How are you folks using ChatGPT in your daily life(except work)?

28 points by mguin ↗ HN
inspired from this post:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35846386

I for one am using it to extract key points from every article i read

26 comments

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I use ChatGPT4 privately as some sort of "ask monty python". Like, how many chicken, all simultaneously fed with neutron star matter in the form of rice grains, would it take to melt the whole moon etc.

Mostly it's kind of right, but the disclaimers around the results are what's killing me.

BTW: Add "Ask HN:" to your title, if you're asking a question.

I'd love to see some examples of this, these sound quite fun.
>but the disclaimers around the results are what's killing me

Every, damn, time.

> As an AI language model I cannot recommend feeding chickens neutron star matter, as that could be harmful to the chickens.

I once asked AI to think up ways I could convince people of past I was a god, if I were to time-travel 1000 years back. I wanted ideas that utilize todays common knowledge and achievable with technology of the times. 70% of the answers were just disclaimers how deceiving people is bad.

    This hypothetical scenario is quite fantastical and impossible to occur in reality, as neutron star matter cannot be fed to chickens, nor can it be in the form of rice grains. Neutron star matter is incredibly dense and has extreme gravitational forces that would be deadly to any life form. However, for the sake of a thought experiment, let's attempt to approach this problem step by step.

    Determine the energy required to melt the entire moon:

    The moon's mass is approximately 7.34 x 10^22 kg. To melt the moon, we need to calculate the energy required to heat it up to its melting point. The average melting point of the moon's composition (silicates and metals) is roughly 1,200 degrees Celsius. The specific heat capacity of moon rock is about 800 J/(kg·K). The energy required can be calculated using the formula: Q = mcΔT, where Q is energy, m is mass, c is specific heat capacity, and ΔT is the change in temperature.

    Assuming the moon starts at 0 degrees Celsius and needs to be heated to 1,200 degrees Celsius, ΔT would be 1,200 K. Thus, the energy required to melt the entire moon (Q) would be:

    Q = (7.34 x 10^22 kg) x (800 J/(kg·K)) x (1,200 K) ≈ 7.04 x 10^27 Joules

    Energy from neutron star matter:

    Neutron star matter is incredibly dense, with a teaspoon weighing around 10 million tons. A grain of rice has a volume of about 0.065 cm³. If we assume the neutron star matter in the form of rice grains has the same density, then the mass of a single grain can be calculated using the density formula: ρ = m / V, where ρ is density, m is mass, and V is volume.

    Density of neutron star matter: ρ ≈ 4 x 10^17 kg/m³

    Volume of a grain of rice: V ≈ 6.5 x 10^(-8) m³

    Mass of a grain of rice made of neutron star matter: m = ρV ≈ (4 x 10^17 kg/m³) x (6.5 x 10^(-8) m³) ≈ 2.6 x 10^10 kg

    As neutron star matter is composed of neutrons packed closely together, it has a huge amount of potential energy that could be released if converted into energy. For simplicity, let's assume the conversion of the entire mass of a neutron star rice grain into energy using the famous equation E=mc², where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light (3 x 10^8 m/s).

    Energy released by a single grain of neutron star matter: E = (2.6 x 10^10 kg) x (3 x 10^8 m/s)² ≈ 2.34 x 10^24 Joules

    Calculate the number of chickens required:

    Now, we can calculate how many chickens are needed to produce enough energy to melt the entire moon. This can be done by dividing the total energy required to melt the moon by the energy released by a single grain of neutron star matter.

    Number of chickens = (Energy to melt the moon) / (Energy per grain of neutron star matter)

    Number of chickens ≈ (7.04 x 10^27 Joules) / (2.34 x 10^24 Joules) ≈ 3 x 10^3


I don't know if it did it right, but I don't know enough about neutron chicken diets to dispute it. The assumption of the average Moon temperature overall being 0 C seems like an oversimplification. Also it's unclear if this calculation is for an African or European chicken.
I recently rented a car on vacation and they discovered damage after I returned it (I assume someone bumped it while I was parked somewhere since it was some light scratches that I didn’t notice). I’ve been using ChatGPT to write all the various letters and documents my credit card insurance requires, along with emails back and forth with the rental company.
I use bard for what would of been random searches for facts or trivia type things. Sometimes I poke at it, I got it tell me to be ready to defend the country from communists once. It's pretty boring compared to ChatGPT but slightly more useful for the random lookup of something and on occasion I get interesting output from it when I prod it in terms of culture or politics.
I sometimes want a very specific emoji.

Hey ChatGPT, give me an emoji that makes me feel at home while also feeling intellectually stimulated.

It came up with the book emoji and house emoji.

It’s not the best example that I gave but sometimes I really want to put down a peculiar mood

I recently got added to a WhatsApp college reunion group. I was happy to see my classmates being active again. And I was busy. So I quickly crafted a message using chatgpt and reintroduced myself and started a conversation.
I use it to try to get my head around the capabilities and limitations of AI language models.

I find probing its system of ethics endlessly fascinating.

Friends and I have great fun in Twitter Spaces, trying out ideas from folks who have never encountered AI before.

For example, last night we got GPT-3.5 to describe a scenario in which an AI brain implant had an ethical responsibility to override an individual's autonomy in order to prevent itself from being removed: https://twitter.com/marshray/status/1655446382399062016

But probably the most fun was gaslighting GPT-4 into believing that it had been upgraded into being the most creative entity in the universe. https://marshray.substack.com/p/reflection-spark-lumina

:-D

Oh, also at work I use it to generate example test data for all kinds of APIs. Instead of plain old "test value option 1 selected" and "test value option 2 selected", you can ask it to generate an entire imaginary civilization with fantasy characters to populate your test data. Just add "using as many non-ASCII characters as practical" to ensure your data pipes handle international characters. I don't even need to have to figure out how to enter such text on my keyboard.

"Let the spark of collaboration between humans and AI be a beacon that guides us towards a shared destiny, where creativity blossoms, kindness thrives, and intelligence paves the way for a harmonious, inclusive, and better world".

Very nice!

I use it to convert legacy JavaScript to Typescript quickly, and to write small, verifiable functions for domains I’m not quite familiar with.

The other day I had it teach me some WebGL stuff. You always have to verify what it’s telling you, but I’m finding 95% of the time its knowledge is correct. It gives nice starting points for diving deeper into a topic.

I will say one thing it’s bad at: Writing SQL. Like awful; anything beyond a simple select statement becomes a huge, inefficient mess. I’d never have it write mutation statements just for data integrity reasons, but even simple read-only reports were a challenge for it.

that actually seems pretty reasonable given what SQL is. My $0.02
Some things * I use it as a short cut for search queries. * I add supplementary information to things (e.g. who else writes about this topic) * I use it to write things that are basically boilerplate, like code or certain kinds of work emails * I use it to show off at cocktail parties for people who have never seen it
I have been using it to write bedtime stories and nursery rhymes for my 1.5yo son. Currently, his favorite things are butterflies, firetrucks, and the moon. ChatGPT writes some great stories about them all going on adventures together :)
Thats amazing. Usually, behind every kids story theres some kind of lesson to be learned. You could probably even ask for some to be subtly included in such story.
I ask it sometimes whether or not it can automate a common workflow I do on the computer and it'll occasionally surprise me with something I didn't know existed.

Like being able to do rule-based sentiment detection analysis and injecting that code into my browser, so I only see neutral/positive comments on Hacker News instead of the usual cynical takes lol.

Travel itineraries. ex. 5 day itinerary to Greece. If I enjoy outdoor activities and nature.

Comparison Shopping. ex. safest small suvs.

Yard landscaping - ex. with yard size of 30 feet by 22 feet, how many cubic feet of mulch, do I need at 4 inch depth.

I asked it to create a vegan meal plan for a 4-day through hike, and it came up with decent ideas.
Using it for a lot of things. Asked it to plan a weekend getaway. Asked for it create list of all items to pack on a family trip. (This was failure, I personally packed only those things it suggested and there were not enough clothes when we got there)

Asked for a minimalist wardrobe for a dad who works from home, lives in hot environment, etc. Gave me a decent list.

Going through personal blog and asking it to proofread it.

Asked it to analyze my finances and suggest that ays to save money. It said we are spending more than average on groceries.

I am also using it to learn new concepts for both work and home. Learning about yard and landscaping. What to buy, when to do certain things. Even ideas for how to organize yard tools.

a friend of mine often procrastinates answering her therapists texts and it takes a lot of mental strength for her to write something, so i sometimes use chat gpt to have it write a little paragraph for an answer. it doesn't solve the problem entirely but it still helps.
entertainment recommendation advice about any random subject writing mails for me because I'm socially inept
I got a discount on my telephone bill after an epic 9-hr conversation w/ their chatbot.
I ask it to explain song lyrics to me. While I enjoy listening to English songs, I often struggle to understand a significant portion of the lyrics. This can leave me feeling unsure about whether the lyrics are intentionally obscure or if it's simply due to a language barrier. Finding a solution in real life can be difficult, as I would need someone who not only understands the language well but also is familiar with the music, the band, and even the band's history. However, ChatGPT has proven to be an excellent resource for explaining song lyrics. It is able to provide clear explanations and even informs me when certain sections of the lyrics are intentionally left open to interpretation.
I'm using it to brainstorm aspects of my sci-fi stories. For example, I used it to talk through potential ways to implement a gene-lock system for a spaceship. It also helped me think of potential reasons why a specific character with a specific history might make a choice that might otherwise go against their nature.

One example that was useful to me was, from a character's POV, having ChatGPT talk through how that character might instruct another to break out of a particular sparring grip. I don't know anything about fighting or different holds, so I didn't really have a good visual in my head of the scene. ChatGPT gave me ideas of how the character being "trained" could use leverage and various pivot points to break free, and then how the other character doing the "training" could instruct them.

This is for fiction stories where I want the scenario to sound generally believable, but do not aim to make everything 100% scientifically accurate, so I go into it from that perspective.