I have been using ChatGPT pretty consistently for various summarization type of tasks for a bit.

But this weekend I tried using it to learn a technical concept I've struggled with. Previously, I could have spoken about the topic intelligently, but could not have put it to any practical use.

In a few quick prompts and < 1 hr of synthesis, I was able to get to practical knowledge to understand it enough to try and build something from scratch. And building something in another 2-3 hours.

I think this would have taken me 1-2 months of dedicate hitting my head on the wall time to learn previously.

In that moment, I had a realization similar to the author.

Basic flow of the prompt went something like:

  1. Tell me about this thing that's part of the concept that I don't understand?

  2. Explain this new term you threw at me? Do it in the context on an industry I understand well.

  3. Explain yet another concept you mentioned in the same industry concept?

  4. This sounds a lot like this other concept I know. How do these differ in practical use?

  5. Write me some sample code in a language I understand very well, that does X use case the you mentioned?

  6. What are these other concepts you used?

  7. How can I do this new concept to do something I've implemented before.

Essentially, my knowledge of other concepts, industries and being able to draw parallels allowed me to learn much much faster.