Comment by randomsearch

3 years ago

I agree. ChatGPT has made me realise the gulf between “short form essay” school writing and the professionals.

Here’s an example article that begins with the cliched GPT-generated intro, and then switches up into crafted prose:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/chatg...

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randomsearch

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psychphysic  3 years ago

I agree with the under current what chatGPT does well is making a good first draft of a text which is intended to be mostly neutral.

It is to communication what calculators are to mathematics.

  • danenania  3 years ago

    It's really good at conveying information and summarizing the most prominent points of view on a topic. If your goal is just to get a quick, fact-based overview without any color or fluff, I think it already tops what the vast majority of humans can do.

    I'm finding myself reaching for it instead of Google or Wikipedia for a lot of random questions, which is pretty damn impressive. It's not good at everything, but I'm rather blown away by how strong it is in the 'short informative essay' niche.

    • eliasdaler  3 years ago

      "quick, fact-based overview"

      I'd argue with "fact-based". It frequently makes up facts (and even sources!) as it generates text. Also you should consider the possibility that "the facts" it generates can easily be a part of a tabloid article or a post on some "Moon landing was fake / flat earth" blog.

    • markab21  3 years ago

      I used it as a consultant on a development project to help me organize some of the milestones and design goals in some documentation.

      It wasn't that I didn't know the stuff, I do, but more helpful with quickly organizing and presenting information in a clean and well-written way. I did have to go through and re-write parts of it specific to our domain.. but it saved me many hours of work doing tedious organization of data.

      I also tested it with helping create some SOP's for a new position in our very small company, even breaking down the expected tasks into daily schedules.

      It's not that it's perfect, but it generates a bit of a boiler-plate starting point for me which then I can work with from there.

    • simmschi  3 years ago

      This. I keep going back to Chat-GPT instead of Google or Wikipedia for exactly the same reasons.

      It allows you to explore topics that are well understood, in a way that fits your own understanding and pace. It's like somebody writing a great mini-tutorial on topics you're interested in, in a pace and abstraction that suits you.

      Examples for me are concepts of mathematics or computer science that I would like to freshen up on. Things you could also ask a colleague over lunch, or find eventually via searching Google/Youtube/Wikipedia etc. Just much faster and more convenient.

      1 reply →

  • boringg  3 years ago

    Thats a great analogy. I like to think of it as setting up the scaffolding either on the code front or writing front.

    Its well structured, clear and concise but lacks high level capability of a human or human style attributes.

  • davidkunz  3 years ago

    ChatGPT can also change its style, e.g. "Make the following text more interesting".

    • psychphysic  3 years ago

      I remember our first computer at school.

      We spent HOURS making it says poop and butt trying to get it to use outright profanity using it's text-to-speech.

      I'm not sure if we'd be happier or not being able to get it to make up stories for us.

      I guess everyone has a computer or 5 at home now if you include smartphones and tablets. So it won't be as novel but perhaps it'll be less fun as it preempts the basics of making your own fun.