Exploring OpenAI ChatGPT as a Researcher, a Writer and a Software User

Artificial Intelligence is now a hot topic. The concept is not that new. In translations from one language to another, it was used since the 1960s to prepare rough drafts with the idea that the text will be refined by human editors. We interviewed Urszula Witherell, the author of the book Adobe Acrobat Ninja for her perspectives on using AI, specifically freely available ChatGPT: as a Reader, a Writer, and a Software User. 

What is your experience using ChatGPT as a Reader/Researcher?

I am a curious person, and my mind constantly questions where and why. I love exploring new ideas, learning about people living in different cultures, and exploring different perspectives on topics that matter to me. AI as a research tool is wonderful, although very quickly I learned about its limitations. A simple test was to search for my own name. It knew nothing. My ego was not bruised as I am not a celebrity or want to be one. On the other hand, a simple search on Google very quickly found my name, my address, my family members, and everything I did online going back at least a decade. ChatGPT insisted that it knew nothing about me since its training ended in September 2021, 2 years ago. Similarly, when asked about a company website that has been active for at least 20 years it gave this reply: “I apologize for the confusion, but as an AI language model, I don't have the capability to browse the internet or visit specific websites. My responses are based on pre-existing knowledge up until September 2021. Therefore, I'm unable to provide a real-time description or analysis of the website “ or “Without specific information, I can't provide details about the website's content, purpose, or any other features it may have. It's always a good idea to visit the website directly to gather accurate and up-to-date information.” This made me ask a question how is ChatGPT trained? Where does the data come from?

Once I manually copied information from the website and asked ChatGPT to generate a new response. It expanded on dry data and formulated a nice description of the website content.

Image 1: ChatGPT cannot figure out what is the content of the website

Figure 2: ChatGPT expanded the description

When I asked for descriptions of cities, landmarks, or public figures ChatGPT did provide sufficient information in full sentences with rich vocabulary. When asked to regenerate responses it provided fresh and even better-formulated descriptions. Again, not knowing where the data for AI come from, I depended on what I already knew about the locations to evaluate the accuracy of the response. It made me think about the famous quote: “Trust but verify”. So, compare results from multiple other sources to get the results that you can trust. Asked about liking a city, this is what I got: “As an AI language model, I don't have personal opinions or emotions, so I don't have the ability to like or dislike anything. However, I can provide information.” Not quite a chatty, opinionated friend, at least not yet.

What is your experience using ChatGPT as a Writer?

I think this is where the AI can be very helpful as it can be a thesaurus, spell-checker, and grammar checker all at once. It can re-write sentences; from just a rough draft it can expand descriptions and literally be your personal assistant during the writing process. You can see this in the screenshot example. As a bilingual person I often wonder how to express ideas in Polish for my friends in Poland. I discovered that translations of English text to Polish are very good. Grammar is correct, vocabulary is rich enough and sentences are full and mostly sound natural. Much better than what I had experienced in the past using Google Translate, when translated text needed a real human translator to be understood by a Polish-only speaking person (my parents). Of course, there are some flaws, such as the assumption of the male gender as an author. In Polish all nouns are assigned one of three genders: feminine (yes, ladies first), masculine and neutral. This is where corrections were needed. Additionally, since an example to be translated was a chapter of the software guide, it used many English terms in Polish grammatical form. My English teacher would faint at such a transgression, as we were always taught to use native expressions in place of foreign adoptions. But since technology vocabulary originated in English, so the rest of the world must just deal with it. I can live with that. I will depend on ChatGPT as a writer from now on. Definitely thumbs up!

What about the perspective of a software user?

Well, this is where the results vary, and it simply depends on what you are looking for. I tested a question about authoring Adobe InDesign documents for PDF accessibility and compliance with Section 508 requirements in the USA. ChatGPT provided a very detailed, step-by-step description of how to proceed, but in responses regenerated multiple times it missed the most advanced method when automated alt-text tags can be generated from image metadata using Object Styles. So again, AI helped, but I needed to know already what I could possibly do. Great help from a writer’s perspective, but not so good for someone who is exploring more advanced software functions.

It is exciting to explore new platforms and technology. Like any new frontier, it brings excitement but also fear. And again, I am reminded that we as humans have not changed at all. Our toys changed, and we became more sophisticated and powerful, but we continue to need guidance on how to use yet another newly found power and knowledge. History is not a strong enough deterrent from misuse.

Summary

In conclusion, the interview with Urszula sheds light on the versatile applications of ChatGPT in the roles of a researcher, writer, and software engineer. Urszula highlights the efficiency and creativity enabled by ChatGPT, allowing her to tackle complex research problems, generate high-quality content, and even assist in software development tasks. Through her experiences, we gain insights into the immense potential of ChatGPT as a powerful tool for augmenting productivity and innovation across various domains. As the technology continues to evolve, researchers and professionals can leverage ChatGPT to unlock new possibilities and achieve greater efficiency in their work.

Author Bio

Urszula is an expert graphic designer, software instructor, and consultant. As an instructor, she taught thousands of Adobe software users in government agencies and private corporations. Her easy-going and effective presentation style of complex features earned her many loyal clients. Her consulting work related to PDF included creating templates, editing files, and providing recommendations on the document production process. The final goal was to ensure that each publication met the highest publishing and accessibility standards, which was achieved successfully. Urszula also designed training curriculum and reference materials on proper document construction prior to conversion to PDF in a relevant authoring software, such as MS Word, Adobe InDesign, and FrameMaker.

Author of the book: Adobe Acrobat Ninja