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13 minute read

How to Use ChatGPT

Alex Ivanovs
May 15, 2023
How to Use ChatGPT

Undoubtedly, ChatGPT has marked a significant moment in the history of the internet. Personally, I was overwhelmed with emotions (I’m a writer, so I’m allowed to feel emotional about this) at the time of its release, realizing that it would revolutionize the way content is produced on the web.

Yet, I also couldn’t help but recognize the immense benefits of having a digital assistant that can comprehend human language.

The “best” (It’s been five months since release, and I’m still reeling…) part is that this is only the beginning of what artificial intelligence can achieve. Although access to GPT-4 and Plugins is still limited, people are already working on a plethora of projects that utilize AI technology, including ChatGPT.

As we continue to push the boundaries of what AI can accomplish, it’s clear that we’re living in a transitional period that will change the internet’s usage forever. Even though it feels like we’ve only taken the first step of an ultramarathon, we’re witnessing the dawn of a new era that will reshape the digital landscape.

So, what exactly is this page about?

ChatGPT can do a lot of things, you just have to ask

The basic premise of ChatGPT is the use of prompts to get answers.

You ask, “What color is the sky?”, and ChatGPT tells you, “It’s blue.”. You ask, “Can you rewrite the Still D.R.E song as if it was written by Eminem?”, and ChatGPT tells you, “It’s the E to the M-I-N-E-M.”.

A prompt can be as little as a few words, or it can be uniquely tailored and refined to try and maximize the potential for ChatGPT to give a satisfactory answer.

Personally, for projects that I have done over the last couple of months – I’ve had prompts that are sometimes 300 words long. This is also known as prompt engineering. You will get the best results when you actually sit down and put in the work to not only generate answers but also understand what could be improved about the answers you get.

As a display of commitment to this project, I’m starting things off with 20 categories that I believe are currently the most popular among ChatGPT users.

At this time, there are roughly 350 prompts across all of the categories, each categorized into unique sections and sub-sections.

Programming

Writing

Marketing

Data Analysis

Language Learning

Education

Web Design

Cybersecurity

Fitness

Photography

Podcasting

Travel

Social Media

Human Resources

Product Design

Customer Support

Gaming

Finance

Business

eCommerce

Role Based Prompts (Act as a …)

Are you developing (or know someone who is) a product that can integrate OpenAI into external products? I am actively looking for solutions in various categories, as that will help me write more detailed guides on prompts, but also general use cases. Let me know by contacting me.

One thing you will note about the individual pages above is that they are almost exclusively focused on their individual category. But what if you are looking for more specific examples of using prompts? Well, I thought it would be useful to prepare some materials on this also.

What is prompt engineering?

Prompt engineering is the process of designing and optimizing prompts to elicit specific responses or behaviors from an AI language model, like ChatGPT. It involves carefully crafting input text in a way that effectively communicates the desired task or question, and often includes providing context, clarifying the intent, or specifying the format of the desired answer.

Prompt engineering is important because the quality of the AI’s output often depends on how well the input is designed. By refining the prompts, you can significantly improve the model’s performance, making it more useful and accurate in generating relevant and coherent responses.

Some strategies used in prompt engineering include:

  1. Experimenting with different phrasings or formulations of the same question or task.
  2. Providing explicit instructions or examples of the desired output.
  3. Setting context or constraints for the response, such as limiting the answer to a specific time period or domain of knowledge.

As AI models like ChatGPT become more advanced, prompt engineering plays an increasingly crucial role in leveraging their full potential and ensuring they provide meaningful and useful responses.

A thing that is important to understand about ChatGPT is that it can do more than just answer questions. This model has several NLP (natural language processing) capabilities, which means that it can also process the text that you give it. This also means that you can “chain” several requests, much like you would use a programming language. If ChatGPT can do sentiment analysis, then why not automate that, thanks to its code-generation capabilities? The possibilities, in many ways, are limited by your own interests.

It doesn’t matter that Plugins (Web browsing for ChatGPT) are coming. The fundamentals of designing prompts and understanding how to give instructions will remain the same (until the models get really good, of course). Simply by adding “step-by-step” at the end of a prompt can make a world of difference in the quality of output that you get!

  • Text Summarization
    If you want to summarize a piece of text, try framing your prompt as a request for a summary. For example, if you have a news article, you could use the following prompt:

“Please provide a brief summary of the following news article:
[news article text]”

ChatGPT will then generate a concise summary of the article for you. Keep in mind that specifying the format you want, like “in one sentence” or “in 50 words,” can help you get a more tailored response.

  • Information Extraction
    For extracting specific information from text, make your prompt clear and straightforward. Let’s say you have a product description and you want to extract the product’s price. You could use a prompt like this:

“What is the price of the product in the following description?
[product description text]”

By explicitly stating the information you’re looking for, ChatGPT will be more likely to focus on that detail and provide an accurate answer.

  • Question Answering
    To ask ChatGPT a question, just phrase your prompt as a question. For example:

“What is the capital city of France?”

You can also provide additional context or sources to improve the quality of the answer:

“According to this article [insert article link or text], what is the main reason for the recent increase in housing prices?”

  • Text Classification
    To classify text into categories, ask ChatGPT to do so by providing a clear instruction. For instance, if you want to classify a movie review as positive or negative, use a prompt like this:

“Is the following movie review positive or negative?
[review text]”

  • Conversation
    For a more interactive experience, you can use prompts to simulate a conversation with ChatGPT. Start by providing a context or setting, and then ask a question or make a statement. For example:

“You are an expert on climate change. What are the main consequences of global warming?”

As the conversation progresses, you can add more context or switch topics by adjusting your prompts accordingly.

  • Code Generation
    ChatGPT can also generate code snippets when given a clear and specific prompt. To generate a Python function that calculates the factorial of a number, you could use a prompt like:

“Write a Python function to calculate the factorial of a given number.”

Keep in mind that for more complex coding tasks, providing additional context or requirements can be helpful. You can also do things like specify the exact framework/library that you want to work with. This is ideal if you wish to use ChatGPT as an assistant for a bigger project using your own tech stack.

  • Reasoning
    To test ChatGPT’s reasoning abilities, frame your prompt as a logic or reasoning problem. For example:

“John is taller than Sarah, and Sarah is taller than Peter. Who is the tallest among the three?”

Remember that for more complex reasoning tasks, it might be necessary to provide additional context or information.

  • Sentiment Analysis
    You can analyze the sentiment of any text to understand public opinion on a specific topic. To do this, you can provide a series of tweets or posts and ask ChatGPT to categorize them based on their sentiment.

“Please analyze the sentiment of the following tweets about the new smartphone and categorize them as positive, negative, or neutral:

Tweet 1: ‘Just got the new smartphone, and I’m loving the camera! #newphone’
Tweet 2: ‘The battery life on the new smartphone is terrible. Can’t even get through a full day. #disappointed’
Tweet 3: ‘The new smartphone has a nice design, but it’s not a game-changer. #meh’

What is the sentiment for each tweet?”

  • Creative Writing Assistance
    You can leverage ChatGPT for creative writing tasks, like generating dialogues, story ideas, or character descriptions. In this case, you can provide context, genre, or character details to guide the AI in generating relevant content.

“Help me create a dialogue between two characters in a science fiction novel. Character A is an astronaut exploring a distant planet, and Character B is an artificial intelligence companion assisting Character A. They’ve just discovered an ancient alien artifact on the planet’s surface. Write a 200-word dialogue between them that captures their excitement and curiosity.”

  • Code Debugging
    Users with coding experience can use ChatGPT for debugging complex code snippets. To do this, provide the code snippet, describe the issue you’re facing, and ask the AI to suggest a solution.

“Help me debug the following Python code snippet, which should calculate the average of numbers in a list but is returning incorrect results:

def average(numbers):
    total = 0
    for number in numbers:
        total += number
        result = total / len(numbers)
    return result

sample_list = [2, 4, 6, 8, 10]
print(average(sample_list))
  • Product Feature Comparison
    You can compare the features of two or more products based on user reviews or specifications. In this case, provide the necessary information and ask ChatGPT to make a comparison and highlight the pros and cons of each product.

“Please compare the following two smartphones based on their user reviews:

Smartphone A reviews:

‘Amazing battery life, but the camera is disappointing.’

‘Love the sleek design, but the screen could be brighter.’

Smartphone B reviews:

‘The camera is top-notch, but the battery drains too quickly.’

‘The screen is stunning, but the phone feels bulky in hand.’

Based on these reviews, what are the pros and cons of each smartphone?”

  • Legal Document Analysis
    Legal professionals might use ChatGPT to analyze legal documents and extract key information. Provide the relevant document section(s) and ask the AI to identify specific clauses, summarize points, or compare different sections.

“Analyze the following two clauses from a lease agreement:

Clause 1: ‘The Tenant shall not make any alterations or additions to the Premises without the prior written consent of the Landlord, which shall not be unreasonably withheld.’

Clause 2: ‘The Tenant may make non-structural alterations or improvements to the Premises with the prior written consent of the Landlord, provided that the Tenant promptly submits detailed plans and specifications for such alterations or improvements to the Landlord.’

What are the main differences between these two clauses regarding alterations and improvements to the premises?”

  • Medical Research Synthesis
    Researchers and healthcare professionals might want to use ChatGPT to synthesize information from multiple medical studies to understand the effectiveness of a treatment or the risks associated with a particular drug. Provide the AI with summaries or key findings from several studies, and ask it to draw conclusions based on the provided data.

“Please analyze the following key findings from three different studies on the effects of Drug X on reducing inflammation:

Study A: ‘Drug X significantly reduced inflammation in 70% of patients after 4 weeks of treatment.’
Study B: ‘Drug X moderately reduced inflammation in 55% of patients after 6 weeks of treatment, with no severe side effects reported.’
Study C: ‘Drug X showed a mild reduction in inflammation in 40% of patients after 8 weeks of treatment but caused gastrointestinal side effects in 10% of patients.’

Based on these findings, what can be concluded about the effectiveness and safety of Drug X in reducing inflammation?”

These advanced tasks showcase the versatility of ChatGPT when it comes to handling complex and domain-specific requests. As you provide more context and precise instructions, ChatGPT will be better equipped to generate the desired output.

If you have used ChatGPT for a day, a week, or even a month, you’ll gradually grasp what it can or cannot do.

One way to keep learning more is through research papers. There are a lot of people in AI and ML (Machine Learning) that spend their time studying LLMs (Large Language Models) to try and understand how far their potential goes.

Here is a collection of papers I have saved over the last couple of months that include interesting tidbits, but also some guidance on prompting:

All your questions about ChatGPT & OpenAI, answered

The section below is dedicated to answering common questions people have about both ChatGPT and OpenAI, the company that develops the GPT model.

Over time, these answers will grow richer as I integrate many of them into separate pages.

E.g. Learning how the GPT model works on a technical level, etc,.

ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot that uses OpenAI’s Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) language model to generate human-like responses to user input. It is designed to have natural conversations with users, answering their questions and providing relevant information.

ChatGPT is part of OpenAI’s suite of language models, which are trained on massive amounts of text data and can generate human-like language in a variety of contexts. This means that ChatGPT can understand and respond to a wide range of topics, from general knowledge questions to specific technical queries.

OpenAI is a research organization that focuses on developing and advancing artificial intelligence (AI) in a safe and beneficial manner. They work towards creating AI that can be used to solve various problems and improve our lives. OpenAI is made up of a team of experts in the field of AI, computer science, and neuroscience who work together to develop cutting-edge technologies.

OpenAI is known for its contribution to the development of the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) language model, which is used in ChatGPT. GPT is a state-of-the-art language model that can generate human-like text and is widely used in various applications such as language translation, chatbots, and content creation.

If you want to learn more about OpenAI and their work, you can visit their official website at https://openai.com/.

OpenAI was founded in 2015 by a group of tech luminaries, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, and Wojciech Zaremba. Their goal was to create artificial intelligence (AI) in a way that is safe and beneficial for humanity.

If you’d like to learn more about OpenAI and its founders, you can check out their website at https://openai.com/about/.

In order to train ChatGPT, OpenAI used a massive dataset of text called the Common Crawl. The Common Crawl is a dataset of billions of web pages that have been crawled and indexed by search engines like Google.

Specifically, OpenAI used the 2020 version of the Common Crawl, which contains over 75 terabytes of text data. This dataset was then preprocessed and used to train the GPT-3 (and GPT-4) model, which is the basis for ChatGPT.

The text in the Common Crawl covers a wide range of topics and styles, from news articles to blog posts to social media updates. This diverse range of text helps ChatGPT generate responses that are relevant and varied.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Common Crawl, you can check out their website at https://commoncrawl.org/.

ChatGPT is an impressive language model that can generate text that is almost human-like in its coherence and fluency. However, it has its limitations.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  • ChatGPT is not perfect. While it is capable of generating text that is often indistinguishable from something a human might write, it is not infallible. There are times when it may generate text that is nonsensical or inappropriate. It’s important to keep this in mind when using the tool.
  • ChatGPT may not always understand context. While ChatGPT is capable of generating text that is coherent and relevant to a given topic, it may not always understand the context in which a question is being asked. This can lead to responses that are off-topic or unhelpful.
  • ChatGPT may not always provide accurate information. While ChatGPT is capable of generating text that is coherent and relevant to a given topic, it may not always provide accurate information. It’s important to verify any information you receive from ChatGPT before relying on it.
  • ChatGPT may not always be able to answer your question. While ChatGPT is capable of generating text on a wide range of topics, it may not always be able to answer your specific question. If you find that ChatGPT is unable to provide a satisfactory answer, you may need to seek out additional resources.

When it comes to handling misinformation, ChatGPT has been designed to be as accurate as possible. However, it’s important to note that as an AI system, ChatGPT is not perfect and may still make mistakes.

  • To minimize the risk of misinformation, OpenAI has implemented a number of measures in ChatGPT. Firstly, the system is trained on a large dataset of text from the internet, which includes a wide range of topics and perspectives. This helps to ensure that ChatGPT has a broad understanding of the world and can provide accurate information.
  • In addition, OpenAI has implemented a number of filters to detect and remove misinformation. For example, ChatGPT has been trained to detect and flag potentially harmful content, such as hate speech or propaganda. If the system detects such content, it will either provide a warning to the user or refuse to engage with the topic altogether.
  • Finally, OpenAI is constantly monitoring ChatGPT’s performance and making updates to improve its accuracy. If users encounter any misinformation or inaccuracies in their conversations with ChatGPT, they are encouraged to report it to OpenAI so that the system can be improved.

ChatGPT is different from other chatbots in a few key ways:

  • Powered by OpenAI: ChatGPT is built on top of the OpenAI platform, which is known for its advanced artificial intelligence technology. This means that ChatGPT is able to understand and respond to natural language in a way that is more sophisticated than many other chatbots.
  • Uses GPT Technology: ChatGPT uses GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) technology, which is a type of machine learning that is particularly well-suited to natural language processing. This allows ChatGPT to generate responses that are more coherent and contextually relevant than other chatbots.
  • Can handle complex conversations: Because of its advanced AI technology, ChatGPT is able to handle complex conversations and respond to a wide range of questions and topics. This makes it a useful tool for a variety of applications, from customer service to personal assistants.
  • Continuously learning: ChatGPT is continuously learning and improving based on the conversations it has with users. This means that over time, it will become even better at understanding and responding to natural language.

Yes, ChatGPT is designed to understand context. It uses OpenAI’s natural language processing algorithms to analyze the context of a conversation and generate responses that are relevant and meaningful.

ChatGPT uses a technique called “transformer architecture” to process text and understand the relationships between words and phrases. This allows it to understand the context of a conversation and generate responses that are appropriate and relevant.

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