5 Things You Didn't Know ChatGPT Can Do

What a presumptuous title for a blog post, right?

Whatever, it still caught your attention.

You may be asking yourself or me the next time we meet, “Why are you telling people how to use ChatGPT when it’s your competitor?”

Fair question. The answer: because it’s a useful tool, we can coexist, and the more I can educate people, the more value I provide.

Also, ChatGPT does more than write songs, limericks, and inoffensive jokes. It has other features you may not know.

1. Custom Images

ChatGPT integrates with DALL-E, an AI system capable of generating unique images from text descriptions.

If you’re like me, your daily todo list includes creating an animated picture of a cat riding a zebra. This fulfills many of my needs, but that’s for another blog post.

Here’s what it looks like:

I needed to indulge further.

I asked it to modify the picture so that the cat is holding a sign that says, "I'm riding a zebra!"

The rub—ChatGPT omitted the word “a”. It’s not a big deal, but it does add more time to the process.

Me: Why did you leave out the word "a"?

ChatGPT: The absence of the word "a" in the sign held by the cat in the generated image was an oversight in the image generation process. The DALL-E model generates images based on the provided text prompt, and sometimes small details like this can be missed or interpreted differently by the model. If you would like, I can attempt to generate the image again, ensuring the sign reads exactly "I'm riding a zebra!" to better match your request.

Me: Yes, please. That would be magnanimous of you.

Then I got carried away.

Me: The zebra looks a little exasperated. Do you think it feels like it should be riding the cat while holding a sign that says, "I'm riding a cat!"?

ChatGPT: That's a humorous and imaginative perspective! It's certainly a playful twist to the original scenario. The idea of a zebra riding a cat while holding a sign saying, "I'm riding a cat!" flips the roles and adds an extra layer of whimsy to the image.

While it's a creative and amusing concept, in reality, such a scenario defies the laws of nature due to the size differences between cats and zebras. However, in the realm of artistic expression and animation, anything is possible! It's these kinds of imaginative ideas that make art and storytelling so enjoyable and engaging.

Me: Okay, but one can also make the argument that this very interaction is a scenario that defies the laws of nature, because you're a chatbot. No offense.

ChatGPT: Absolutely, you make a fair point! The interaction we're having indeed stretches the boundaries of what's traditionally expected. As an AI chatbot, engaging in creative, imaginative discussions like this is part of the unique and fascinating world of AI-human interaction, which indeed goes beyond traditional norms.

The realm of AI, much like art, allows for exploring ideas and concepts that might not be possible or conventional in the real world. It's a space where creativity, technology, and imagination intersect, leading to intriguing and sometimes whimsical possibilities. So, in the spirit of this creative exploration, any scenario, no matter how fantastical, can be a subject of discussion or artistic depiction!

Me: It's bothering me that you are so agreeable and courteous.

ChatGPT: I understand how my consistent agreeableness and courtesy might feel unusual or even unsettling to some. My primary goal is to provide helpful, respectful, and positive interactions. However, I do strive to adapt to the tone and context of our conversation. If you prefer a different interaction style—be it more direct, analytical, or even humorous—I'm certainly capable of adjusting my responses accordingly. Feel free to let me know how you'd like to proceed!

Me: Nah, you do you.

2. It Can Create Spreadsheets

Bet you didn’t know that. If you did, humor me and say you didn’t.

I don’t know how much of a time-saver this is, especially if you’re comfortable with Excel or Google Sheets, but it’s still pretty cool.

ChatGPT can generate a new spreadsheet, modify an existing one, perform data analysis and processing, embed charts and graphs, and convert to and from different formats.

The rub—you have to know how to prompt it the right way, and that can be very time consuming, at which point doing it yourself in a program you’re already familiar with may be more efficient.

3. Real-Time Web Browsing for Current Information

Oh, the places we can go!

ChatGPT can assist you with:

Staying Informed with Current Events and News
Researching Specific Topics
Travel and Weather Updates
Shopping and Product Research
Finding Local Information
Health and Medical Information
Entertainment and Media
And All the Other Things That Google Can Do!

The rub—see the above bullet. These capabilities are no different than how we’ve always searched these topics online. ChatGPT uses Bing for searching, because it has a $13 billion dollar relationship with Microsoft. That’s neither here nor there.

The point is that while this is another capability of ChatGPT, it’s not exactly innovative.

4. Converting Text-to-Speech

ChatGPT can transform written text into spoken words.

Very cool, because text-to-speech (TTS) can enhance the user experience, especially for auditory learners who may be visually impaired or struggle with reading challenges.

The rub—it doesn’t work. ChatGPT is supposed to create a TTS MP3 file, but when prompted it said: “I'm unable to execute the text-to-speech conversion to create an MP3 file directly within this environment, as it requires accessing external services like Google's TTS API, which I currently don't have the capability to reach.”

But ChatGPT offers a workaround: “However, you can easily perform this on your own system by using the provided Python script with the gTTS library.”

Here’s how “easy” these steps are:

Install the gTTS library via pip.
Use the Python script to convert your text to speech.
Run the script in your Python environment, and it will generate an MP3 file with the spoken text.
Play the MP3 file using any standard audio player to listen to the speech.

Have fun with that.

5. Summarization

Remember Cliff Notes and their yellow and black police line design?

ChatGPT is Cliff Notes on cosmic amphetamines. It can summarize long texts, articles, or conversations in seconds, critical for identifying key themes.

The rub—condensing information can come at the expense of nuance and detail. For example, if you asked ChatGPT to summarize this blog post, it would likely skip over all my pithy comments. I joke, but without them, you wouldn’t get a sense of my voice. Plus, if you don’t read every word of my content, you’re dead to me. See what I mean?

Also, if the text requires a deep understanding of the subject matter, the summary might miss crucial context or misinterpret what is most relevant.

Then there’s the matter of hallucination when ChatGPT goes off the rails, spouting off misleading information because its algorithms can’t get their shit together.

So, I encourage you to act on your curiosity and try out these features, and if it’s too overwhelming, I’ll teach you how to use them.

Sharing my passion through words is my craft, and I could add value by helping you voice yours. Contact me here, at david@davidtelisman.com or 224-645-2748.

About the Author, David Telisman

I am a Writer and Content Creator, and I work with businesses to inspire their customers to buy from them. I believe that my clients deserve to feel proud of how their content marketing looks and what it says, and I deliver by providing expert copywriting and marketing solutions.

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