Using ChatGPT for Practical Applications

These sources offer a comprehensive look at ChatGPT, detailing its evolution from versions 3.5 to 4 and 4o, highlighting their differing capabilities like multimodal input in newer versions. They explore its practical applications, including coding in various languages, text summarization, and assisting with data analysis using Python and Excel. The text also covers prompt engineering techniques for optimizing responses and demonstrates using ChatGPT for tasks like creating a rock-paper-scissors game and a portfolio website. Finally, it touches on using ChatGPT in fields like digital marketing, finance, banking, investment strategies, and credit management, and introduces the process of creating custom GPTs.

Human Role in Using AI Tools

Based on the sources provided, the concept of human intervention is discussed in the context of using Large Language Models like ChatGPT, particularly regarding the execution of tasks and the necessary oversight and interaction required from the user.

Here’s a breakdown drawing on the sources:

1. Execution Requiring Intervention: One source explicitly lists “execution requires human intervention” as a potential limitation of Chat GPT. This suggests that while the AI can generate responses or code, putting that output into action or completing a multi-step process may still depend on a human user.
2. Human Input and Prompting: The entire process of interacting with ChatGPT is initiated and guided by human input in the form of prompts. Prompt engineering is described as both an art and a science involving giving the AI detailed guidelines and instructions for a task. Effective prompt engineering requires the user to structure prompts with context, instructions, input data, and desired output indicators. Users actively provide prompts for various tasks like generating content, writing emails, creating social media posts, debugging code, handling exceptions, testing code, generating documentation, getting data analysis done, and creating presentation slides.
3. Evaluation and Refinement through Feedback: The interaction is often an iterative process. Humans provide feedback to the AI to refine the output, telling it what is good, what is bad, or what specific parts need to be changed. Users analyze the outcomes and refine their prompts or techniques based on the responses received. Not testing prompts thoroughly and blindly following what the AI generates is listed as a common error, leading to less accurate or wrong responses.
4. Verification and Cross-Checking: It is necessary for humans to verify the content generated by the AI, especially technical terms or facts, because ChatGPT may be wrong at times and is not fully accurate. Cross-checking is advised if there is any doubt about the AI’s output.
5. Using and Adapting the Output: The AI provides text-based output, and humans often need to manually use or adapt this output for their final purpose. For example, copying and pasting AI-generated content onto presentation slides and formatting it manually. In some cases, like with GPT 3.5, manually transferring text-based table data into a spreadsheet application like Excel or Google Sheets is required as the AI cannot directly create visual elements.
6. Ethical and Legal Responsibility: Humans bear the ethical and legal responsibility for how they use the AI, such as ensuring it is only used for legitimate purposes and not for coding malicious software.
7. Oversight and Professional Judgment: The sources emphasize that ChatGPT is a tool for assistance but not a replacement for professional advice. Human critical thinking and problem-solving abilities remain essential. This implies that while the AI can offer suggestions (e.g., for financial planning or diagnosis systems), human judgment and expertise are crucial for making final decisions or validating the AI’s output in professional contexts.
8. Customization and Knowledge Provision: Humans are involved in configuring and customizing the AI, such as creating Custom GPTs. This involves providing instructions, descriptions, and uploading specific knowledge bases (like data sets) that the custom AI will use. The AI’s performance for specialized tasks depends heavily on how the human user configures it.

In summary, while ChatGPT automates many tasks related to language processing and generation, human intervention is necessary for directing the AI through prompting, providing feedback to refine outputs, validating the accuracy of generated information, integrating the AI’s output into final products, ensuring ethical use, and providing essential professional judgment and oversight. The AI is portrayed as a powerful tool that requires human guidance and evaluation to be used effectively and responsibly.

ChatGPT Privacy and Security Cautions

Based on the provided sources, privacy and security are highlighted as critical considerations when using ChatGPT.

Specifically, the sources advise users to be cautious about sharing sensitive personal information with ChatGPT. The reason given for this caution is that interactions may be stored and used to improve the model.

Therefore, it is essential for users to always prioritize their privacy and security when interacting with the AI.

ChatGPT: Risk and Responsible Use

Based on the sources provided, there is a discussion regarding the risk of dependency when using ChatGPT.

Specifically, source highlights that there is a risk of dependency arising from relying too heavily on chat gbd for answers. This heavy reliance, according to the source, can hinder your own critical thinking and problem solving.

Therefore, the recommended approach is to use ChatGPT as a tool for assistance. It should be viewed as a complement to your own knowledge and abilities, rather than something to depend on completely. Source reinforces this point, stating that you cannot completely depend upon chat GPT and should instead take it as a support, a learning aspect, and use tips and tricks but not depend completely. The sources also emphasize that ChatGPT is not the replacement for professional advice, implying that crucial human judgment and problem-solving remain essential.

Comparing ChatGPT Versions 3.5, 4, and 4o

Based on the sources, there are several versions of ChatGPT discussed, primarily focusing on ChatGPT 3.5, ChatGPT 4, and ChatGPT 4o. Understanding the differences between these versions is crucial for effective use of the AI.

Here’s a breakdown of the versions discussed:

1. ChatGPT 3.5

• Access: This version is generally free for all users. It is described as a fantastic option for users to get started with ChatGPT.
• Capabilities:It is built on a special architecture called a Transformer, specifically the decoder part, which is good at understanding context and generating human-like text.
• It is a uni-model, meaning it only understands and interprets text input.
• It can generate code, though with certain limitations.
• It can be used for a wide range of queries and tasks, including answering questions, planning routines, writing stories, debugging code, and assisting with homework.
• Limitations:It is a uni-model, limiting its input to text only.
• It may sometimes provide inaccurate or vague answers compared to newer versions.
• It does not have a code interpreter option.
• It does not allow file upload or output download.
• It struggles to understand the nuances of natural human language compared to GPT-4.
• It has a knowledge cutoff, generally trained up to August or September of 2021, and is not aware of current events after that time.
• Specific coding limitations for 3.5 mentioned include lack of context beyond 2048 tokens, generating incorrect or repetitive responses, potential bias, lack of clarification for ambiguous queries, sometimes non-contextual responses, and lacking complete domain expertise.

2. ChatGPT 4

• Access: This version is typically available under the ChatGPT Plus subscription model and is not free by default. However, users can access the GPT-4 model through Bing Chat (Microsoft Copilot) for free.
• Capabilities:It is an advanced model with higher order thinking and better logical reasoning compared to 3.5.
• It is multimodal, capable of understanding and processing both text and images. You can input images.
• It provides more crisp, precise, and accurate answers.
• It outperforms ChatGPT 3.5 in benchmarks like the Uniform Bar Exam.
• It has a code interpreter feature available in beta, which allows it to execute Python code in a real working environment and work with file uploads.
• It allows for file upload and output download. For example, it can provide a downloadable CSV or Excel file with dummy data.
• It is described as more creative and having more coherence than 3.5, able to produce improvised poems and write essays.
• Limitations:It has a limit on the number of messages (a cap of 25 messages every 3 hours in the paid version), after which it may revert to the GPT 3.5 model.
• Like 3.5, it also has a knowledge cutoff up to August or September of 2021.

3. ChatGPT 4o (4o)

• Access: This is a newer model available under the ChatGPT Plus subscription model. Similar to GPT-4, it can be accessed for free through Microsoft Bing Chat which integrates the model.
• Enhancements and Features:Builds on GPT-4 with several enhancements.
• Offers optimized performance with faster response times and improved accuracy.
• It is designed to be more efficient, responsive, and more human-like in its interactions.
• Features like emotion detection (can detect and respond to emotions) and real-time translation are introduced or enhanced in this version.
• Optimized to understand and respond to a wider range of queries more accurately.
• Provides more sophisticated data analysis, better identifying trends and patterns, and offering more comprehensive explanations and interpretations of visualizations compared to 3.5 and 4.
• Supports seamless integration with various plugins and DALL-E for image generation. Plugins can extend capabilities for tasks like scheduling, managing tasks, or controlling smart home devices. DALL-E integration allows generating images from text prompts directly within the chat interface.
• Includes advanced context understanding for more coherent conversations.
• Boosts improved multilingual capabilities.

In summary, the sources present an evolution from ChatGPT 3.5 (free, text-only, basic capabilities) to ChatGPT 4 (paid, multimodal, improved reasoning and accuracy, code interpreter, file handling) and the latest ChatGPT 4o (paid, optimized performance, faster, more human-like, emotion detection, enhanced multimodal features, advanced plugins, DALL-E integration). While newer versions are primarily part of a subscription, there are methods like Bing Chat that offer free access to advanced models. All versions still share limitations, such as a knowledge cutoff before late 2021.

Coding with ChatGPT: Capabilities and Considerations

Based on the sources and our conversation history, ChatGPT is presented as a powerful tool that can significantly assist with coding tasks throughout the development lifecycle.

Here’s a discussion of coding with ChatGPT:

1. Core Capabilities: ChatGPT is capable of creating code from scratch for various use cases and in different programming languages. You can ask it to write a program for a specific task, such as calculating BMI, displaying powers of two, or checking if two strings are anagrams. It can generate code not only in different languages (like Python or C++) but also based on specifications you provide in the prompt, such as time and space complexity.
2. Assistance Throughout the Development Lifecycle: ChatGPT acts as a “coding buddy” available anytime, providing support in several stages of program development:

• Writing Code: It can generate code snippets or complete programs based on your prompts.
• Debugging: You can paste code with errors into ChatGPT, and it can help find the error, explain the issue, and provide a corrected version of the code. It can also suggest alternative methods to solve the problem or handle potential errors.
• Exception Handling: If your code might encounter errors (like IndexError or ZeroDivisionError), you can ask ChatGPT to identify potential errors and add exception handling using constructs like try-except blocks. It can even help handle custom exceptions based on specific conditions you define.
• Testing: You can ask ChatGPT to perform unit testing on your code, and it can provide the unit test code along with explanations. It can also suggest other testing options like Pytest or Doctest.
• Documentation: ChatGPT can generate code documentation for existing code, providing summaries and in-code comments to make it more understandable.
• Code Improvement: It can suggest code improvement ideas and, based on your request, implement these ideas into the code.
• Code Conversion: ChatGPT can convert a given set of code from one language to another, for example, from C++ to Python.

1. Building Applications and Websites: ChatGPT can guide you through building simple applications and websites. Examples provided include developing a Rock Paper Scissors game app with a Python backend and HTML/CSS/JavaScript frontend, and creating a portfolio website using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This is highlighted as particularly helpful for users with zero or limited coding knowledge, as it provides simple explanations and step-by-step processes.
2. Version Differences in Coding Capabilities:

• ChatGPT 3.5: This version is generally free and text-only (uni-model). It can generate code and provide explanations and documentation in text format. However, it does not have a built-in Code Interpreter, meaning it cannot execute code directly in a sandboxed environment. It also does not allow file uploads or output downloads for code. It’s considered a fantastic option for students and users getting started, acting like a virtual teacher.
• ChatGPT 4/4o: These versions are typically part of the paid subscription (ChatGPT Plus), although accessible freely through platforms like Microsoft Bing Chat/Copilot. A key difference is the presence of the Code Interpreter feature (beta in GPT-4), which allows the AI to execute Python code in a real working environment. With Code Interpreter, you can upload code files, ask ChatGPT to work with them (e.g., analyze, execute, modify), and even download the modified code file. This significantly enhances its utility for coding tasks. GPT-4 and 4o are also multimodal and generally provide more accurate and coherent code compared to 3.5.

1. Comparison to GitHub Copilot: While both assist with coding, ChatGPT (specifically 3.5 in the comparison) is noted as being free and providing code with explanations, suitable for students. GitHub Copilot is more oriented towards professional coding, offers continuous learning, but requires payment after a trial period.
2. Ethical and Responsible Use: The sources strongly emphasize that while ChatGPT can generate code for anything, users are ethically and legally required to use it only for legitimate purposes, not for creating malicious or hacking software. It is also advised against direct copy-pasting code generated by ChatGPT for academic assignments (like homework) or even larger software projects to avoid plagiarism or copyright issues; some changes should be made.
3. Limitations and Dependency Risk: ChatGPT 3.5 has specific limitations for coding, including a lack of context beyond 2048 tokens, sometimes generating incorrect or repetitive responses, lacking clarification for ambiguous queries, and not having complete domain expertise. Importantly, the sources warn against the risk of dependency by relying too heavily on ChatGPT for coding answers, as it can hinder your own critical thinking and problem-solving skills. It should be used as a tool for assistance, a complement to your own abilities, a support, or a learning aspect, but not depended upon completely. It is explicitly stated that ChatGPT is not a replacement for professional advice or human judgment. Users with programming expertise can leverage ChatGPT more effectively by understanding its underlying architecture and APIs.

By Amjad Izhar
Contact: amjad.izhar@gmail.com
https://amjadizhar.blog

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