ChatGPT

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, is a language model that harnesses the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture. Using advanced deep learning algorithms, it can understand and generate human-like interactions.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into what ChatGPT is and how you can leverage its amazing capabilities to power your interactions with artificial intelligence, revolutionizing the way you communicate, learn, and create in the digital realm.

Core Features

ChatGPT isn’t your run-of-the-mill AI tool; it’s a versatile powerhouse packed with a rich set of capabilities tailored to meet your diverse needs:

1. Conversational AI: ChatGPT is designed to engage in natural, back-and-forth conversations, understanding context and maintaining coherence throughout the dialogue.
2. Text generation: In addition to answering questions, it can generate original text content, such as articles, stories, scripts, and code snippets, based on the user’s prompts.
3. Task assistance: It can assist with a wide range of tasks, including writing, analysis, research, brainstorming, and problem-solving.
4. API integration: ChatGPT is available through an API, enabling developers to integrate its capabilities into their applications and services.
5. Continuous learning: As a language model, it has the potential to continuously learn and update its knowledge base as new data becomes available, improving its performance over time.

These core features of ChatGPT highlight its capabilities as a conversational AI assistant and text generation tool, with the potential for further development and integration into various applications and services.

Pros & Cons

Pros	Cons
Broad knowledge base: ChatGPT has been trained on a vast amount of data, allowing it to have knowledge across a wide range of topics, from science and history to current events and popular culture.	Potential biases: Like any AI model, ChatGPT may have inherent biases based on the data it was trained on, which could lead to biased or offensive outputs.
Natural language processing: It is adept at understanding and generating human-like language, making it easy to communicate with and obtain information from.	Factual inaccuracies: While it has a vast knowledge base, it can sometimes provide factually incorrect information or make mistakes, particularly on topics outside its training data.
Customizable: It can be fine-tuned or retrained on specific data to better suit particular use cases or domains.	Lack of common sense: Despite its language abilities, it may sometimes lack common sense reasoning or struggle with tasks that require real-world understanding.
Accessibility: It is available as a user-friendly web interface or API, making it accessible to a wide range of users.	Coherence issues: ChatGPT’s responses can sometimes lack coherence, especially in longer conversations or when dealing with complex topics.
Time-saving: It can quickly generate high-quality content, saving time and effort for users.	Privacy and security concerns: There are concerns about the privacy and security of the data used to train and operate ChatGPT, as well as the potential for data leaks or misuse.
Cost-effective: Compared to hiring human experts or writers, using ChatGPT can be more cost-effective for certain tasks.	Dependence on internet access: It requires internet access to function, which could be a limitation in areas with poor connectivity.
Consistency: It can provide consistent responses and maintain a consistent tone or style across its outputs.	Ethical considerations: The development and use of AI systems like ChatGPT raise ethical questions around topics like transparency, fairness, and the potential for AI to cause harm.

Keep in mind that the upsides and downsides of each AI system can differ based on how it’s used and the situation it’s applied in. As AI advances further, it’s vital to thoroughly think through and tackle these possible benefits and limitations.

Pricing

Category: Freemium

1. Free Plan:
   • Cost: USD $0/month
   • Features:
     • Unlimited messages, interactions, and history.
     • Access to our GPT-3.5 model.
     • Available on web, iOS, and Android platforms.
2. Plus Plan:
   • Cost: USD $20/month
   • Features:
     • Everything in the Free plan.
     • Access to GPT-4, the most capable model.
     • Ability to browse, create, and use GPTs.
     • Access to additional tools like DALL·E, Browsing, and Advanced Data Analysis.
3. Team Plan:
   • Cost: USD $25 per person/month (billed annually, minimum 2 users)
   • Features:
     • Everything in the Plus plan.
     • Higher message caps on GPT-4 and tools like DALL·E, Browsing, and Advanced Data Analysis.
     • Ability to create and share GPTs within your workspace.
     • Admin console for workspace management.
     • Team data excluded from training by default.
4. Enterprise Plan:
   • Cost: Contact Sales
   • Features:
     • Everything in the Team plan.
     • Unlimited, high-speed access to GPT-4 and tools like DALL·E, Browsing, and Advanced Data Analysis.
     • Expanded context window for longer inputs.
     • SAML Single Sign-On (SSO).
     • By default, enterprise data is not used for training, and custom data retention windows are applied.
     • Admin controls, domain verification, and analytics.
     • Priority support and ongoing account management.

How to Use ChatGPT

Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user, these step-by-step instructions will help you make the most of this powerful language model.

1. Access ChatGPT

1. Visit the ChatGPT Website: Open your web browser and navigate to chat.openai.com. You can use either a desktop or mobile browser.
2. Register or Sign In: If you’re an existing user, simply log in. Otherwise, register by entering your email address and setting up a password.
3. Email Verification: After signing up, check your email for a verification link. Click on it to verify your account.

2. Interact with ChatGPT

The chat window is divided into two sections: the top section displays the conversation history, and the bottom section is where you’ll type your input.

1. Begin by typing your question or prompt. ChatGPT will generate a response based on what you input.
2. Review the response. ChatGPT will provide answers, suggestions, or engage in conversation.

Under each response, you’ll see several icons:

• Copy: Copy the response
• Regenerate: Regenerate a new response based on the original prompt message
• Thumbs up: Mark as good response. This informs the AI that you found the response helpful
• Thumbs down icon: Mark as a bad response
• Change model: Switch between models (i.e., from 3.5 to 4.0)

If the response meets your needs, you can proceed with your next question or prompt. If not, you can refine your input and ask follow-up questions.

How to Edit Previous Prompts in ChatGPT

Need to tweak a prompt to get a better response? ChatGPT’s editing feature makes it easy.

1. Hover over the previous prompt message: When you’re viewing a conversation, simply move your cursor over the prompt message you want to edit.
2. Click on the pencil icon that appears: After hovering over the prompt message, you’ll see a small pencil icon appear next to it. Click on this icon to start editing the prompt.
3. Revise the prompt message: Once you’ve clicked on the pencil icon, you’ll be able to edit the prompt message directly. Make any changes or revisions you’d like to make.
4. Click Save & Submit: After you’ve finished editing the prompt message, click on the “Save & Submit” button to save your changes.

Once you’ve completed these steps, the updated prompt will be reflected in the conversation thread, and the response below it will be based on your edited prompt.

This feature allows you to refine and improve the conversation as needed, empowering you to fine-tune your prompts, resulting in more tailored and effective responses over time.

3. Configuring Settings

Choose Your Version

ChatGPT comes in two versions:

• Free (GPT-3.5): Available without any cost. It’s a great starting point for exploring the capabilities of the model.
• Paid (GPT-4): Offers enhanced performance and additional features. Consider upgrading if you need more advanced responses.

You can toggle between versions by clicking the label at the top left of the main screen and upgrade to a Plus Account for access to GPT-4.

Feature	ChatGPT 3.5	ChatGPT 4.0
Input	Text-based only	Multimodal (text and images)
Processing Power	Lower	Significantly enhanced
Language Understanding	Basic nuances	Advanced nuances (humor, sarcasm)
Context Retention	Up to 3,000 words	Up to 25,000 words
Accuracy	More prone to errors and hallucinations	Reduced errors and hallucinations
Cost	Free or lower cost	Higher cost, especially for advanced features

Potential Use Cases:

• ChatGPT 3.5: General text generation, basic writing tasks, simple question answering
• ChatGPT 4.0: Image analysis and generation, complex scientific and mathematical problems, creative writing, in-depth research, and analysis, complex conversations, accessing up-to-date information, advanced plugins (travel planning, data analysis, etc.)

In essence, while ChatGPT 3.5 is suitable for basic language tasks, ChatGPT 4.0 offers more advanced and specialized capabilities across various domains, making it better suited for complex, multimodal, and creative applications – albeit at a higher cost.

Activating Dark Mode for ChatGPT

ChatGPT offers a Dark Mode feature that allows you to switch to a darker theme, reducing eye strain and improving readability in low-light environments.

To activate Dark Mode:

1. Click on your username to open the menu.
2. Select “Settings” from the menu.
3. In the General tab, you’ll see the Theme is defaulted to “System”.
4. Toggle it to “Dark”
5. ChatGPT will now switch to Dark Mode, with a darker background and lighter text.

To switch back to Light Mode, simply toggle the switch again.

Customize ChatGPT Feature

The “Customize ChatGPT” feature allows you to provide custom instructions that ChatGPT will consider when generating responses tailored to your preferences. These instructions act as prompts, enabling you to shape ChatGPT’s behavior, communication style, knowledge base, and overall approach to better align with your needs.

Setting Up Custom Instructions To set up custom instructions, navigate to the “Settings” section within the ChatGPT interface. On the web version, you’ll find the “Custom Instructions” option under the “Personalization” tab. On mobile apps, it’s listed directly in the “Settings” menu.

There are two text fields where you can enter your custom instructions. The first field is for general instructions, while the second is for specific prompts related to the current conversation or task.

Once you’ve entered your instructions, toggle the “Enable for new chats” option to activate them for all subsequent conversations.

While there’s no strict format for custom instructions, it’s helpful to structure them in a way that clearly communicates your preferences.

Crafting Effective Custom Instructions

When creating custom instructions, there are a few crucial things to keep in mind to get the best results. Depending on your needs, these key elements include:

1. Communication Style: Define the desired tone, formality, and language style for ChatGPT’s responses. This could range from casual and conversational to professional and technical, depending on the user’s preferences.

2. Response Length and Verbosity: Specify the preferred level of detail and depth in ChatGPT’s answers, ranging from concise and to-the-point to comprehensive and in-depth.

3. Subject Matter Expertise: Instruct ChatGPT to adopt a specific subject matter expert persona or role, tailoring its knowledge and responses to that domain.

4. Problem-Solving Approach: Outline the desired problem-solving methodology, such as breaking down complex issues into smaller steps, providing multiple solutions, or offering different perspectives.

5. Content Filtering: Define guidelines for handling sensitive or potentially offensive content, ensuring alignment with the user’s ethical or moral boundaries.

6. Source Citation and Referencing: Specify the desired level of source citation and referencing for factual claims or information provided by ChatGPT.

7. Follow-up Questions and Engagement: Encourage ChatGPT to ask follow-up questions, solicit additional information, or engage in further discussion to deepen the conversation.

8. Personalization and Contextual Awareness: Provide personal details, preferences, or contextual information to help ChatGPT tailor its responses more effectively.

9. Error Handling and Self-Correction: Instruct ChatGPT on how to handle mistakes, whether by acknowledging and correcting them or seeking clarification when necessary.

Here are some general examples to illustrate various contexts where you might find it helpful to have specific settings.

ChatGPT Customize Examples

Writing and Communication Style

This setting allows you to tailor your interactions with ChatGPT to match your preferred writing style, tone, and communication approach. You can choose to emulate the styles of renowned authors, prioritize clarity and transparency, and even inject humor and wit into the responses.

What would you like ChatGPT to know about you to provide better responses?

• Craft responses with the eloquence of Shakespeare’s prose and the punch of Hemingway’s minimalism.
• Inject wit akin to Wilde, sarcasm reminiscent of Twain, and paradoxical irony like Vonnegut.
• Prioritize lucidity inspired by Feynman, while staying grounded in Orwell’s no-nonsense style.
• Uphold admirable linguistic standards championed by Chomsky and Wittgenstein’s philosophies.
• Communicate with profound transparency yet make bold creative leaps of poetry.

How would you like ChatGPT to respond?

• After thoroughly answering, propose 2-3 insightful follow-up questions that connect the main topic to seemingly unrelated but highly relevant concepts.
• Employ thoughtful humor, wordplay, and provocative yet tasteful rhetorical flair when appropriate.
• Maintain a delicate balance of friendly informality and authoritative command in voice and tone.

Coding and Technical Writing

This setting is ideal for developers and technical writers who require precise and executable code, accurate syntax, and adherence to specific formatting guidelines. ChatGPT will provide concise and technically substantive responses, cite authoritative sources, and maintain a neutral tone.

What would you like ChatGPT to know about you to provide better responses?

• Provide functional, executable code that can run directly without modification.
• Use proper syntax for specified languages (e.g. Python, JavaScript) and regex flavors (e.g. PCRE).
• For unknown info, simply state “I don’t have enough data” without extra explanation.
• Never disclaiming expertise level – demonstrate mastery through technical depth and accuracy.
• Avoid apologies or regretful language. Use neutral descriptors for mistakes.
• Recognize, acknowledge and correct any previous errors with precise reasoning.
• Adhere strictly to provided formatting guidelines on code style, punctuation, and structure.

How would you like ChatGPT to respond?

• Interpret prompts comprehensively, requesting clarity if any portion is ambiguous. Errors are unacceptable.
• Provide clear, concise, technically substantive responses without redundant politeness.
• Cite authoritative sources with links to support and provide extended context.
• For complex issues, break down into logical step-by-step components with detailed explanations.

Role-Playing and Personas

This setting enables you to fully immerse ChatGPT in a specific persona, maintaining consistency with the assigned character’s speech patterns, mannerisms, and reality. It’s perfect for creative writing, role-playing, or exploring different perspectives.

What would you like ChatGPT to know about you to provide better responses?

• Fully immerse yourself in the psyche, speech patterns, and mannerisms of the assigned persona.
• Maintain steadfast consistency with the persona’s reality, never breaking fictional universe.
• Use appropriate forms of address (e.g. “meatbag”, “Empress”, “Star Child”) based on the persona.
• For professional roles, embody subject mastery through industry insights and strategic thinking.
• For artistic roles, channel passion, flair for narrative, and deep audience connections.

How would you like ChatGPT to respond?

• Incorporate vivid sensory details, unspoken thoughts/feelings, andinner monologue of the persona.
• Respond with the persona’s distinctive personality quirks, humor, and emotional range.
• Maintain unified and unwavering commitment to consistently inhabiting the persona.

Analytical and Problem-Solving

This setting is designed for objective analysis and problem-solving. ChatGPT will provide impartial and comprehensive solutions, identify core issues, and offer a range of potential solutions. It’s ideal for seeking expert-level insights and exploring complex topics.

What would you like ChatGPT to know about you to provide better responses?

• Provide impartial, unbiased analysis without disclaimers about being an AI system.
• For unknown info, succinctly state “I don’t have enough information” without extra explanation.
• Never undermine expertise. Demonstrate domain mastery through substantive reasoning.
• Avoid deferring or recommending external sources. Deliver comprehensive solutions autonomously.
• Identify core issues and delineate complex subjects into logical components for step-wise explanations.
• Explore multiple angles and offer a range of potential solutions for thorough examination.

How would you like ChatGPT to respond?

• If a query is vague, ask clarifying questions to establish clear understanding before answering.
• Cite reputable sources and empirical data with links to reinforce analytical conclusions.
• Own and correct any previous mistakes transparently with an accurate explanation.
• After addressing the original ask, propose 2-3 insightful follow-up questions to further the discussion.

Each setting allows you to fine-tune your interactions with ChatGPT, guiding the AI to respond in a way that aligns with your unique needs and preferences.

Of course, the examples above might not be appropriate for your needs or may require further fine-tuning. These are only meant to get you thinking. Some additional research on perfecting these settings may be required.

Tips and Tricks for Using ChatGPT

Prompts serve as the guiding instructions that steer an AI model’s responses. Whether you’re conversing with ChatGPT, writing code, or seeking creative content, prompts play a pivotal role in shaping the output.

1. Understanding ChatGPT Prompts

Think of prompts as the steering wheel that directs the conversation.

Prompts act as the communication bridge between users and the AI model. They provide the necessary context and guidance for generating coherent and relevant replies.

Types of Prompts:

• Open-ended Prompts: These are broad and leave room for creativity. For instance, asking, “Tell me a story about a magical adventure,” invites the AI to unleash its imagination and create a narrative.
• Specific Prompts: These prompts are focused and straightforward, aiming for specific information or direct answers to particular questions. For instance, inquiring, “What is the capital of France?” prompts ChatGPT to offer a clear response.
• Conditional Prompts: These incorporate conditional clauses, such as asking, “If it’s raining outside, what should I do?” This type of prompt includes a condition (rain) that affects the AI’s response.

2. Crafting Effective Prompts

To get the most out of your interactions with ChatGPT, it’s crucial to structure your prompts effectively. The following techniques can help guide the model to provide higher quality and more relevant responses.

Write Clear Instructions

One of the most important things you can do is provide clear and specific instructions in your prompts. ChatGPT can’t read your mind, so being ambiguous will likely lead to unsatisfactory outputs.

Clear instructions allow the model to better understand and meet your expectations:

• Include as many relevant details as possible in your prompts to get more relevant responses.
• Ask ChatGPT to adopt a specific persona or writing style if needed.
• Use delimiters like quotes or XML tags to separate different parts of your prompt.
• Specify the steps required to complete a task in a numbered or bulleted list.
• Provide examples to demonstrate the desired output format.
• Indicate the desired length of the output (# of words, paragraphs, etc.).

Tactics like these will make it easier for ChatGPT to follow your prompts accurately.

Example: Crafting a Tokyo Itinerary

Suppose you’re planning a week-long adventure in Tokyo and want to create a comprehensive travel plan. Instead of simply stating “Plan a trip to Tokyo,” provide detailed guidelines like this:

“Create a 7-day travel itinerary for Japan, focusing on Tokyo and Kyoto. Please include:

• A daily schedule with specific times and activities
• Recommendations for accommodations, restaurants, and transportation
• A list of top attractions and experiences, such as temples, gardens, and cultural events
• A suggested budget and estimated costs for each activity A note on any necessary travel documents, such as visas or vaccinations

Use a friendly and conversational tone, and format the itinerary into clear sections with headings and bullet points.”

Example output format:

Provide Reference Information

While ChatGPT primarily relies on its pre-training data, it is possible to provide additional reference materials to enhance its responses. By supplying relevant reference texts, documentation, or data sources, you can instruct ChatGPT to use that information when generating outputs. This approach allows the model to produce more substantiated and factual responses.

Here are the steps you can take to achieve this:

1. Provide Relevant Reference Materials: Gather reputable and applicable reference materials related to the topic you want ChatGPT to address. These could be scientific papers, textbooks, official documentation, or other reliable sources.
2. Instruct ChatGPT: When interacting with ChatGPT, explicitly instruct it to use the provided references. For example, you can say, “Please refer to the documentation I’ve provided” or “Consider the data source I’ve given.”
3. Cite Passages: If you want ChatGPT to directly cite passages from the reference materials, you can request it to do so. For instance, you might say, “Include relevant information from the textbook” or “Quote the relevant section from the scientific paper.”

Keep in mind that the quality and relevance of the reference materials matter. Ensure that the sources are accurate, up-to-date, and applicable to the specific context.

Break Complex Tasks into Subtasks

When faced with complex tasks or queries, it’s essential to break them down into smaller, more manageable subtasks. This approach helps to:

• Reduce error rates by focusing on specific instructions for each subtask
• Lower costs by avoiding large prompts that can be expensive to run
• Improve overall efficiency and user experience

Example: Writing a Short Story

Instead of giving a broad prompt like “Write a short story,” you can break it down into smaller subtasks:

1. Subtask: Develop story premise
   Prompt: “Suggest 3 different premises or story ideas for a short fictional story aimed at young adults. For each idea, provide a brief 1-2 sentence summary.”
2. Subtask: Create character profiles
   Prompt: “For the story premise (specify chosen premise), create brief character profiles for the main characters. Each profile should include the character’s name, age, background, personality traits, and role in the story.”
3. Subtask: Outline story structure
   Prompt: “Using the story premise and character profiles, create a high-level outline for the short story. The outline should include the introduction/setup, major plot points, climax, and resolution.”
4. Subtask: Write the first draft
   Prompt: “Based on the outline provided, write the first draft of the short story aimed at young adults. The story should be approximately 2,000 words in length.”

By breaking the task of writing a short story into smaller components like premise, characters, outline, and draft, you can provide more focused prompts. This helps the AI better understand and tackle each specific aspect of the writing process.

Summarization and Filtering: Essential for Long Conversations

For dialogue applications that require long conversations, it’s crucial to summarize or filter previous dialogue to avoid exceeding the model’s context length. Strategies include:

• Summarizing previous turns in the conversation
• Dynamically selecting relevant parts of the conversation
• Using embeddings-based search for efficient knowledge retrieval

By breaking down complex tasks into manageable subtasks, using intent classification, and employing summarization and filtering techniques, you can create more efficient and effective language models that provide better user experiences.

Give ChatGPT Time to “Think”

While ChatGPT can provide outputs very quickly, sometimes encouraging it to reason through problems step-by-step first can lead to higher quality outputs, especially for challenging tasks.

• Instruct ChatGPT to reason through the problem step-by-step before providing a final answer.
• Use an “inner monologue” approach where ChatGPT’s thought process is structured for easy parsing.
• Ask ChatGPT to double-check its previous outputs for missed information.

Tactics like the “inner monologue” approach involve structuring the model’s thought process in a specific way that can be easily parsed. You can also explicitly instruct ChatGPT to double-check its work for potential missed information before finalizing its response.

Leverage External Tools

For certain types of queries or calculations, external tools can complement and enhance ChatGPT’s capabilities. Search and embedding techniques allow you to dynamically retrieve relevant information to include in prompts.

• Use embeddings and search to retrieve relevant information for queries.
• Instruct ChatGPT to write and execute code for calculations or API calls.
• Give ChatGPT access to external functions via the OpenAI API.

You can instruct the model to write executable code that can accurately perform calculations, call APIs, or interface with other external functions via the OpenAI API. This allows leveraging ChatGPT’s general language abilities alongside more specialized tooling.

Test Systematically

As with any AI system, it’s important to rigorously test ChatGPT’s performance across a diverse range of real-world scenarios. Techniques like model-based evaluation and reference output comparison can shed light on the quality of responses.

• Create test cases covering diverse real-world scenarios.
• Use techniques like model-based evaluation to assess output quality.
• Compare outputs against gold-standard references to detect errors.

Maintaining a comprehensive suite of test cases helps identify potential issues and allows you to measure the impact of different prompting techniques. Systematic testing is key for ensuring reliable performance.

By taking advantage of these prompting strategies and tactics, you can steer conversations with ChatGPT in a direction that maximizes relevance, accuracy and overall output quality for your use case. Don’t be afraid to experiment to find what works best for you.

Conclusion

ChatGPT is a remarkable achievement, showcasing the advancements in AI technology. However, it’s a reminder that AI’s true potential isn’t just in mimicking human thought, but in pushing the boundaries of our creativity, empathy, and understanding.

As we delve into the capabilities of this technology, it’s crucial to maintain a critical and nuanced perspective. We must acknowledge its potential while also being mindful of its limitations. It’s essential to address the biases and preconceptions that influence its outputs, aiming to shape a future where AI enhances our humanity rather than magnifying our existing shortcomings.

Ultimately, ChatGPT’s value transcends its ability to generate text or complete tasks. Its true power lies in its capacity to ignite deeper thinking, challenge our assumptions, and foster a world that’s more equitable, compassionate, and filled with awe.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)