How to start using ChatGPT – the latest AI kid on the block

Since the start of 2023 many people, quite possibly yourself included, have been trying out the AI–powered application ChatGPT. There have been many platforms which have shaken the Internet over the years but, for me, this probably has the potential to be one of the biggest disruptors – a true game changer. 

So, without any further ado let’s go straight in to see how ChatGPT works.

Introduction to ChatGPT

So, what is ChatGPT? Well, in its own words, ChatGPT is an AI language model created by OpenAI. It uses deep learning algorithms to generate human-like text responses to questions and prompts given to it. It’s trained on a large dataset of texts, allowing it to answer a wide range of questions and carry out conversations on various topics. In simpler terms, ChatGPT is a program that can respond to written text like a human, based on what it has learned from a huge amount of text data.

What are the benefits of using ChatGPT?

Writing in Harvard Business Review, Ethan Mollick identifies these as some of the benefits of ChatGPT:

1. 1. “First, not only can this AI produce paragraphs of solidly written English (or French, or Mandarin, or whatever language you choose) with a high degree of sophistication, it can also create blocks of computer code on command.” Yep, that’s true. When I first used it I was totally blown away by this ability and the fact that it can do this in under 5 seconds!!
   2. He also highlights its ability to perform different types of language. This means that you can come up with marketing, technical, financial  speak or even speak in the language of the King James Bible! One important element of this is your ability to “nudge” ChatGPT in the right direction, suggest changes etc. He mentions its ability to ask it to come up with course syllabuses – I’ve even asked it to come up with PowerPoint slide suggestions and content and, boy, was it good. In 3 seconds!!!
   3. His third point is the possibility of human-machine hybrid work. The ability of humans to work with AI to come up with all manner of solutions. However, there is an important point to remember: “The problems of AI remain very real, however. For one, it is a consummate bullshitter, and I mean that in a technical sense. Bullshit is convincing-sounding nonsense, devoid of truth, and AI is very good at creating it.    

Getting started with ChatGPT

Right, to get started, you simply head over here:

?  https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/ and the click the link

Clicking the TRY CHATGPT link will take you to a page that looks like this:

Though sonmetimes you might see this when the requests have gone through the roof and their servers are getting a pounding.

When this happens I try to refresh or use another browser window.

Let’s start with asking a simple question:

And here is the response:

But what if we want to go on and cook it?

That’s great but I will now ask it to give me the ingredients:

and quantities:

But I don’t want it in this format but in a table so I ask

And it delivers:

On the ChatGPT interface you will see that all of your chats are listed on the left-hand side and you can go in and refine them if you need. You can also start “new chats” from here or from the main page (as we saw above).

Examples of how you can use ChatGPT

Now that we have seen the fundamentals of how to get started using ChatGPT we can now look at different ways that you might use this platform.

And what about Digital Marketing? What tools and what techniques or approaches could be used for each?

ChatGPT is certainly a powerful and versatile new tool. It’s fast and it takes a lot of grunt work out of everyday tasks. It can be used to compliment the work you do, generate ideas, teach you knew things (did you know you could use it to teach you new language skills?), analyse patterns, check your grammar and spelling, analyse code and explain what it means and much, much more. I think it works best when it complements/supports what you do.