We are still in a exploration area where the use cases are in flux. If you find a set of use cases that work for you, then it will be a boon, but if not it is worthless. These tools aren't magic black boxes that do everything. On the one hand, that can be discouraging when you don't find immediate value. But for those that keep trying different things you'll probably start to see some value.

Some things I've done this week:

- I was asked to write a white paper on a topic I had previously built a slide presentation and given a talk on. I exported the outline, grabbed a few links to blog posts on the broader topic, and asked ChatGPT (with link-crawling) to write the whitepaper. I didn't like the output at all. So I asked chatgpt for several options on the outline for the whitepaper, and several options for narrative. I think selected an overall narrative arch for the paper, and the outline (with a few manual tweaks) and asked it to rewrite the paper with a revised prompt. It was pretty good and then I asked to change the style and tone. I then asked it to critique itself and suggest several improvements, several of which I then asked it to take into account and revise the paper. Then I asked to several variations of the document for different audiences. I picked out a few different parts I liked from each variant and ran another pass asking for improvements, including suggestions for visual aids. This all only took about 10 minutes, after which I shared this first draft with a colleague for review. That would have taken me a whole afternoon (and likely longer since I procrastinate when starting a blank page)

- I wanted a chrome plugin to use the archive.ph api for gated papers without needing to trust that sketchy extensions might steal my web history. I asked chatgpt to generate the code. Upon review I made a couple tweaks and had a private extension in about 3 minutes.

- I wanted to produce a menu for guests that staying with us this weekend. There were several dietary restrictions and preferences that need to be accounted for. I entered these in requesting a variety options. I selected those options, then asked for recipes and a suggested shopping list. I then asked for wine and beer pairings and got some good generic responses of varieties - but the brand-specific suggestions were bad. Time 2 minutes

- I wanted to some pro/con brainstorms on a new technology decision - I asked it to search for expert blogs and summarize their arguments. I also got it to generate hello-world level examples for each to compare and contrast. I then had it generate code for a more complex use case using the tool for each framework. I was then able to make a much more informed decision and start evaluating deeper a smaller set of options 2 from the dozen+ that existed. Time - 20 minutes

All of these have a pattern of iteratively working with a tool to semi-automate what I want. For now it sort hits a sweet spot of either summarizing research I would normally google and low-key generation of document or code that doesn't need a tone of context outside either what I researched or have on hand and can be self-contained.