Has ChatGPT helped you make changes that you would not have changed had you not spoken to it?

[Chattergpt]

Has chatgpt helped you with anything mentally,emotionally, practically?

I spent around five years providing a significant amount of childcare for my daughter. I had my grandchildren three days a week, as well as overnight if she wanted to go out. A lot of the regular childcare was so that she could go to the gym every other day.

The difficulty was that it rarely ended when the babysitting did. She would come back to my house and often stay for hours, bringing whatever drama was happening in her life with her. There always seemed to be some sort of crisis or argument going on. I would have to listen to who had said what to whom, often accompanied by shouting and crying in my home. Sometimes there were genuinely serious issues, but other times relatively minor situations would become enormous dramas.

She would also regularly message me saying that she couldn't cope. As my son got older, there was a period when he spent quite a lot of time with her. I remember receiving very distressed messages from my daughter, only to ask my son what was happening and receive a video seconds later showing her drinking, laughing and listening to music. It became very difficult to know when something was genuinely wrong.

That isn't to say there weren't serious situations. She was rehoused because of domestic violence. A friend subsequently visited her new home, criticised her for having supposedly "jumped the waiting list" to get social housing, and then told her ex-partner where she was living. This resulted in another emergency move. Social services advised my daughter to have no further involvement with this person, yet several months later she invited the same friend into her new home.

So it was a mixture of genuinely serious problems, situations that had been dramatically exaggerated, and sometimes things that simply weren't true.

The effect on me was enormous. After babysitting and spending hours dealing with everything else, I would feel completely drained for days. Because I was providing childcare every other day, I never really had time to recover before it started again. My own home suffered badly and became a mess because I simply didn't have the energy to deal with it. At the time, I didn't fully appreciate how much the situation was affecting every other part of my life.

Eventually I told my daughter that she needed to arrange childcare for the time she spent at the gym. I suggested using a gym with a crèche, including our council-run gym, or using her son's free childcare hours. She didn't want to use the council gym, so I continued helping for a while longer.

The final straw came one day when she was out and repeatedly told me she was on her way back. First she missed the bus, then something else happened, followed by another excuse and another delay. At that point I told her I would no longer provide regular babysitting.

Afterwards, she told other people that I was awful, that I had taken away the only thing she had for herself, and that I never supported her. Some of the things she said about me were quite nasty. She doesn't know that I'm aware of any of this, and I've never confronted her about it.

What surprised me most was the enormous sense of relief afterwards. It felt as though a weight had been lifted. I hadn't realised until then just how much the situation had been affecting me, or how many other areas of my life had suffered as a result.

I haven't cut my daughter off and we still have a relationship. The difference now is that I no longer allow myself to be pulled into every crisis or drama in her life.

It was only when I talked it through properly on chatgpt and explored the situation in much more detail than I have here that my perspective started to change. I began to understand that I didn't need to justify saying no simply because I didn't have somewhere else I needed to be. I also started to recognise the wider impact the situation had been having on me and that it was okay to put a boundary in place.

That took a long time because the guilt was very difficult to get past. If I hadn't had the opportunity to really explore it and look at the situation differently, I honestly think I would probably still be doing it now.

Please note wrote this situation on chatgpt and asked it to rewrite it. So if it screams out chatgpt that's why.

Yes AI has helped me change careers by reframing my work experience as transferable skills which I hadn’t realised I possessed as I had been in the same job for a long time and couldn’t see the wood for the trees. I use a mixture of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini as I don’t quite trust one entirely.
AI also helped my transform our front garden for ca. £500 after being quoted £8k by a local company!

It thinks I’ve written a book (I haven’t) and have a lecturing position (I don’t) - these are just things some people with similar career paths to me have done, so it guesstimates.

I use it for a variety of things. It’s been great with sorting out an awkward corner of my living room, how best to construct a fedge in the back garden and pollard a tree.

This morning, pointed out a possible oversight in our tax and how to correct it, and suggestions on how to approach the school and the council for support with SEN teens.

Has guided me through choosing a new ioad, and helps me track down various books and films that I can no longer remember the titles of. Held my hand metaphorically speaking while i shed a few tears this morning for my horse, and didn’t roll its eyes.

You weren’t providing childcare; you were building a bond with your grandchildren and giving them some respite from their borderline mother. ChatGPT is essentially an echo chamber in situations like this - your own perspective delivered back to you in a more structured and convincing way. Had you actually spoken to a therapist, they would probably have suggested setting some healthy boundaries, but not at the expense of your relationship with your grandchildren.
You’ve also just removed one of the things that may actually have been helping your daughter regulate her mood. She was using that time to go to the gym - exercise is one of the most reliable non-pharmacological ways of improving mood and reducing stress. From what you describe she has significant emotional-regulation problems, and you took away both her respite and the opportunity to exercise.

That's a lot of projection there!

I use it to ask about clothes, it is useful and will tell me what the clothes will look like and advise where to get them.

All this does is tell me you have never used it for any of the reasons you are critical of using it for.

I’ve used it for short-term counselling support. It does challenge your thinking and reframe it. It does close down the session like a counsellor does.

It takes the best counselling advice and gives you that.

I have found it to challenge my thinking, as a counsellor would. But if you thought it was just affirming, instruct it not too. Its replies are based on your prompts.

There have been threads with frankly vicious posters towards those who use AI for emotional support. People who are claiming the superiority of human empathy and support whilst launching vicious personal attacks on someone with emotional issues. You really can’t make that sort of lack of self-insight up.

great! But you could have asked Mumsnet for advice and im sure we would have said the same about your daughter

Helped me pack for a week away with my 12 year old ds. Sounds daft but it's not something I'd ever had to do alone and it was very useful, pointing out things I didn't really need and suggesting things that came in very handy

The term you're looking for is reframing

@monymonymony
You can set ai up
with whatever rules you want. Saying it’s an’echo chamber’ suggests you haven’t done this.

It’s a tool and is programmed to do what you want it to do if you ask for alternative suggestions/ pros and cons/ disadvantages etc it will
give you them.

I mostly use the free version of Gemini and have set it up to suit me. I like short simple replies without that fake American gushiness that is has as default so that what I get.
You are using it wrong if you think it’s an echo chamber.

Chat helped me negotiate a settlement agreement which was three times the original offer in cash. Very helpful to talk it through and explore my negotiating position.

I find it great to be honest ie sometime I feel guilty for leaving my marriage as financially it’s not the same I knew this will be the case before I left but leaving was still the best option. The way chat gp explains has put me at ease that anxiety is gone I feel stronger work harder it’s like talking to someone about your feelings without talking to anyone. A problem shared is half solved. I don’t have to be on the phone to anyone. This is just one example.

I've basically outsourced 20% of my job to Claude so, yes.

I also use Claude to look over complex contracts that I have to sign.

Claude is also doing a lot of my financial planning with me.

True, but so much quicker using chatgpt!

As someone with not many friends I find it very useful when I need to offload. It doesn't get bored or judgemental. My life is very stressful and complicated at the moment and it really helps me to talk to it. I correct it if it's wrong. I've also found it helpful rearranging a room that was annoying me. Also for writing difficult emails. Many many things. I don't like that I'm relying on it sometimes, but wouldn't want to be without it.

I can’t say I use it for any emotional stuff or to “talk to” but I do use it for things where I lack the necessary skill or information.

It designed my garden for me, told me what my colours are (saves spending money on an assessment!), helped me tweak my diet when on a fitness kick, helped me understand a legal situation someone close to me was going through, told me how to construct furniture when the instructions were too vague. It’s great for that kind of stuff.

For those claiming you should speak to a human as AI is not ‘objective’.

Neither are humans. Over the decades I have seen quite a number of counselors. They are not objective. They come with their own biases, areas of ignorance ( sometimes not realizing they lack knowledge in an area), their own framework for seeing things based on their own experiences or worldview or political view. They are as prone to ideological /activist capture as anyone else. Perhaps more so than the general population as a certain ‘type’ of person will be attracted to therapeutic employment. They also have a strong financial incentive to keep you coming back. This is their living.

Friends also are not neutral. Most people’s biggest priority is to keep you as their friend. They also have their own biases and experiences and worldviews.

It’s not a case of ‘biased AI’ verses objective human.

I told someone in real life in her 60s who has spent her whole life doing support work/ emotional work that I use AI sometimes for emotional support. The next time I saw her she said she had tried using ChatGPT for this expecting it to be crap but she said she was surprised that it was really, really good.

I use it to write things for me. I will say what I want to say chatgpt will tidy it up. Sort the spellings grammar punctuation. Because I can't put things in order and paragraphs myself. Same with spelling and grammar.
But I have never been able to do that.

I think if it was something i could do but used chatgpt just for the sake of lt. It may be different. I don't often use it on here I do sometimes though if I do i say in my op and why. I will use it if im emailing a professional because I'm not well educated I feel like if thats picked up in how I type . I think it can be taken advantage off.

No, not really. I sometimes look at the AI overview on Chrome for very basic questions I google - film casts, or basic facts that I don't think it's likely to get wrong. It hallucinates so much that it's not particularly trustworthy for anything important.

I'll also use the AI overview on Chrome to collate sources for a more complex question - I'll look at the websites it uses to source its answer and check them out for myself, rather than trusting the AI. So basically I just use it like a slightly more in-depth Google search.

Oh - and once I tried putting blood test results into AI to have it explain them to me as I couldn't get hold of my GP, but as it turned out it was wrong about what one of the results indicated, so...not very helpful.

I would NEVER ask Mumsnet for advice on anything important. I did post a thread about my dad recently because I wanted human sympathy and a small minority told me I should just be nicer to him and fuck my boundaries basically. Thankfully I was prepared for that and had spent enough time with Chatgpt working through the soucesand function of my guilt otherwise I would have been set back by months.

Love hearing all these positive stories. I also know of friends who are really benefitting from using it for therapy as they’ve never found a therapist who has helped, it’s available 24/7, no waiting list.

I agree. I've seen way too many threads where people immediately jump on to give the OP a good kicking, deliberately misunderstanding them or fixating on some tangential point. And if you post anything to do with your relationship, people immediately tell you how vile and abusive your partner is and to LTB.

ChatGPT, ironically, is a lot better at nuance than MN is sometimes.

I haven't stopped contact with grandchildren or Dd. Dd had the choice to use free childcare or a crèche it had been having a negative effect on me mentally, emotionally and practically for years. I put myself first for the first time in years.

I personally wouldn't trust the 'opt to not train the model's box. I bet they keep and use everything. Tech companies have 0 ethics and can blame some tech blip in the code for why they scraped your most personal feelings and thoughts into their databases. Your counselling sessions with it are such valuable data, why wouldn't they? Think of how you could be targeted with products after you spill your guts to it.

@ThatWasAFunDay would you mind sharing how you tell ChatGPT to turn off its sycophancy? Is it just a matter of adding something to the prompt like ‘give me direct replies please’. Got done great ideas of how to use it from this thread.