.

For those of you using it to do your work emails for you or write your shopping lists or write your CV or whatever, you might want to read into The environmental impact of ai and consider just doing your fucking job yourself. The cost of each answer ChatGPT gives is frightening.

Glad you're feeling better, OP. x

I assume you don't use a hoover, as you could do the sweeping yourself and you don't want to lose arm strength? And no running water because you could go and source water yourself too you know and boil it before you use it, rather lazy really to rely on it coming out at the drop of a hat. And electricity at all come to that. Never use online shopping? Or a computer?

Honestly AI is just another modern convenience that will continue to make us softer people with easier lives..... And have a negative impact somewhere else in the world / on the planet. This is such a stupid view.

Perhaps we need a revolution and we all go back to living like the good old days when dinosaurs were around and just start all over again...