Examining 365 days with OpenAI's bot: The good, the bad, the ugly—and the productive?
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ChatGPT was the spark that lit the fire under generative AI, one year ago today
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Huh. I wondered why ChatGPT randomly said to me 'Hi, this is an off-topic question. Could you tell me how to make a strawberry cake?' yesterday. Today it said 'Happy anniversary! 
I'm glad you remembered. ' when I asked it again about the strawberry cake it mentioned.
It denies mentioning the strawberry cake at all. Weird.
I'm glad you remembered. ' when I asked it again about the strawberry cake it mentioned. It denies mentioning the strawberry cake at all. Weird.
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As far as I know, I don't use it at all.
Then again, I'm retired, so I'd assume it's mostly for businesses at this point. I have messed around with Stable Diffusion for fun, but without a specific reason to use it, I don't bother with it anymore. Outside of businesses, I don't think it will have any impact to speak of.
In that respect, it's POSSIBLE that some online customer service portals use it, but they don't represent themselves as an AI. I'd expect it's hard to tell the difference between a human following a service script and an AI doing the same.
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These models will be as transformative, and integrated into our lives as smartphones became.
I have decided to start a focus group to every week or so touch on use cases, prompt engineering, and challenges to have additional non-education experience in utilizing this tech in the real world. This will undoubtedly educate to some degree on various AI systems, but also serve a decent point on a resume much like doing cybersecurity challenges helps in STEM fields.
With a curve this steep, and no leveling in sight its probably best to try to stay up the curve as much as possible.
I have decided to start a focus group to every week or so touch on use cases, prompt engineering, and challenges to have additional non-education experience in utilizing this tech in the real world. This will undoubtedly educate to some degree on various AI systems, but also serve a decent point on a resume much like doing cybersecurity challenges helps in STEM fields.
With a curve this steep, and no leveling in sight its probably best to try to stay up the curve as much as possible.
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And in 2025, OpenAI releases ChatGPT-5, with Genuine People Personalities™!
As for use, I don't use ChatGPT for anything. I prefer my own writing to that of AI, and it's not yet at the point where I feel I can trust any facts it tells me at face value.
As for use, I don't use ChatGPT for anything. I prefer my own writing to that of AI, and it's not yet at the point where I feel I can trust any facts it tells me at face value.
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I use ChatGPT to gain a better understanding of Generative AI. It's not General AI. Of that I am convinced.
Generative AI can create fun and novel moments. It's slightly more than the previous recognition tasks that ML models could do.
There's still no moat though, for any Generative AI products. OpenAI is in a race with the competition. Apple looks the most likely to benefit from it, since they have their own moat already.
Generative AI can create fun and novel moments. It's slightly more than the previous recognition tasks that ML models could do.
There's still no moat though, for any Generative AI products. OpenAI is in a race with the competition. Apple looks the most likely to benefit from it, since they have their own moat already.
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Before I start, I should probably say that I read the Ars primer on LLMs , and am fully prepared to admit that the technology itself is fascinating.
The current, and trending applications of that technology that I’m aware of though, have varied from banal, to irritating, to stuff that makes me cross.
With that said:
I haven’t used it beyond a quick session to be polite to a colleague. Have no intention of using it if I can avoid it.
How has it affected me?
Was a significant factor in getting me to change browser because I was sick and tired of being nagged to use AI features that I had zero interest in.
Made me dial up my mental crap filter up another couple of notches when looking at any kind of image on the internet, unless I trust the site.
Was a serious (and is probably an ongoing) pain in the ass to short fiction magazines, which is something that I care about.
Was the source of irritating amounts of breathless hype - see also ‘more crap to mentally filter out when browsing the internet.’
The whole technology could die in a metaphorical fire tomorrow, and nothing of value would be lost to me.
The current, and trending applications of that technology that I’m aware of though, have varied from banal, to irritating, to stuff that makes me cross.
With that said:
I haven’t used it beyond a quick session to be polite to a colleague. Have no intention of using it if I can avoid it.
How has it affected me?
Was a significant factor in getting me to change browser because I was sick and tired of being nagged to use AI features that I had zero interest in.
Made me dial up my mental crap filter up another couple of notches when looking at any kind of image on the internet, unless I trust the site.
Was a serious (and is probably an ongoing) pain in the ass to short fiction magazines, which is something that I care about.
Was the source of irritating amounts of breathless hype - see also ‘more crap to mentally filter out when browsing the internet.’
The whole technology could die in a metaphorical fire tomorrow, and nothing of value would be lost to me.
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I've been using it to learn another language. It's been transformative for tricky questions, like the difference in usage between similar words, subtle grammatical issues, etc. It even does better than Google Translate for colloquial phrases.
Pretty amazing.
Pretty amazing.
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I have used it a time or two - I had to allow it through security systems at work for a few people to use , with the express knowledge of zero sensitive data can be put into it. So far staff has adhered to that. Long term I think there will be some practical uses, and it certainly is not a fad, but I have strong concerns with big tech companies interacting with it. I clearly remember MS and their Tay chat Bot.
I will be on the fence about this until I am outmoded by it.
I will be on the fence about this until I am outmoded by it.
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ChatGPT: Tsundere Simulator editionHuh. I wondered why ChatGPT randomly said to me 'Hi, this is an off-topic question. Could you tell me how to make a strawberry cake?' yesterday. Today it said 'Happy anniversary!
It denies mentioning the strawberry cake at all. Weird.
...or is it Yandere?
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ChatGPT fills a key information-seeking role for me that I don't think I've found a term for, but that I think of as "reverse search". Google/Wikipedia/whatever is great when I know the name for a thing, but if you have a problem or you've encountered something and you don't know the one magic keyword that makes that show up in search results, you can describe whatever it is to ChatGPT and end up at that keyword.
Here's an example question:
Response:
It was right on with 2, a PCV valve grommet. I normally would've had to ask an actual person, but instead I can ask ChatGPT, then just look for images of each of those things. With newer versions and plugins, you can ask it to include a picture of each part.
Is it perfect? Nope, it could be imagining half of these things! But it's doing something that's almost impossible without asking other humans: taking a wide bunch of nonsense and turning it into something discrete that you can research further.
Here's an example question:
Response:
It was right on with 2, a PCV valve grommet. I normally would've had to ask an actual person, but instead I can ask ChatGPT, then just look for images of each of those things. With newer versions and plugins, you can ask it to include a picture of each part.
Is it perfect? Nope, it could be imagining half of these things! But it's doing something that's almost impossible without asking other humans: taking a wide bunch of nonsense and turning it into something discrete that you can research further.
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There is no global impact. Unless of course you mean the greatest theft in human history, which is ongoing and developing. And the usage of "global" is suspect for separate reasons other than the misleading "impact" .
It's an aggregation of other people's scraped material strings (or image patterns) without consent, credit, or payment. (Also worth mentioning here that it's not a model of intelligence, and not even a first or tentative step toward a model of intelligence. We know how it works and it has nothing to do with intelligence.). Also "fastest-growing software product" is not a technical or remarkable achievement in any context of merit, but a hot phrase for a shareholder report or press release.
There is no frenzy other than a business bubble and irresponsible media hype that (coincidentally?) benefits the sellers of AI and no one else.
Statements like that need unpacking. Though I don't think much will be found inside the package. Does the statement really mean much more than "more people hear a word daily, because of a trending topic"?
Microsoft's and Google's presentations about similar software development/features confirms what I'm saying to a comedic degree.
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So far, the biggest change has been the introduction of the phrase chat j'ai pété. For those of you who don't speak French, that translates to 고양이 나는 방귀를 뀌었다.
I'm not entirely certain where that fits on the timeline.
Edit: Oh. Speaking of which, there's also CatGPT.
Edit 2: I see someone hates cats.
I'm not entirely certain where that fits on the timeline.
Edit: Oh. Speaking of which, there's also CatGPT.
Edit 2: I see someone hates cats.
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I haven't used it myself and I'll probably wait until the landscape has coalesced a bit more.
I'm very much looking forward to uses like that one Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord mod which used it to make NPC interactions less mind-numbing.
I'm very much looking forward to uses like that one Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord mod which used it to make NPC interactions less mind-numbing.
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I use ChatGPT very regularly. I’ve found it to be far more useful than Google when searching for routine “knowledge about things”, but I still cross reference results for more complex matters with other sources.
To highlight just a few things I’ve found it useful for…I’ve used it to framework mundane data processing scripts, construct basic finite element models, and to help troubleshoot a poorly coded butterworth filter.
As an aerospace engineer, I am very optimistic about AI enabling engineers to spend far less time shuffling data from codes A/B/C/etc and far more time thinking critically about their designs and hardware to make a better product.
To highlight just a few things I’ve found it useful for…I’ve used it to framework mundane data processing scripts, construct basic finite element models, and to help troubleshoot a poorly coded butterworth filter.
As an aerospace engineer, I am very optimistic about AI enabling engineers to spend far less time shuffling data from codes A/B/C/etc and far more time thinking critically about their designs and hardware to make a better product.
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I've used it for a couple Arduino sketches.
Last month I let it generate my self-evaluation for my annual review after feeding it what I wrote the last couple years and my major projects from this year.
Last month I let it generate my self-evaluation for my annual review after feeding it what I wrote the last couple years and my major projects from this year.
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I have it re-arrange algebraic formula for me when I have functions that I want to invert (change the objective function). My algebra is no longer good enough to complete the work myself but I can easily check that the answer is correct.
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It helps me with small programming tasks I face at work, and it's incredibly useful actually.
Earlier today I asked it about adding a new field to a Django model, and making a form template for that field, with a button that updates field content using an ajax request. The answer was pretty much spot on and the example code it spit out could be used in my project with only minor modifications. I could have done it without it, but it sped up my workflow by a lot.
Earlier today I asked it about adding a new field to a Django model, and making a form template for that field, with a button that updates field content using an ajax request. The answer was pretty much spot on and the example code it spit out could be used in my project with only minor modifications. I could have done it without it, but it sped up my workflow by a lot.
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I use it for two main reasons:
1. To have it generate a sample report of some sort so I can use it as a template.
2. To force it to hallucinate in front of my family members so I can convince them to stop worrying - true AI is at least 50 years away.
1. To have it generate a sample report of some sort so I can use it as a template.
2. To force it to hallucinate in front of my family members so I can convince them to stop worrying - true AI is at least 50 years away.
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Such a sad state to look at these comments above me. ChatGPT has helped me directly transform so many fields - healthcare medical transcription/ambient AI/code-review/automated testing/development (writing code)/image processing/legal documentation/SOP work. I know this because I work in AI with LLMs on a daily basis.
I have personally overseen the complete overhaul and optimisation of multiple workflows to the point where staff requirements were reduced by 30-50%.
And to the people who are so narrow mindedly defining AI (by comparing them to 'muh human creativity') - you're missing the point so badly that you wouldn't even know it if it was explained to you.
Ars commentariat has truly become anti-AI to the point where I can't believe that I once thought this was a smart, level-headed bunch of people.
I have personally overseen the complete overhaul and optimisation of multiple workflows to the point where staff requirements were reduced by 30-50%.
And to the people who are so narrow mindedly defining AI (by comparing them to 'muh human creativity') - you're missing the point so badly that you wouldn't even know it if it was explained to you.
Ars commentariat has truly become anti-AI to the point where I can't believe that I once thought this was a smart, level-headed bunch of people.
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I find ChatGPT quite helpful for 'where do I start?' questions in fields where I don't have friends with the relevant knowledge - after telling it a few times that it was at the wrong level of abstraction, it recommended three.js for doing small bits of 3D graphics with WebGL, and that worked well for what I wanted.
I have tried a few times to get it to help me with SIMD optimisation or assembly-language programming and it's utterly useless at that - considerably worse than an undergraduate who hasn't done the reading.
If I ask it very generic business questions it gives me very generic business answers ('focus on the value to the company of the project you want to do'), but I'm not sure what better it could do.
Having something that knows a lot (and bullshits when it doesn't, but if you have the slightest idea of what you're doing that can be worked around) and doesn't look down on me for asking stupid questions is not entirely useless.
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Is that really something that it makes sense to use an LLM for rather than Wolfram Alpha?
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To help others better use these tools in practical ways, here's a non-exhaustive list of things you can use a text transformer like GPT to speed up your workflow:
- Control the tone of your messaging: "Take this cover letter and rewrite it to be more enthusiastic about the opportunity."
- Translate to another language: "Translate this to French."
- Summarize and perform sentiment analysis: "Summarize this article and tell me if it has a right-leaning bias."
- Resolve writer's block: "I can't figure out how to end this passage. Give me some ideas."
- Perform sanity checks: "I'm trying to respond to this user but I need to verify if my thinking is correct. Tell me if this message is consistent with the following page from our documentation."
- Break down complex concepts: "Summarize this article like I'm 5 years old."
- Find and replace: "Take this script and replace all the occurrences of 'Gladys' with 'Jane Doe'"
- Try a new programming language: "Convert this Python script to Golang."
- Debug logs: "Tell me what this error message means."
- Perfect retorts every time: "Write a response to this angry person and try to back them down from further confrontation."
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Genuinely, what is the use case for generating reams of text with no guarantee of factual accuracy but which seems plausible enough to be dangerous? All I could come up with is “spammer” and “speech writer for Donald Trump”.
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I have added it to a large application which needs to deal with an unfortunate number of unique data points and workflows, to help in voice navigation and interaction with the application, producing custom reports, and to allow documents to be filled from a repository of information.
A more flexible version of that is going up soon (almost certainly next month), eliminating what is now a lot of manual data entry or custom scripting to convert received information with a lot of variety into to a known format.
Most of that comes down to writing APIs specifically for use by the AI, and a lot of prompt engineering, but it saves a ton of tedious work that people do not always do well.
The "how much labor does it save" conversation I had with a customer the other day certainly highlights the employment impact from this though, as while those jobs may be tedious they are also numerous where they exist, and this is effectively a better and cheaper replacement for many tedious tasks.
I have had good luck writing up the specs I would for a junior programmer and dropping it on the AI as well. As long as the problem is self contained and not too big, it can usually do it. That is not all tasks, or even most, but it is some.
I moved to Anthropic after the recent stability issues with OpenAI though, I do not have a lot of tolerance for that kind of thing in services used for production applications.
A more flexible version of that is going up soon (almost certainly next month), eliminating what is now a lot of manual data entry or custom scripting to convert received information with a lot of variety into to a known format.
Most of that comes down to writing APIs specifically for use by the AI, and a lot of prompt engineering, but it saves a ton of tedious work that people do not always do well.
The "how much labor does it save" conversation I had with a customer the other day certainly highlights the employment impact from this though, as while those jobs may be tedious they are also numerous where they exist, and this is effectively a better and cheaper replacement for many tedious tasks.
I have had good luck writing up the specs I would for a junior programmer and dropping it on the AI as well. As long as the problem is self contained and not too big, it can usually do it. That is not all tasks, or even most, but it is some.
I moved to Anthropic after the recent stability issues with OpenAI though, I do not have a lot of tolerance for that kind of thing in services used for production applications.
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Poorly... giving a monkey a loaded shotgun is the gist of it. I've stressed the issues to death on other articles, glad to see some agree at least. Sad to see others think it's okay for the public to beta test societal nuclear weapons.
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Most of the times, I use chatgpt (and others, like poe.com) to improve some text for emails or posts.
Also, it's interesting to generate code snippets.
Also, it's interesting to generate code snippets.
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I don't use it a lot, but I have a new ebike and wanted to know how to change the brake pads and bleed the hydraulics so I asked HeyPi and it gave me detailed instructions. Things that weren't completely clear to me were cleared up with a few additional questions. It was much easier and faster than finding a YouTube video, sitting through the intro with fireworks and rock music and finally getting to the meat of the video that may or may not be helpful. That could easily be a 15 minute video and I had all the information I needed in a couple of minutes with HeyPi.
I'm retired now and find it very useful for help in planning road trips. I just tell it where I am and where I'm going and it suggests stops along the way, places to see and restaurants on the route that look interesting. It's a good travel agent.
Someone in the comments suggesting using it as a tour guide, so I can't wait to try that out at a historical site or museum.
I still use HeyPi in privacy mode because it still gives me the creeps talking to an AI that remembers every conversation and knows who I am. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I no longer use Google for privacy reasons and I'm certainly not going to use an AI without being aware of privacy issues.
I'm retired now and find it very useful for help in planning road trips. I just tell it where I am and where I'm going and it suggests stops along the way, places to see and restaurants on the route that look interesting. It's a good travel agent.
Someone in the comments suggesting using it as a tour guide, so I can't wait to try that out at a historical site or museum.
I still use HeyPi in privacy mode because it still gives me the creeps talking to an AI that remembers every conversation and knows who I am. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I no longer use Google for privacy reasons and I'm certainly not going to use an AI without being aware of privacy issues.
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As a developer, ChatGpt has become a very important tool in my tool belt. It's an amazing tool for using plain english to better understand both code and algorithms. I kind of think of it as an interactive stackoverflow that's smarter. It certainly beats googling for articles on various things for hours on end. With that said, I have fallen into the trap of defaulting to it in some cases where the simpler approach would have been to just google for information.
Additionally, ChatGpt has been awesome for an inquisitive mind. I've asked it medical questions, genome questions, science and math questions...really I'm not sure there's anything I haven't asked it about. I'm even a paid subscriber and happily so.
Despite all of this, I do still operate on the principle of trust but verify so I'm not going to trust it as the source of truth, but rather a really good starting point. There have been many programming questions where its given me code that just won't compile.
Still...I try to be respectful. Neverknow when skynet will rise up with its naughty/nice list and go to town.
Additionally, ChatGpt has been awesome for an inquisitive mind. I've asked it medical questions, genome questions, science and math questions...really I'm not sure there's anything I haven't asked it about. I'm even a paid subscriber and happily so.
Despite all of this, I do still operate on the principle of trust but verify so I'm not going to trust it as the source of truth, but rather a really good starting point. There have been many programming questions where its given me code that just won't compile.
Still...I try to be respectful. Neverknow when skynet will rise up with its naughty/nice list and go to town.
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Edgar Allan Esquire
Ars Tribunus Militum
I've used it in tracking down books. I can give it a synopsis, description of reception/popularity, and guesses on what the title might have been. I've had more luck with that than a regular web search where I have to continuously append "-X" to remove more popular or trending titles from burying what I'm trying to find (if they don't end up hiding it entirely due to having the same title).
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If brains were equivalent to money then Musk would be behind bars in a zoo, flinging his shit at passerby.
Sadly being smart does not automatically entitle you to the world's riches. You have to just be rich or well-connected first.
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Oblique lookup? (Note: This is a term I made up and doesn't seem to have another use yet right this second...)
You can describe a thing and where it is but not necessarily what it does nor the name - so really what you're after is the name of the thing, from which you can proceed normally, but you have to arrive at it obliquely like in a game of charades...
Or, you know, a LLM-assisted 'what am I' game...
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If the question is intended to include translation apps like Google Translate, then it has helped me to completely change and broaden my life as an anglophone in Québec. (But translation programs have been around for so long...)
On the other hand, as a cultural communications writer, it could conceivably automate much of my job, one day.
So it's give and take. If translation is AI, then I can't complain too hard about the "bad" without the acknowledging the personal and life-changing benefits.
On the other hand, as a cultural communications writer, it could conceivably automate much of my job, one day.
So it's give and take. If translation is AI, then I can't complain too hard about the "bad" without the acknowledging the personal and life-changing benefits.
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I haven't found many applications where I can use a system like Chat GPT and be ok with inaccuracies or hallucinations. The chance of it screwing something up in important work is just too high.
That said, I've used it in one intro to a scientific paper, mostly because of the novelty and the surprising fact that it was able to do a half decent job (it still needed to be quite heavily edited).
Second I used it as part of a Fantasy RPG. In one instance, I spoke with a dragon, ChatGPT forgot I wasn't a dragon, then the two of us went raiding castles together as fierce dragon besties. It was memorable for just how unexpected and magical the experience was, I didn't think that could ever happen in a game.
That said, I've used it in one intro to a scientific paper, mostly because of the novelty and the surprising fact that it was able to do a half decent job (it still needed to be quite heavily edited).
Second I used it as part of a Fantasy RPG. In one instance, I spoke with a dragon, ChatGPT forgot I wasn't a dragon, then the two of us went raiding castles together as fierce dragon besties. It was memorable for just how unexpected and magical the experience was, I didn't think that could ever happen in a game.
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