A frequent topic of conversation with my parents and their generation is the uses and applications of ChatGPT. I have found that the use-cases of ChatGPT are often not clear to people who have not used the platform directly; the goal of this blog is thus to illustrate some ways in which I have found ChatGPT useful in my day-to-day life. I will first explain some high level themes for which ChatGPT is useful, then I will provide some examples of questions I have asked it over the past month. Finally, I will do a brief comparison of Google and ChatGPT. The goal of this column is not to explain what ChatGPT is or how generative AI works, nor is it to showcase some of the incredible applications of ChatGPT to the extent they are not useful in my day-to-day life. Rather it is to provide some basic examples of prompts.
What ChatGPT is Good and Not Good For
What I have found ChatGPT is particularly good for:
- Coding: I use ChatGPT daily for coding help. ChatGPTs ability to write code from scratch in virtually every language is astounding. It can do everything: how to plot, how to scrape data, translating between coding languages, explaining code you provide it, error debugging (you can literally paste your error and ask it what’s wrong). Even for people with no coding background whatsoever, ChatGPT can explain how to get started.
- Explaining: I have many questions that would be difficult to google. Sometimes questions are difficult to google because the top results are flooded with ads, think pieces, promotions, when you just want a quick answer to your question (e.g. try googling any basic question about taxes, IRAs, etc). Sometimes questions are difficult to google because there isn’t anything on line about it (pick any two poems and ask ChatGPT to explain the connection). Sometimes the answer is on google, but I don’t want to read a whole article to get a concise answer (e.g “what is the Jones Act”). And sometimes I just want things explained to me (e.g. I will often just paste a WSJ article and ask ChatGPT to provide a brief summary of the articles with the key points of the article returned as bullets).
- Automation: ChatGPT can be very good at quickly amalgamating basic information. If you want a list of leap years in the 2000s, the headquarters of a list companies you provide, or a table of all Germany-related sentences from a company’s earning call, ChatGPT can do this quite well and almost instantly.
- Generative Thinking: ChatGPT is very good at synthesizing answers to things that have never been asked. For example: “I have a lemon, some vodka, ginger ale, and the following ingredients []. Please design me three cocktails from scratch.” “Here is the abstract of my paper, please suggest some titles.” “Here is a list of my friends, and the times they are available, please find a list of times tomorrow I can meet them independently”. “Here is some information about my friend []. Please suggest some good birthday gifts”. These are things Google could not answer because they have never been asked to Google before.
What I have found ChatGPT is not particularly good for:
- Basic facts: ChatGPT is not great for basic factual questions. If you want to know the market cap of google, the age difference between Jefferson and Washington, the most common type of bird in the world, or what Robert Oppenheimer’s thoughts on the Hydrogen bomb are, you are (probably) better off using Google. I find that this is the biggest source of confusion for people not familiar with ChatGPT: they assume it is an encyclopedia designed to answer factual information.
- Recent information: ChatGPT is only trained up until 2021, so it is not great with very recent information. I would not ask it to explain the Silicon Valley Banking crisis, for example.
- (Some) math: I actually think ChatGPT is much better at math that most people give it credit for, but I would not take its math results without auditing it independently.
Some Use-Cases of ChatGPT
Here are 35 questions I have used ChatGPT for over the past month. Two things to note (1) All of these questions yielded a pretty useful answer from ChatGPT. While reading, it’s helpful to ask yourself why googling these questions would perhaps not yield as quick or useful an answer. (2) All of these questions were asked genuinely. This means first, that they are geared toward my interests not yours, and second, I did not ask them with the purpose of showcasing ChatGPTs ability (they are not “cherry picked”).
- What are bank call reports? What information do they provide, and who is expected to file them?
- Please give me a recipe for pan-fried chicken breast, along with a sauce involving shallots and wine.
- I’m going to a reception where the dress code is "1920s Locomotive Chic". What might I wear? (note: I’m a 27-year old man)
- What are some considerations a consumer should have in mind when deciding whether to prepay a mortgage?