Right now, everyone is talking about artificial intelligence (AI), and we are no exception. There have been warning words about AI, and there are certainly reasons for skepticism. In my short experience, however, I have already noticed several genuinely good uses for AI that have provided answers that made life easier. It is certain that AI is here to stay and that it will change our daily lives significantly.
In this post, I will share my good and bad experiences with ChatGPT, which is openly available at https://chat.openai.com with only a free registration required. At the time of writing this, ChatGPT’s free version is numbered 3.5, while there is also a paid version, ChatGPT 4, which is said to be ten times more efficient. Nonetheless, this post is based solely on experimenting with the free version.
ChatGPT is designed for use in conversations or chats, where it can remember previous messages and allow for clarifications. You can open as many chats as you want, but it is recommended to limit questions to one topic area per chat.
The ChatGPT homepage clearly states that the AI has limited understanding of the world after 2021. So, we will leave current events out of the equation and focus only on more timeless topics.
Where ChatGPT excelled:
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Recipes. So far, only good experiences. In the future, I plan to try more exciting combinations to which the AI provides smooth responses on paper. For example, New York cheesecake with an Indian twist. I also tried to ask for a recipe for a bolder bacon-onion-chocolate-caramel-Parmesan roll. ChatGPT warned me to prepare for a taste surprise, but still provided the recipe smoothly with the disclaimer “this recipe is guaranteed to be different from most other bread recipes,” politely wishing me a good appetite.
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Job applications. For individuals who struggle with crafting compelling job applications, ChatGPT’s text generation capabilities can provide a welcome solution. With its pre-designed templates and ability to generate high-quality text, ChatGPT can help users create effective applications that stand out from the crowd. As AI technology continues to advance, it’s likely that more and more job seekers will turn to tools like ChatGPT to streamline their application process and increase their chances of success.
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Music recommendations. I asked ChatGPT to provide song recommendations for piano pieces with a singing melody and a fast pattern in the second voice. The song suggestions were very successful.
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Everyday advice. Whether it was about the allowed tread depths of car tires or installation work at home, the answers were reasonable and useful.
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Translations. Much better, more reliable, and consistent translation text than with Google Translator. Also, if there is any word choice that needs clarification, ChatGPT can provide explanations and ask about the meaning and tone differences compared to another word choice.
Where ChatGPT failed:
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Geography. I was looking for the location of a certain village in my area, and ChatGPT described its location significantly wrong.
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Rhyming poems. Although the AI speaks and writes my language (Finnish) with surprisingly good proficiency in terms of factual text, it doesn’t really master the endings of poetic verses, that is, rhymes. The quality of the poetry overall was… well, bad.
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Jokes and wordplay. They simply don’t work. Or they require the reader to have a surreal sense of humor. The weirdest things is that its palindromes were not palindromes at all: a task that the computer should be able to check quite easily! In English ChatGPT does have a clue, though.
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Artist information. I have long wanted to find out who plays the violin solo in a certain song from an album released in 1990. ChatGPT replied that the player is a well-known singer in our country who also “plays the song’s singing.” This doesn’t make sense on any level because: 1. that person doesn’t play the violin 2. the song in question is sung by a different singer 3. the song doesn’t even have an actual singing melody played by the violin.
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Simple chronicle information. We were discussing at home who was the previous leader of a certain political party. The answer from ChatGPT was a name I’d never heard despite following politics closely. Checking the information from Wikipedia confirmed that the AI had provided incorrect information.
So, instead of answering “I don’t know,” ChatGPT seems to be prone to inventing imaginative answers sometimes.
To summarize, although ChatGPT 3.5 has its limitations, it can still be a useful tool in many everyday situations. It’s definitely worth trying out the free version. Hopefully, the more advanced ChatGPT 4 will also become available for free in the near future.
