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Comment by golergka | Hacker News Reader

I use GPT in all my writing now, and I'm really transparent about it. For $20 a month, I now have a pocket secretary, and can at any time whipe out my phone and dictate a long, incoherent train of thought, thinking out aloud — and get a structured retelling of my thoughts a few seconds later. Is there a single reason not to use it?

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You aren't organising your own thoughts. You're missing out on imporant clarification to your thinking and very likely settling for second rate on that basis. That's one reason not to use it, but you may be able to counter that somehow.

Not all of my thinking needs that first rate. One thing I've used GPT for recently was writing letters to some officials on a beurocratic matter. I dictated my thoughts with a lot of babbling and curse words (the whole issue is frustrating) and got out beautifully written page in a language I barely speak.

Writing detailed, respectful letters to idiot officials is not a skill that I would enjoy getting or practicing.

> Is there a single reason not to use it?

Same reason as all the other tools when they were new: we're still all figuring out the best practices, the limitations, and the strengths.

Also: If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail — Outside my speciality, ChatGPT is my hammer; inside my speciality, I can see all the LLM's flaws while also having good working knowledge of many other tools.

> and get a structured retelling of my thoughts a few seconds later?

How bad is the latency in your actual brain that this is a regular option for you?

What’s your pipeline? Do you dictate into a chat GPT or do you take a voice memo and go through the API or something like that?

FWIW, the app, even without a pro subscription, has speech-to-text and TTS. On iOS, you can directly start the app in voice input mode from the shortcuts menu.

There are a lot of seething and butthurt replies to you for some reason. Imagine the above but in regards to any other piece of technology.

"I use calculators in all my calculations now, and I'm really transparent about it. For $20, I now have a pocket calculator, and can at any time whip it out and calculate a long, difficult problem - and get a correct calculation based on my inputs just a few seconds later. Is there a single reason not to use it?"

Are the concerns in the other replies consistent with their own outsourcing of willpower & mental effort to technology?

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