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veen  ·  655 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: From Bing to Sydney

Aight, let’s talk use cases then.

an incomplete list of things I have used gpt3 for that I find useful

- automate menial text related tasks in a time efficient manner. “Change these 200 rows of code so that they all match this format”

- find bugs in my code that I’m too dumb/chase stared at too long to notice

- explain this complex text in a way that I understand, e.g. an academic paper, or difficult code. Answer follow up questions I have about it too.

- write the excel formula to do X Y and Z, a combination of things that is hard to google

- take my unstructured mess of a meeting notes, summarize the main three points and write an email to my colleagues sharing that information.

- find the sentiment of this wall of text I received from someone

and, perhaps most often used by me:

- write the shitty first draft of (code / email / report / …) so that I can use my creative energy only for the important stuff

Any of these tasks can be done by someone. It’s not the second coming of Christ by a long shot: I think of it more like 3D printing. But the ability to automate simple human knowledge work taps a well that is in my opinion very deep and very wide. It genuinely is a timesaver and I am already throwing a few bucks at it per month. None of the things on my list are interesting, but they are a part of the work that need to happen and I’ll happily offload that and more to an uninspiring but useful bot.

To make a point by asking a question: ChatGPT is the fastest new adopted thing ever in terms of DAU. It is constantly at capacity despite having Microsoft behind it. If it was just a fad, why are so many people still using it so much you think?