If you’ve been on the internet for at least 5 minutes, you’ve probably heard mention of ChatGPT, the new AI chatbot people can’t stop talking about.
You may have heard how ChatGPT is going to change everything, or if it’s only a matter of time before it “wakes up” and takes over the world.
As far as ChatGPT taking over the world, I think we’re safe for now. (The AI tools we’re seeing are only capable of producing text, and while they might sound like they know too much, they’re really just computer programs putting words together.)
In this article, I’m giving you 9 different ways to can use ChatGPT to make your life easier.
Before we dive in, let’s start with a primer on ChatGPT – what it is and how to get started using it:
Table of Contents
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a powerful AI chatbot developed by an AI research team called OpenAI.
It looks like a simple chatbot, almost like you’ve slipped back in time to those nostalgic days of AOL Instant Messenger. Except your friend isn’t a pimply middle school kid—instead, they’re an all-knowing AI bot who’s got an answer to everything.
You can ask ChatGPT questions and give it commands, and it will draw on its vast knowledge of the internet to answer it for you. I’ll dive into some practical use cases in the main section of this article.
Wondering how it all works? 👇
How Does ChatGPT Work?
ChatGPT runs on a large language model, which is basically a big collection of English text that the computer program has “read” and learned from (using advanced AI technologies too complicated for a peasant like me to decipher).
After analyzing all of this text (from blog posts, books, and other sources of human writing), the computer program can use its vast knowledge of human language basically predict what a sentence means and how to answer it in the most natural way.
This is the tech behind AI writers like Jasper, Copy AI, and other similar apps (though they use a slightly older model than ChatGPT).
Now onto the next question you might be asking…
Is ChatGPT Free?
Yes, at the time of writing, ChatGPT is open to the public in a “free research preview.” They’re still studying how it works and want to see how people use it and interact with it (and how it performs in real scenarios).
So how do you start using it?
How to Get Started with ChatGPT
Head over to the ChatGPT website and sign up for a free account (you just need an email address and a password). Once you’re in, you can start chatting to see how it works.
Warning: OpenAI has access to what you write in the chat, so make sure you don’t include any private information in your conversations.
Okay, now that you know how to use ChatGPT, here are 9 ways you can use this tool to save time and make your day just a little bit smoother:
9 Ways to Use ChatGPT to Make Your Life Easier
#1 – Ask for Ideas
Moms are constantly on the look for ideas.
We need party ideas, decorating ideas, fun family ideas for summer…
Instead of trying to scroll through Google Searches or going to Pinterest, you can just pick ChatGPT’s brains. It’s already read a bunch of the internet and can come up with ideas in seconds.
Here’s what it did when I asked it for birthday ideas:
This is a great way to generate some ideas for your next event or project in just a few seconds.
#2 – Translate for You
Need to get your text translated?
You could use another service like DeepL, but I love how ChatGPT goes the extra mile and even gives you the pronunciation for a language like Japanese that’s difficult to read.
(And as a long-time Japanese speaker, I can vouch for this translation—it’s accurate!)
Plus, it’s fun to have a conversation with your translator instead of just getting a block of text with no explanation. Try it out for yourself with the language you’re learning!
#3 – Learn Difficult Concepts
When you’re trying to understand difficult concepts like AI technology or even trying to figure out the whole Marvel Universe (which still confuses me), you can, of course, Google terms and try to piece it together.
But the great thing about ChatGPT is that you can ask it to take the complicated answers found on the internet and explain them to you in simple terms. One great way to do that is to say, “Explain it like I’m 5.”
Here’s how it did that for me in a recent search:
What do you want to learn? Try typing in a couple questions and see what it says.
#4 – Ask for Advice
We all know the danger of asking for advice on the internet, but it’s pretty intriguing that you can ask an AI chatbot for advice.
It pulls its information and responses from stuff other people have written on the web, learns from that, and then crafts its own response, so you could actually get some good answers.
At the very least, you’ll get a (slightly) unbiased response that may or may not sum up the general sentiment of the internet. And maybe it will get you thinking in a new way.
…Or maybe it’ll just give you a good laugh.
I tried asking for some advice, and here’s how ChatGPT responded:
Here are some other ways you could use ChatGPT to get advice:
- This happened. What should I do?
- How to make a decision in a certain situation
- Ask for a list of pros and cons
#5 – Write Content For You
If you write a lot of social media content, either for your own business or just for yourself, you’ve probably had those days where you just run out of steam. It’s hard to come up with content ideas, and even if you’ve got a long list of ideas, you can really struggle with writer’s block from time to time.
Enter ChatGPT. You can ask it to write anything you want, with any parameters you want, and it’ll do a pretty good job:
Whether you need to write a social media post, website copy, an author bio, a blog post, or anything else, ChatGPT can help you write a solid first draft. (Just make sure to edit and fact check, because AI writers are prone to making big mistakes.)
Related Post: The 4-Part Writing Framework That Will Get More People Interested in Your Business
#6 – Help You Write Stories
So many moms enjoy writing short stories, novels, and even scripts. But sometimes the fount of ideas runs dry.
Just like with the other examples above, ChatGPT can help you come up with novel ideas for any genre, move your plot forward, come up with plot twist ideas, or even describe your characters for you.
Here’s how it performed when I asked for mystery novel ideas:
And here’s a backstory it generated for a detective character named Catherine (I was blown away by this, so I included the entire response):
Isn’t this insane? You’ll never run out of ideas for a work of fiction again!
#7 – Get Answers To Your Burning Questions
When you need to learn a new skill or are trying to understand a new concept you’ve come across, you might run into a lot of questions you need answering.
While you could read through tons of blog posts and try to figure it out on your own, you can also just ask ChatGPT a question and have it come up with an answer for you.
For example:
Other questions you can ask ChatGPT:
- What’s the best…?
- Why does…?
- How does…work?
#8 – Ask for Recommendations
Though ChatGPT isn’t human and has never been on a plane, it can still give you food and travel recommendations. You can ask it to make sample itineraries for a certain location or recommend some good food places in your area.
I asked it for some pizza places in my city, and it did pretty well (of course, these are just based on information grabbed from the web, so proceed with caution):
In any case, it’s a fun way to get some ideas for your next date or family trip.
#9 – Respond To Your Emails
Finally, using ChatGPT’s ability to write content and form appropriate responses, you can have it act as your personal assistant and write responses to your emails for you.
Just paste your email into the box (remove sensitive information first, please), and ask it to write a response.
(This needs a bit of work, but hey, I didn’t have to write it all myself!) Especially for longer or more complicated emails, this could really come in handy.
Takeaway
There are so many things that ChatGPT can do, and this article hasn’t even covered 1%. I hope you’ve gotten some ideas of things to try, but it’s even more fun to just fire up the app and start typing things to see what you get. Click the button below to try it for yourself! (Note: I’m not sponsored by or affiliated with ChatGPT, and anyway, it’s free!)
If you get a really funny or surprising response, share it in the comments below!
And let me know, have you tried an AI tool yet? What was your experience? And how do you feel about AI technology in general?
