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The ChatGPT and GPT-4 mega edition [crazy use cases]

A closer look at what you can do with the new ChatGPT

Author

Thomas Sorheim
March 23, 2023

Greetings!

In the “aftermath” of the GPT-4 launch, I have decided to do things differently today.

The interwebs are full of people sharing what they have been able to accomplish using ChatGPT, so I decided to dedicate a full issue to ChatGPT and GPT-4 use cases.

If you are not a fan of ChatGPT/GPT-4 or are tired of the conversation already, the regular deep dives will be back next week 🙂

But first, I have a confession to make…

I thought ChatGPT was a bit of a “hype” and would die down.

Not AI, just the ChatGPT part.

I was wrong.

Very wrong!

I have realized that ChatGPT is, and will become, way bigger than I initially thought.

ChatGPT and GPT-4 and the whole OpenAI ecosystem are so powerful and ahead of the pack that I now believe they will be a dominating force in technology for a long time...

Their tool is so powerful that it will transform how we work and live our lives.

And even if (when) we get ChatGPT alternatives, it does not change the fact that our world is changing at record speed.

In short, we need to adapt.

I know you understand this already, but it is worth hammering this point home again.

It will affect your business if you are a business owner.

It will affect your work if you are an employee.

Brace for impact!

Today’s headlines:

  • The mega GTP4 Twitter thread

  • Actual use cases of ChatGPT and GPT-4

    • Coding/programming

    • Transaction data

    • File a lawsuit in 60 seconds

    • Drug discovery

    • Matchmaking and love

    • Write a book

    • Writing marketing emails, sales content, blog posts

    • Academic peer review

    • Hack someone’s computer

    • Help make you money

    • Summarize your journal, find trends in your life, give you advice, and be your life coach

  • Shameless plug (again) - my other newsletter

Get yourself a drink 🍷 and let’s get this party started!

The mega GPT4 Twitter thread

I have created a mega Twitter thread on GPT4 use cases.

Some are featured in today’s newsletter, but far from all.

Besides, it is a growing thread 🧵

The newsletter is more in-depth.

So if you want more or just want to skim through, you can hop over to my Twitter here:

Actual use cases of ChatGPT and GPT-4

Some of the examples below are not necessarily something “brand new,” as we had many of the capabilities also in the “old” ChatGPT (or the free version if you wish).

The thing is that GPT-4 is more powerful and more intelligent, and has better logic.

Basically, it can do more things better.

In the last example, I get pretty personal and share a thing I have been using ChatGPT for.

Quick note:
I am talking about the ChatGPT with GPT-4 throughout (the paid version, not the free ChatGPT with GPT-3.5).

Coding/programming

Fair warning, this is the longest section of today’s newsletter…

Although coding was a capability that ChatGPT had from the beginning, people are now reporting even more amazing things they can accomplish in seconds, minutes, or a few hours with GPT4.

Some are even saying that it is so easy “even beginners” can do this.

Prompt engineering for programmers is a thing now.

Here is the download link if you want it: https://godsol.gumroad.com/l/gpt-programming-prompt-pack 

As a “retired developer,” I think it will be hard for a beginner to use ChatGPT for coding simply because you will struggle to prompt it properly to get out what you need.

And even if you get code output (not that hard), what do you do with it?

The upside is that I think you can get to a skill level where you can utilize ChatGPT for coding reasonably quickly (as opposed to my 4 years of IT education).

In other words, ChatGPT is lowering the barrier of entry to this “mystical” world of coding.

The flip side is how many coders will be needed when all of them are armed with “superpowers”…

The fantastic thing is that ChatGPT can help you create working code FAST and then explain what it did and why.

So in practice, it may indirectly function as a teacher as well.

Just in time learning, anyone?

I don’t think ChatGPT will be able to replace all coders.

As I mentioned above, you still need some steerability and knowledge of what the code will do, the scope of what various coding languages can and cannot do, etc.

But maybe this is naive of me?

At this point in time, it seems everything is possible.

For example, look at this:

The experiment is fascinating and raises some existential questions. Here is a link to the whole Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/michalkosinski/status/1636683810631974912

His post went super viral and was covered by pretty much all the media.

I heard a “rumor” that this experiment was why ChatGPT was down for a long while on the 17th or 18th.

Supposedly OpenAI was scrambling to check its security measures.

Ethan Mollick, a Professor at Wharton, took old programming code and asked ChatGPT what it does.

It had all the answers.

Then he asked ChatGPT to translate it to other modern-day programming languages.

Voila!

No problem!

This is quite insane!

When I was a programmer, we had a massive project to change an outdated governmental system and bring it into the 2000s (this was in 2002).

I don’t remember the programming language's name, but we were moving it all over to a Microsoft environment and C++, and if memory serves me right, there was stuff we had to do with Java as well.

Imagine if we had access to GPT-4…

Instead of spending years - completely rewriting the code (basically developing a new system that does precisely the same as the old) - I imagine we could have done the same thing in months.

Sure, there are many complexities here, but I am 110% sure we would have saved years off that project (I quit long before it was finished).

In short, it would have saved the government hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, having ChatGPT as an assistant.

All with a $20/month product!

If that is not disruptive, I don’t know what is…

Kelin Carolyn Zhang used ChatGTP to create a photo remixing app in two days.

I find this one very cool - albeit a novelty.

But I could see people using this to create funny pictures.

Check out her video and the thread below!

What about recreating the classic game “pong” in seconds?

Pietro Schirano did just that in 60 seconds.

Then Brian Ball from the WhoWhatWhyAI newsletter asks Pietro if he can make “Breakout.”

No problem.

You can see the entire thread and watch Pietro’s videos on Twitter: https://twitter.com/skirano/status/1635736107949195278 

Oki, there are soooo many programming examples out there, so let’s do one more and then move on to something else.

Morten Just created an iPhone app using ChatGPT that recommends him 5 new movies every day, including trailers and where to watch those movies.

It is a fascinating process, and he has a great thread with several videos on how he did it.

The code had several bugs right out of the gate. But that is fantastic with ChatGPT; it can run bug fixing and fix its own bugs.

It would, of course, be better if it was correct to start with.

But hey, programming is an iterative process (real coders does it too).

I highly recommend you check out his thread on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/mortenjust/status/1636001311417319426?s=20 

I am sneaking in one more tiny app development just because it has a video (less than 1 min), and it is worth checking it out too.

These two apps are novel ideas, but the important thing is to understand the ramifications of this.

Developing apps and software generally takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money.

These early use cases are merely showcasing the power ChatGPT holds.

An experienced coder can, with a $20 tool, become “superhuman” in his or her ability to crank out code that can solve all kinds of problems.

I guess the larger question here is, what will this do to the industry at large?

The fact is that fewer people will be able to do much more, faster!

This must be the ultimate wet dream for big tech…

Transaction data

Josh Pigford of Maybe showed how they can easily extract transactional data from your credit card bill and make it more understandable.

I cannot even think how many times I have Googled trying to find out the various transactions on my credit card.

Maybe seems like a fantastic product, but if you are not a customer, you can easily copy and paste your own credit card transactions into ChatGPT and understand what business is hiding behind the cryptic data.

You can read the Tweet here and see how ChatGPT translates the output into a JSON format (tech stuff).

File a lawsuit in 60 seconds

Joshua Browder of DoNotPay is yet again making waves. The below Tweet went viral, as he shows off how he is using GPT-4 to file a one-click lawsuit against robocalls (TCPA).

I guess as soon as the API is available, DoNotPay will have an app ready for you to install on your phone.

Drug discovery

This is one of those cases where caution is advised.

Dan Shipper was tweeting about ChatGPT’s alternative drug discovery abilities.

Give ChatGPT a drug and ask it to find compounds with similar properties, modify them to avoid patent issues, and make purchases.

The information comes from OpenAI’s documentation. Dan did not try this out. Nonetheless, it is a robust use case for ChatGPT/GPT-4.

However, Ryan Shea gave ChatGPT a spin and asked a specific question about a particular drug, Atovaquone, and got the following response:

This is not something we “normies” should play around with.

But what else can it do?

Can ChatGPT suggest other meds with similar compounds minus “one thing” (let’s say you are allergic to that “one thing”)?

But most of all, I see this becoming a helpful tool for the medical industry, doctors, and the like.

Matchmaking and love

Jake Kazloski of Keeper, a matchmaking service, uses ChatGPT for better matchmaking.

I can see this working, as a friend has been using ChatGPT for the same thing (Don’t worry, I will tell you, Frank…).

He figured out how to use ChatGPT to optimize his Tinder profile, analyze the sentiment in his conversation with girls, and then create the best possible answers for the best possible result.

Do you think it worked? 😉

Maybe my friend’s use case is not precisely the same thing as Keeper is doing.

Come to think of it; it is probably nothing like what Keeper is doing.

Nonetheless, it is an example where ChatGPT has been used to pursue “love” as well.

Write a book

This might not be that “revolutionary” compared to previous versions of ChatGPT. There have been plenty of stories about people writing books already.

But this is the first book written by GPT-4.

Reid Hoffman got access to GPT-4 long before the rest of us.

In case you have no idea who he is, he is the co-founder of LinkedIn. He is also a board member of Microsoft, co-founder of Inflection AI, and a partner at the VC firm Greylock Partners.

He also made a 2 min video about it

Writing marketing emails, sales content, blog posts

Robert Scoble, a well-known authority in AI and on Twitter, helped a family friend who is an orthodontist write marketing emails and other content.

He would be the first person to utilize ChatGPT for this purpose.

However, this comment struck me “(ChatGPT) …did a better job than the person who is doing those things for her.”

ChatGPT is outperforming people specializing in content creation…

That’s interesting!

No wonder why copywriters are “pissing their pants” these days.

In all fairness, the best copywriters will not be out of a job any time soon…

Academic peer reviews

Back again to Ethan Mollick at Wharton.

He asked ChatGPT to peer review an older academic paper he wrote.

ChatGPT returned a “completely reasonable peer review that hit many of the points my reviewers raised.”

With the new 25000 word limit in GPT4, I am sure there are endless opportunities to use ChatGPT for academic and scientific writing, or maybe it is more accurate to say review or summarization of papers.

I know several use cases for this, and I imagine researchers and scientific and academic writers will be able to save a lot of time utilizing ChatGPT going forward.

Hack someone’s computer

It did not take long until someone smart managed to jailbreak GPT4 and get around the content filters.

Once that is done, getting the code for the hack is easy (ChatGPT has the power, after all).

This is kind of scary when you think about it…

Check out the thread to get all the details about how it works.
https://twitter.com/alexalbert__/status/1636488551817965568 

Help you make money

Jackson Greathouse Fall has been going mega-viral on Twitter (21 million views) for his experiment, where he gave ChatGPT a budget of $100 and told it to make as much money as possible.

He himself is acting as its human liaison, buying and doing everything ChatGPT tells him to do.

He has made $$ already!

It is an ongoing experiment, so it is worth going over to Twitter and following along.

You can find the entire thread and updates here: https://twitter.com/jacksonfall/status/1637096764405850114 

Summarize your journal, find trends in your life, give you advice, and be your life coach

This is my own experiment.

Every day, I journal about my day.

It is a short, 3-6 sentence summary of what happened.

I have been doing this since August 2022.

With the increased powers of GPT4 and input length, I thought, “would it not be cool if I put my journal entries into ChatGPT and asked to act as a data scientist and a life coach and find trends, commonalities, create a summary and give me advice.”

So that’s what I did…

It was a bit more tedious than expected, as it would not take my full journal in one go (about 9000 words).

So I had to feed it, month by month.

But I did it.

I am pretty blown away by it.

I did not ask for any particular format.

I just asked it to give a summary, find trends, and give me recommendations moving forward.

No fancy prompting.

For obvious reasons, I will not show you the whole thing or the recommendations I got.

But here is something I am “okay” with sharing, with a few small things redacted.

This is very personal.

As a side note. I started the Practical AI newsletter in December, and you can see that ChatGPT detected that change in my life 🙂

PS!
I'm sure you can do the same with all kinds of notes. I just happened to have a log of journal entries from my life over the last 8 months.

Shameless plug (again) - my other newsletter

This week I sent out the first issue of my brand new newsletter, StoryBehind.

The pitch is simple: Learn the stories behind the most iconic songs in 5 min or less.

Two days ago (Tuesday), I sent the story behind “Hotel California” by The Eagles.

Sorry, you missed that one…

But if you sign up, I will send you the story behind one of the biggest songs in history, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.

You can subscribe here: https://storybehind.co/ 

Another massive newsletter has come to an end.

However, I hope you found it interesting.

Next week I am planning to write my “normal” AI deep dives.

But who knows with the crazy developments in AI these days…

Maybe I must write about something completely new, something we do not know exists yet… (Honestly, I am waiting for Yahoo to enter the war).

If you have any questions about AI or any feedback, just hit reply or tweet me @thomassorheim 

AI’ll be back!

Thomas

PS! 
Why do AI assistants make bad comedians?

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They can't resist a good "byte" of humor, but they always end up "over-processing" the punchline! 😁

This is not the end. It is where the fun begins!

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