Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

Re:Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive? by ChildOfChaos on Saturday March 25, 2023 @11:59AM (#35303945)

Really? I've seen a few people say this, but every time I have tried it, it's been awful, everything it says is so generic and annoying, like it's from a buzzfeed self help article, I would love to use it to help me figure out what I need, what I Can do better, how I can grow etc, I feel kinda stuck in life and i'd love to have some method to figure out what i need to focus on and improve, so that is one of the things I turned to chatGPT first, but my experience has been very poor.

It just spouts out the same generic nonsense you get from googling something like that, things that are not actually helpful, anyone can come up with and is just written by a content farm.

have you found a different way to make it useful?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive? by hermannj314 on Saturday March 25, 2023 @01:00PM (#35304584)

I have had a lot of success just talking to it. Hypothetically I would say, "wow, too many words, you sound like a buzzfeed article. can you give specific advice about ____" and I am almost certain I would be happy with the reply.

I think the idea is addressed by others with regard to LLMs, it seems to be a better sidekick if you sorta already know the answer, but you want help clarifying the direction while removing the fatigue of getting there alone.

I agree though, despite this, it does go on rants. I just hit stop generating and modify the prompt.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive? by ChildOfChaos on Saturday March 25, 2023 @01:56PM (#35305189)

Thanks, I will try harder to keep it on point, i've found that i've told it not to do things, like keep offering generic advice or what not, but it keeps doing it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive? by deeviant on Saturday March 25, 2023 @01:57PM (#35305201)

Garbage in, garbage out.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive? by ChildOfChaos on Saturday March 25, 2023 @02:48PM (#35305767)

Haha, are you calling me garbage? To be honest, that is prob half the problem! Trying to tell ChatGPT to be your therapist, but you don't like the generic answers it is giving but you also don't know whats wrong/what you need to do, does make it a little tricky.

But I am curious about this, is it the case that ChatGPT's training is too generic or is it just a case that most problems are fairly simple and we already know the answers? Not talking about technical things here obviously, more to do with our mental health / self improvement.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive? by haha69 on Saturday March 25, 2023 @04:13PM (#35306788)

You can ask it to give you specific guidance.

"Give me something I can do for X minutes a day and I'll check back with you every Y days and you can give me the next steps"

"Give me the next concrete step I can take"

[ Parent | on HN ]