What do you use chatGPT for, if you use it at all?

[Groaaan]

A friend told me her workload has halved since she started using it but I couldn’t understand how, something to do with spreadsheets. Then I’ve just been reading an AMA where they are, very worryingly to me, having some kind of fantasy relationship with it.

I’ve used it to design an invitation to a 50th and for ideas about designing my new kitchen but nothing more.

Just wondering what other people use it for, if they do at all.

I agree it makes people lazy, but I also think it is growing an using the data on the internet to adapt, which is a bit terrifying but ultimately means, hopefully, it will outsmart the tiny batch of men who decided what it should know in the first place.

Are people using Chat GPT as some form of generic LLM description or are you all wedded to this specific provider? I'm fascinated by why this is, as I find Gemini by far the most useful and reliable LLM , largely because it's linked to the Google database and provides actual links to what its recommending/ claiming - so lies are massively reduced. Having used Chat GPT a lot at work and been massively embarrassed at least once by a blatant lie that I didn't catch in time I wouldn't really touch it now, so I am interested in what others think it's got to offer above other LLMs

I use the one linked to Google but just random things like 4am I want to open a jar of pickled onions and can't and ask it, have tried for 2 days, DD tried and it gives me a solution that works. So I can eat a whole jar of pickled onions at 4am.

Toilets in Sri Lanka - we were doing a few very rural routes were almost all toilets are squat toilets. It found me the clean western style ones 5 minutes off the route at a restaurant with a lake. Our driver said its the only place there is on that route.

Calculating angle of shed roofs. Neighbour had a dead tree at risk of falling on our property and other properties, it advised what to do and solved it in a friendly manner neighbour to neighbour and now solved. Planning application did draft sections which I could adapt.

I like Claude, and use it multiple times a day. For rewriting emails, for creating beautiful spreadsheets and presentations, for analysing numbers I am presenting, for a script for a talk I was giving with no notice about a community project I am working on, to re-write pitches for funding

This.

Has anyone yet trotted out how a solicitor got in trouble because AI made up a case or something similar? Those largely naiive to AI love that one 😂

Is chat gpt different to google?

It's just the one I started using and much like my decade long commitment to Apple phones I stick with what I know... I couldn't switch now as it has so much of my data memorised, I wouldn't want to start from scratch. I do find the paid version with 5.6 high intelligence to be much better than the copilot account I use at work.

Yes

I’ve name changed for this, for obvious reasons. Here was my greatest use of Chat GpT.

And the link if you actually want to read our story - www.scotsman.com/news/how-chat-gpt-held-my-hand-through-my-husbands-heart-transplant-8648396

It's behind a pay wall sadly but I'd love to read it!

"Conversation" with chatgpt in the language i am learning. It corrects my mistakes, gives new vocab and translates in more natural language.

Food for the dog (a mix of hard and soft food, meat and veg) so that he gets the right nutrients.

But as a last resort otherwise. I want to work things out!

I use it at work for all sorts of- summarising documents, finding emails people have sent me but I don’t know when or how they sen it.

i use it at home for holidays - it’s found me some great providers for day trips based on my travel style. Use it to analyse pros and cons of different hotels.

when I bought a car I used it to analyse for sale prices to see if I was getting a good deal

Using AI doesn’t mean you have to stop using your brain. A human cannot possibly search and analyze millions of pieces of information within seconds, doesn’t make you lazy using AI to do what would take you significantly longer to achieve. Then use your brain to work with that output.

Same here. Hackles go up when someone posts some shite from it as advice on here as it is.

It's screwed Google up as well. The AI answer you can't trust and if you -AI in the search bar, the results are frustrating.

The human race will dumb down if it's used for every little thing like use your brain like you always have.

Love it, use it to plan holiday itineraries, to help me decide what to make for dinner, how to word tricky text messages, that kind of thing.

Prior to a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't used ChatGPT at all. But so many people raved about how useful it could be that I decided to give it a whirl. I asked how to create a rather tricky shortcut for Word documents, but the instructions turned out to be useless (adding unnecessary steps, giving inaccurate information) that I abandoned the whole thing. I also asked it to identify a song I have wanted to find for years. Admittedly, I didn't have many useful details to work with, but it couldn't locate the song and offered completely random suggestions instead.

I teach in a university and I don't want my students to use ChatGPT as a shortcut or a way to avoid actually doing essential work, so I feel it would be hypocritical for me to use it myself for teaching. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole when writing or conducting research.

I also think AI can be exceptionally dangerous when people rely on it for medical information or relationship advice.

the problem with uni was before ai there was wikipedia and before that there was essay mills.

chatgpt is good for producing essay titles, and dissertation titles and gen abstract of the dissertation but other than that id only use it to build foundation understanding then useing other sources or go point by point line by line essay title section by essay title section because othetwise it likes to be and talk lots of words at times and can be a mix on the details.

how i know all this i run analysis on different topics and got it to generate a list of essay titles for degree level to understand the soviet closed cities from the cold war era

for example ;

Higher-Level Analytical / Dissertation Questions
These are stronger choices if the objective is a substantial undergraduate dissertation or master's-level research project:

1. To What Extent Were Soviet Closed Cities Instruments of Secrecy, and to What Extent Were They Instruments of Social Control?
2. To What Extent Did the Closed-City System Contribute to the Soviet Union's Ability to Compete Militarily With the United States?
3. Was the Soviet Closed City Primarily a Security Institution or an Industrial Institution?
4. Did Territorial Secrecy Enhance Soviet Technological Innovation or Ultimately Constrain It?
5. How Effective Was the Soviet Closed-City System Against Western Intelligence Collection?
6. To What Extent Did Material Privilege Compensate for the Restrictions Imposed Upon Residents of Soviet Closed Cities?
7. How Did the Soviet State Reconcile the Requirements of Scientific Creativity With Extreme Political and Territorial Secrecy?
8. Were Soviet Closed Cities an Essential Component of the Soviet Nuclear Weapons Programme or Merely Its Most Visible Administrative Expression?
9. To What Extent Did the Geography of Soviet Closed Cities Reflect Strategic Rationality Rather Than Political and Economic Constraint?
10. How Did the Soviet Closed-City System Integrate Security, Science, Industry and Social Control Into a Single Institutional Structure?
11. The Soviet Closed City as a Model of Total Strategic Secrecy: Myth, Reality and Operational Effectiveness
12. Behind the Fence: An Assessment of the Soviet Closed City as a Cold War Institution
13. The Invisible Soviet Union: Closed Cities and the State's Attempt to Control the Geographic Visibility of Strategic Power
14. Secrecy as Infrastructure: How the Soviet Union Built an Administrative System to Conceal Strategic Industry
15. The Strategic Utility of Isolation: Why the Soviet Union Chose to Hide Its Most Important Industrial and Scientific Communities
16. The Soviet Closed City, 1945–1991: A Comprehensive Assessment of Its Strategic, Economic, Social and Intelligence Functions

I use it to find recipes and for music recommendations based on what I like.

I’ve used it to give us design ideas for the garden. We were really stuck and couldn’t get past what to do with a pretty useless patio. It suggested getting rid of it and turfing it and other fun design additions, we were blown away, we’d never thought about getting rid of it, but it makes so much sense.

We’ve been in our house for 13 years and have been making so many changes. I can’t wait to see the completed project. The old patio has gone, the dogs are constantly digging in the fresh soil, little sods. It even suggested festoon lights from our new cedar shed to the house,! I can’t wait to finish it.

It's probably quite useful for generalities but for anything technical it's only just reached 90% accurate - which would be fine if you knew which answers were in the 90. We steer clear of it in the office due to GDPR and just sensible security.

Claude mostly. Heavily recently when job hunting. I used it to tailor my CV to each application, and generally improve my CV overall, first draft of a cover letter each time, and interview coaching.
ChatGpt is great for images, I prefer Claude for almost everything else.
I often use it to rewrite emails or first draft documents.
Working through a decision on wether to remortgage or sell up, including comparing the financials of each. I also had it build a mortgage UI that would show me how much time and interest I'd save if I overpay when my new mortgage fixed rate deal starts. I can change all the variables and it shows me the outcome.
I'm really rubbish at remembering Excel formulas so I always just ask Claude to do the thing instead of trying to remember how to do the thing in excel.
It's helped me fix my car twice now.
I use it a lot for life improving stuff, like analysing the ingredients of my skincare and telling me if my routine needs tweaking or if I need to switch some products, diet and exercise routines, meal ideas, and working through wether weightloss drugs are something I should seriously consider.
My favourite thing at work is to record myself doing a task and then have it quite the step by step instructions for the task based on the recording, massive time saver.
Of course I check everything. I'm still using my brain, it's just like having a junior team member do the legwork before giving something to me for review.

chatgpt is good for producing essay titles, and dissertation titles and gen abstract of the dissertation but other than that id only use it to build foundation understanding then useing other sources or go point by point line by line essay title section by essay title section because othetwise it likes to be and talk lots of words at times and can be a mix on the details.

I wouldn't want my students to use AI for any of that TBH. If a student of mine couldn't develop his or her own ideas independently, I'd be concerned about the quality of his/her research, not to mention critical thinking. I know that students are indeed using AI for that and more, but it is very much to their detriment IMO.

Nothing that matters if it went wrong. Used it successfully recently as I was preparing for a language exam, either I’d write something and ask it to correct or ask it for a model answer.

It also suggested a nice town I hadn’t heard of for lunch on a recent road trip. Sometimes I use it for a rant - a kind of AIBU!

It has taught me to use a piece of software for work that I was otherwise struggling to get to know - I show it screengrabs where it’s not working for me and it diagnoses the issue. The software includes an element of coding, and it writes the code for me and so I’ve learnt about coding too as I then adjust the code to suit me from there, if it doesn’t work, I ask AI to diagnose my mistakes. I would not have learnt this new skill so easily and at no cost (as expensive training otherwise) without AI.

I often brain dump what I would like to say at work and it tidies up the answer, makes it quick to write good emails -which must always have a careful proof read and a tweak or two before sending of course.

i also ask it medical questions and it is amazing for that, not to be entirely relied on, but to get you in the right directions, questions to ask the doctor, things to try. For a recently diagnosed terminally ill relative it told out agencies to engage with locally to support their care which speeded up getting support in place, you can’t imagine the peace of mind that it delivered there.

Great for DIY. It’s like asking someone who has a bloody good take on how to go about things, you know they will get you started on the answer, but it is likely you will have to fact check or dig a bit further for anything that you really need to rely on.