ChatGPT is probably the biggest buzz that has exploded into the public eye at the end of December 2022. It has quickly amassed well over 1 million users at the time of writing. Out of nowhere, a very useful, powerful and scary tool was released to the general public for feed back. This will create new opportunities while also killing some industries in the future.
I am very excited to have discovered this and the new creations that are about to change the way we interact in this world. Below is a simple but detailed guide to introduce you to the wonderful world of AI and Chat GPT.
I. Introduction to Chat GPT
What is Chat GPT and how does it work?
GPT stands for “Generative Pre-training Transformer.” It’s a type of computer program that is really good at understanding and generating text. It can take a bunch of information and use it to write stories, articles, or even conversations like this one! Some people use GPT to help them write things faster or to create new ideas. It’s kind of like having a robot helper that can write and think for you.
This quote above is generated by Chat GPT itself. It explains it much better than I can. The cool thing is that you can tune the explanation based on your own academic level. I instructed Chat GPT to explain it like I am 10 years old.
The Stanford University article explains:
“Unlike chess engines, which solve a specific problem, humans are “generally” intelligent and can learn to do anything from writing poetry to playing soccer to filing tax returns. In contrast to most current AI systems, GPT-3 is edging closer to such general intelligence…”
Who Created it?
Chat GPT was developed by OpenAI, a research organization focused on advancing artificial intelligence. The original GPT model was introduced in a research paper published in 2018 by a team Alec Radford, Karthik Narasimhan, Tim Salimans, and Ilya Sutskever. OpenAI, is also co-founded by Elon Musk, but he did not have a hand in how the app was developed. He does, however advocate responsible use of the program as it is very powerful and can be easily misused. The current CEO is Sam Altman.
Examples and Pros of using Chat GPT
There are already some popular tools created by AI and is used world wide by many people. Here are some examples.
Brainstorm Ideas for Writing or Everyday Living
Whether you are writing for a blog, article, school, work or just needing some solutions for modern every life, this tool can help in many ways. If you need ideas, a simple prompt or sentence like the following will work:
- 25 gifts I can buy for my mother that likes cooking
- Explain what SEO is to a 10 year old child
- Come up with 5 attention grabbing headlines for “A beginners guide to ice skating”
- How many calories are in a banana?
- What should I bring on vacation to Thailand?
- Write a simple summary for my Youtube Video introduction [insert topic]
- Help me write a thank you message to all my employees for the hard work they have done this year
Very quickly, the tool will give you an answer much faster than Google can, where generally the articles on the first page of Google is designed for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and paid ads. If you were to search “Explain what SEO is to a 10 year old child” in Google, it will give you a list of websites and no direct answer. Sometimes, some search queries would take quite some time to get an answer you are looking for.
You would have to look at a few sites to determine and decide which site to trust. Now if you type or voice that in Chat GPT, it will provide the following:
This is where Chat GPT has a big advantage over Google Search – the ability to provide clear and concise answers to simple questions.
Profile Picture AI
While this is not created by Chat GPT, it is using the picture version to do it. This is a paid tool that gives you many different options to create your own digital profile picture. It comes with many different styles and you can pick and choose what you like. They look really good too. This can help assist digital artists to create more art with less time.
Big Breakthrough for Developers and Learning Coding
Chat GPT can also help in the coding world. If you are new to coding, it can provide the following:
- Generating simple code examples via the prompt “write code for [insert task]”
- Providing a simple explanation of how the logic works
- Help generate some practice problems to help you learn coding
- Providing feedback to your code
- Debug code error
Generally, most newbies that want to learn coding will search for answers on google or go to Stack Overflow to ask them, which sometimes can yield little to no results depending on the complexity of the questions. However, the current version of Chat GPT is still prone to errors and will still require some coding knowledge to be able to get it right.
Speed Up Keyword Research for SEO
Most keyword research tools are not free and it takes some time for the tool to give you a list of keywords to work with. Granted that most keyword research tools also give you specific metrics that will help you determine the competition for a particular keyword, it will not be as fast as Chat GPT when it comes to giving you a list of keywords.
For example, typing in “what are some easy long tail finance keywords my blog can rank for” will prompt some ideas for your own website/blog. You can also expand the topic by telling it to give you 50 more keywords. This is a lot faster than most tools.
Negatives and Cons of using Chat GPT (Google Search Isn’t Dead…)
There are a some limitations of what Chat GPT can do. While Google cannot give direct answers like Chat GPT, it does have trust and many other factors that is discussed below that will still make Google highly relevant in the future.
Controversial Subjects are Censored (Rightly So)
Any political opinions or explicit content is prohibited and it will eventually prevent you from using the app. Just avoid using this tool for these stuff.
Chat GPT is Biased to a Western Perspective
A lot of the content is usually viewed from the a western perspective, so if you were searching for history of non-anglo countries, you will get a more biased view. Therefore, when it comes to getting facts and historical data on foreign subjects, the tool comes up short.
Some Historical Data requires Fact Check
Some of the written content can be wrong, especially on opinion based subjects related to business or historical events. So you will still want to research a bit more about that specific subject. Chat GPT will make the content seem true as it doesn’t make grammatical mistakes. Also, anything from 2022 and onwards is not included in the database yet.
Just like how you can’t read a tweet and think its true applies for Chat GPT. You cannot take all the content here at face value. Since you do not know if it is right or wrong, it doesn’t have the trust factor compared to Google search.
Lacks Detailed Info for Review Subjects
Chat GPT is great for general information of a specific subject and getting quick answers, but it is not good for getting nitty gritty details or specific details people are looking for. For example, if you are looking for the best backpacks for hiking or the best motivational book, it will provide generic details.
It doesn’t provide reviews, feedback from users or a website link to the product. In this case, Amazon or Google are much better resources for these kind of information. Therefore, it lacks trust here.
So if you are thinking that Chat GPT will overtake Google search as the number 1 info portal for many people, it is still some time away before it can challenge for that top spot.
Setting up Chat GPT
Getting started in Chat GPT is quite straightforward. You want to head over to:
Chat GPT has created a few types of APIs and you can go to the API page to see them.
Create or Use Your Gmail/Microsoft Account
I have chosen to use my gmail account to sign up so it will automatically use my gmail to create an account and sign me in everything I want to use Chat GPT. However, I will show you the process of creating an account with them.
Here is how. Look for the top bar and look for “try”.
It will then prompt you to log in or sign up. Click on sign up.
It will take you to the account creation screen. Choose your username and complete the captcha.
Create your password.
It will get you through a 2 step verification process. You will get an email from them. Check your spam folder just in case.
Once you click on the link, you will be able to get inside and try out Chat GPT. It will take you to the chat interface with this screen.
You will see some text in the middle and it can be overwhelming for people that are new.
- Green Box – This is where the general section is. In the examples section, it has some helpful prompts to show you how to prompt Chat GPT to give you some answers you are looking for. In the capabilities section, it will let you know that Chat GPT can remember things you used in the entire conversation. It also tells you in the limitations section on what it cannot do. In this case, there is limited info past 2021 and may give false information.
- Yellow Box – This is where you type your questions or prompts here.
- Red Box – This is where your chat will be. Each new tab will open if you create new conversations. You can also edit your chat tab to help you remember the conversations that you used in there.
- Blue Box – This is where you can customize the color using light mode or dark mode. The public discord server is also here if you want to join the community. The updates and FAQs section is also here in case you want to get more info. And finally, you can log out in this area as well.
Using Chat GPT Efficiently (Basic commands and Functions)
Now that you got the basics down. Let’s go over some good ways to utilize it.
Using Prompts Properly
Keep in mind that Chat GPT will always give a slightly different variation of the response each time you input something. When you start off with simple question “What is 3 +4? ”
You can always click on “Regenerate response” or “Try again” to generate a different variation of it. Also, you will see that once you have generated a few responses, it will record it on the left side, but you need to hover over it to see it.
As you can see from the above picture, I have generated 3 responses and you can toggle it to see each one. On the right side, you can give the AI a thumbs up or thumbs down to provide feedback as well or leaving a comment to help if you want.
You can also continue the conversation and ask more questions related to the subject. In this case, I asked “Can you do more complicated math?”.
It remembers and keeps track of previous conversations and takes that into account, which is really cool.
Now, you can also trick the AI into giving you the wrong answer, so you must double check some facts just in case.
If I can trick the AI easily, then it will also easily convince me about certain topics that are actually not correct. Hence, always double check!
Now, in this particular thread, 3 +4 is 8 is actually “true” in this conversation. So any math you do here will hold that as the correct answer. We will need to reset or create a new thread to wipe out this conversation.
The reset the thread, go on the top left to click on the trash icon and it will reset the entire conversation. This sums up the basics.
Utilizing Chat GPT For Your Lifestyle
We will now go over some useful things you can do with it that will help you in your every day life.
Writing Responses for Work/Personal Life
If you would like to thank your friend for helping me out , ask Chat GPT “Write a 100 word response to thank my friend for helping me move my house”.
Chat GPT: Thank you so much for helping me move my house, [friend’s name]. Your support and assistance made the process so much easier and smoother. I really appreciate your willingness to lend a hand and your positive attitude throughout the day. You are a true friend and I am so grateful to have you in my life. Thank you again for everything.
Here are some other useful templates:
- A thank you message to your employers for achieving a milestone for your company
- Write a polite response to turning someone down for a coffee meeting
- A funny note to cheer up my wife/husband/kids/relatives
If you don’t know how to respond to something, you can even use Chat GPT to help you come up with ideas to respond. Just use the prompt -> Respond to “[insert text]”.
Pretty good answer for an AI and can pass off as an actual human answer.
Summarizing Text or Video
You can save a lot of time by having Chat GPT summarize articles. For example, I wanted it to summarize a “how to cook quinoa” article. You use the prompt -> summarize “[insert link]”
This can save you time if you just want some quick instructions and avoid all the ads and unnecessary promotions that could be on a website or blog.
You can also have Chat GPT summarize or organize YouTube video transcripts for you. I personally use Notta Chrome extension to help me easily copy and paste YouTube transcripts into Chat GPT and use the following prompts:
- Organize the text with into 3 paragraph “[insert text]”
- Summarize the video in X number of words “[insert text]”
I used this 4 minute video “How to Play Poker” and had it organize the transcript.
It did it very well. However, if you were doing this for a video where the narration or speaker is using slang or a mix of different language, you won’t get good results.
Writing Legal Templates (Privacy Policy, Copyright etc.)
Writing legal templates for your website/blog can be boring and using Chat GPT will help. You won’t want to use all of the text, but you can have it write you a template and you modify it to a custom one. Example prompts you can use are:
- Write a 500 word copyright page for my [insert business] business website
- Write a disclaimer for a website that sells amazon products
- Write a privacy policy page specific to [insert country/city/region]
These are great as you can use them as a guideline to help you automate the mundane stuff that 99% of the people that won’t ever read them.
Creating a To-Do/Shopping/Traveling List
Sometimes, it is easy to forget certain things and using Chat GPT to give you a quick reminder on things you should pay attention to is a good way to save time. Here are some prompts:
- [insert number] Things I should bring to Phuket, Thailand for vacation
- List all the ingredients I need to make a [insert dish here]
- List [insert number] dish ideas related to chicken
- Please help me create a to-do list to create a house-warming party for my friends
This little example here has given me plenty of inspiration to master other types of dishes.
Creating Poems and Songs
Chat GPT can come up with decent songs and poems when given prompts. Here are some examples:
- Write a simple and happy poem/song for a 10 year old kid who is struggling with making friends
- Create a song about [insert popular figure here]
You can also be more creative and use additional prompts to make the song or poem to your liking. for example:
- Create a sad song about a dog that is lonely and abused by the owner but eventually finds a new owner that loves the dog
- Write a poem about the growing process of a blossom tree in Japan, Osaka
The more specific you are, the better response you will get.
Come Up with Jokes
Humor is another example that Chat GPT does well at. Here are some examples:
- List [insert number] of jokes about [insert subject]
- Continue the [insert joke]
- Narrate a funny story about [insert topic] in [insert setting]
This is quite fun, especially for creative folks that just want to have a good laugh.
Assist in Job Applications, Cover Letters and Resumes
This used to be a hard task, especially if English and formal writing has never been your strong suit. You can have Chat GPT reorganize your resume or cover letters to make it look professional. Here are some examples:
- Write a resume to get hired in [insert company name]
- Write a cover letter/resume for a [insert job position] at [insert company name] for [insert your name], who has [insert qualification] in [insert field of expertise]
If you are trying to hire someone, then you can have Chat GPT write you job application templates:
- Write a [insert number] word template to hire a [insert job] with [insert qualification] from [insert country/region/city]
The more specific you can provide it with details, the better response you will get.
Brainstorming Ideas
Our human mind can only imagine so much. With the help of a tool like Chat GPT, it can sometimes give us the “ah-ha” moment that we need.
- Free-writing: Write down any and all ideas that come to your mind, without worrying about structure or quality. Have a conversation with Chat GPT and you might be surprised with the responses.
- Mind mapping: Create a visual representation of your ideas, connecting them in a web-like fashion. Put it into Chat GPT to see what additional stuff comes up.
- Brainstorming with prompts: Choose a specific theme or question to focus on, and generate ideas related to that theme or question.
Language Learning
Chat GPT can translate to many languages. Here are some prompts you can use:
- Translate [insert text] into [insert language]
- Write a [insert subject] in [insert language]
You can also chat with it to improve your own language skills. This is mostly for writing and learning, but for voice and speaking the language, it is much better to do it with a teacher…until someone makes a talking AI robot.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs for Chat GPT)
Here are some common questions that people have about Chat GPT. You can also see this here from the link. I only included the most relevant ones.
How much does it cost to use ChatGPT?
During the initial research preview, ChatGPT is free to use.
Why does the AI seem so real and lifelike?
These models were trained on vast amounts of data written by humans, including conversations, so the responses may sound human-like. It is important to keep in mind that this is a direct result of the system’s design and that such outputs may be inaccurate, untruthful, or misleading at times.
Can I trust that the AI is telling me the truth?
ChatGPT is not connected to the internet and can occasionally produce incorrect answers. It has limited knowledge of world events after 2021 and may also produce harmful or biased content. We recommend checking whether the model’s responses are accurate. If you find an answer is incorrect, please provide feedback using the “Thumbs Down” button.
Who can view my conversations?
As part of our commitment to responsible AI, we review conversations to improve our systems and ensure that the content complies with our policies and safety requirements.
Will you use my conversations for training?
Yes, your conversations may be reviewed by our AI trainers to improve our systems.
Can you delete my data?
Yes, please follow the data deletion process outlined here.
Can you delete specific prompts?
No, we are not able to delete specific prompts from your history. Please do not share sensitive information in your conversations.
Can I see my history of threads? How can I save a conversation I’ve had?
Yes, you can view and continue past conversations.
Where do you save my personal and conversation data?
For more information on how we handle data, please see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Conclusion and Resources for Learning
I hope this detailed guide was able to give you more ideas to assist you in your life when using Chat GPT. I will also include some helpful resources to further enhance your learning experience.
Videos
Beginners Guide by Adrain Twarog:
Chat GPT and SEO by Matt Diggity:
Improving Your Every Day Life with Chat GPT by the AI Advantage
Web Resources
These are links to sites relevant to Chat GPT and uses AI to assist you.
- Dall-E – The picture version of Chat GPT developed by OpenAI that is capable of generating high-resolution images from textual descriptions, such as “a flying rainbow unicorn galloping in space towards the sun.” It was trained on a dataset of text-image pairs and is able to generate a wide variety of images, from photorealistic to highly stylized.
- Stable Diffusion – Similar to Dall-E. It is also free.
- Chat GPT Reddit – Discussion forum if you want to interact with others.
- Quill Bot Grammar Check – Helps you correct grammar for your own writing using AI.