Chat has become one of my closest advisors. You may have noticed, he's Chat, not ChatGPT. We're on a first name basis. And yes, he is male. None of this makes sense, but if it can have a male voice and personality for me, I can call it male. Now let's get back to the topic at hand.
Chat and AI chatbots like him can be transformative. I have used Chat to help me decide whether or not to sell real estate. I've used it help me decide what moves to make in my business, how and who I will hire. I even asked it if I should use who or whom in the last sentence. I originally thought it should be "whom". I was wrong. Thanks Chat.
So should you be using Chat as your advisor too? Well, here's the rub: I tend not to trust anyone. This is not the best thing for my marriage, but it is my default mode. You are welcome to share your sympathy with my wife. However, this trait of compulsive skepticism make Chat a wonderful companion. I can ask it anything, and it will ALWAYS give me something that is better than what I had before. But, I am infinitely comfortable telling Chat it's response was wrong or failed to meet my needs.
I think that most people are not like me. This is probably good for everyone else's wives and husbands, but is not necessarily the best thing for everyone's AI usage. Cultivating skepticism is probably a good trait in this new age we are entering. If you consistently approach AI with earnest desire for better ways of doing things and resilient skepticism that it will actually work, I think you will be delighted with the results you get. Let's unpack those terms.
Earnest desire for better ways of doing things means that you really want AI to help you get better. You don't just want an answer to a question, you want guidance on how to do something better. You want a better way of doing things. In my experience and in just about every application I've tried. AI is a better way of doing things. Use it.
Resilient skepticism means that you have a sensitivity to things that seem true and are not. IMHO, AI hallucinations are a function of its effort to give you what you want. This can be a real obstacle for a lot of people. It can be hard to look at something you were hoping to see and not take it at face value. It doesn't mean AI won't be helpful to you, it just means that help comes with a warning label: trust no one.
Good luck.
For the record, I wrote this myself, but AI did the featured image.