How are you using Artificial Intelligence? Or are you?
This page may contain links to Amazon.com or other sites from which I may receive commission on purchases you make after clicking on such links. Read my full Disclosure Policy
Did you know that today is AI Appreciation Day? (Every day is Something Day, isn’t it?) What better time to look at this technology that’s getting harder and harder to ignore?
I’ve been dabbling with ChatGPT for a while, and have found it very helpful in a number of situations. Here are a few examples.
- Checking my writing for spelling, grammar, style and or tone
- Suggesting meals based on what we like and what we have on hand
- Recommending books that might be similar to another one I enjoyed
Once I had a bunch of random thoughts that seemed like fodder for a blog post, but I couldn’t figure out how to organize the information to make it flow properly. I tossed all my ideas into ChatGPT along with the following prompt:
This is just an outline for a blog post. It might not even be in the best order. Can you make it into a readable post, friendly but not overly casual?
The result was Everything is Connected: The Value of Networking & The Butterfly Effect. This post combined anecdotes from my personal and professional lives and wove them into a story that was meaningful to me. More importantly, it seemed to resonate with my readers, based on the number of comments I received. Of course, I reviewed the generated text and tweaked it before publishing, but without AI, I doubt I’ve have ever made it past the idea stage.
Hazel Thornton has also been using ChatGPT in interesting ways, which she describes in Think of ChatGPT as a friend. Her post also explains how to make sure you don’t compromise your privacy when using AI tools. This is just one of several posts Hazel has written about AI, so if you like her writing, I encourage you to check out the others.
If all this has your head spinning, congratulations and thank you for reading this far! You’ll likely find answers to your burning questions in Velina Petrova’s AI in 2025: What “Normal People” Need to Know.
Over to you!
If you appreciate AI, feel free to share some of the ways you use it.
Photo by JohanSwanepol / DepositPhotos
Disclaimer: In keeping with AI Appreciation Day, I gave ChatGPT the afternoon off, so any errors in this post are 100% mine.
Janet Barclay
I eliminate stress for my clients by hosting, monitoring, and maintaining their WordPress sites so they don’t have to worry about security, downtime or performance issues. When I’m away from my desk, I enjoy reading, photography, cooking, watching movies, drinking tea, and spending time with my family.
AI is here to stay and changing rapidly. I recently invested in an AI course through Coursiv to learn more about it. It’s an interactive learning platform and a great way to learn in short, digestible lessons. I only just started, and am enjoying it so far.
Currently, I use AI for different things, like generating or flushing out ideas, thesaurus, grammar, or spellchecking, and summarizing large data sets or notes, and helping with travel plans. It can do so much more, and I’m excited to get smarter about how to use it best.
One of the things that continues to blow me away is the speed at which it works. It’s thrilling and frightening.
That course sounds really interesting, Linda. There’s so much info out there that it’s hard to know what’s worth reading! A course sounds like a nice focused way to learn about AI.
Thanks for sharing how you currently use it.
I agree, it’s both exciting and terrifying.
AI has helped me so much. It helps me keep up to speed with everyone else. It has also helped me organize my ideas, determine where to start, and compile them effectively. I also use it for grammar and sentence structure when I feel like my sentence is too wordy. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Oh yes, I have to tame my wordy sentences too!
Thanks, I enjoyed reading about how you are using AI.
I am not a great writer. I will use AI to edit my writing, especially for National level publications, acceptance speeches and when I submit something as a guest blogger. These are situations when I want to sound my best. I also used it to write a song about virtual organizing. https://suno.com/song/07921deb-ecf9-42c1-8552-249c7ac88f9b?fbclid=IwY2xjawLrefxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFxQlFpVDNuem5QZ2VjbXJlAR41Eo3rf0ShSp42UGh5fwtlMk427bZ8lmEuYk00XQ4KXKUSrwwzlrf-43eBkg_aem_4CUIlS1uoyXCFLLt8ceS5A
Ha ha, fun song!
Thanks for sharing, Julie! I remember when you created the song – that was in pretty early days and I was in awe that you could do that!
I have started using it as an editor, and I even find myself using it as a search engine sometimes. It’s also helpful when you are staring at a blank page and have trouble getting starting with writing.
I know this is just the tip of the iceberg, but I’m happy to say that I’m getting more comfortable with it (one baby step at a time!).
I agree with Linda that the speed with which it works is astounding. It’s going to upend our whole society, and everyone will be impacted. Feeling good that a large part of what I do is physical and not easily replaced by AI.
I use it for searches sometimes too, when I want something very specific.
Things are happening so quickly that it’s hard to imagine what it%’%ll be like even a year from now, but you’re right, AI isn’t ready to do hands-on organizing!
I use Chat GPT multiple times per day and have been studying using notebook LM. It is quite different! You can give it the sources that you want it to pull from and (unlike Chat and most of the other LLMs) it will NOT pull from all over the web. If you give notebook LM reliable sources (such as your own content and that of people you trust) you can get some really high quality, personally sourced, content and answers. Honestly I don’t us it enough since Chat (Chatty Cathy) knows so much about me already. But I get some great results and just need to be mindful about going down rabbit holes! … And, like a trusted VA, sometimes I feel like “How many different ways can I say this?”
I like the idea of only pulling from selected sources! I will have to look into that! Thank you for sharing that.
What a pleasant surprise to see a paragraph about ME in there! Glad I read it in time to include it in my August newsletter! Here are the last few ways I’ve used Chatty G: 1) Generated a list of 30 ways to use kitchen trash bags in less than a minute. (Just for fun. Linked to recent blog post with full attribution). 2) Reassured myself that modern swamp coolers are meant to drain a bit — it’s not “leaking” — while in use so that the water does not become stagnant and crusty, especially helpful in areas like mine with hard water. 3) Created a genealogy timeline — based only on a report I wrote 20 years ago, so no “hallucinations” — to save me time doing further research.
I love reading about all the different ways you’ve been using ChatGPT, and thank you so much for including this in your newsletter!