ChatGPT For Dummies Cheat Sheet

ChatGPT took the world by storm shortly after its debut, and it hasn’t slowed down since. If you’re feeling at a loss as to what to do now, frustrated  with trying to get it to work well, or uncertain about how to react to AI entering your space, this cheat sheet will help you make some quick and meaningful headway that you can build on as you go.  

Read a brief explanation of what ChatGPT is before checking it out either directly online or by connecting with it in one of many software applications. Then learn the keys to mastering ChatGPT: perfecting the prompt and using the right GPTs from the ChatGPT GPT store. Using ChatGPT will significantly increase your productivity, but you must always fact-check its responses before relying on them.

Don’t worry if you make a mistake along the way. or find yourself stumped over what to do next. You're not alone. ChatGPT is completely new and mysterious for most people. Keep this cheat sheet handy and dive right in! ‍

Brief explanation of how ChatGPT works

ChatGPT runs on an incredibly advanced type of AI model, but it's woefully short of the type of AI you see in sci-fi movies. It does not think; it predicts. To embarrassingly oversimplify a major technological achievement, ChatGPT is like a really fancy predictive text tool. It analyzes your prompt and predicts what words will follow. In other words, you're prompting it to complete a pattern that you created with your prompt.  

It might complete that pattern in exquisite and minute detail, matched wonderfully to context and intention and executed in perfect human mimicry. But just like predictive text, sometimes it predicts correctly and sometimes it does not. You should always check its work. And you must guard against any potential negative consequences that its use may cause. These consequences could be serious and should never be taken lightly.

Where to find ChatGPT and its competitors

You can access the free ChatGPT version or buy a subscription to the ChatGPT Plus, Team, or Enterprise premium models directly from OpenAI.

You can also find ChatGPT embedded in third-party applications/.  ChatGPT competitors include Gemini and Claude. ChatGPT can be found on Ai aggregators too like Quora’s Poe and Magai.  

For advanced users, ChatGPT and the GPT models that drive it are all options you can use in a variety of ways. Look to the relevant APIs to help you connect the models with your applications. You can also work with OpenAI and other sources (such as Databricks’ free Dolly 2.0 and Microsoft’s DeepSpeed Chat) to build models you can connect to your databases and train for your own purposes.  

Master the ChatGPT prompt

The secret to success with ChatGPT is in mastering the prompt. Ask a question or state an instruction — in other words, prompt the AI — to set it off on a mission. Typing your question or command seems so simple, yet it's the hardest part of using ChatGPT. Why? Because people tend to ask questions that are too general or vague or to give instructions that are too simple to get much more from ChatGPT than a regurgitation of a Wikipedia entry. Getting ChatGPT to deliver the real goods takes much more effort.

If you give it a basic prompt, you will get a bare-bones answer that you could have retrieved using a search engine such as Google or Bing or a simpler AI assistant such as Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant. This is why some people go no further with ChatGPT. They simply see no advantage in using it over other existing technologies. But the fault of that misjudgment falls squarely on the user, not AI.

In short, you’re going to need to think more, not less, to use ChatGPT to its utmost best. The cheat in using ChatGPT is “think harder, work easier.”

Here’s a handy list of other tips to help get you started on the path to mastering the art of the prompt:

• Plan to spend more time than expected on crafting a prompt. No matter how many times you write prompts, the next one you write won’t be any easier to do. Don’t rush this part.
• Start by defining the goal. What exactly do you want ChatGPT to deliver? Craft your prompt to push ChatGPT towards that goal. If you know where you want to end up, you’ll be able to craft a prompt that will get you there.
• Throw out any limits for this tech that you're harboring. What will hold you back are the imagined limits that you project on ChatGPT.
• Think like a storyteller, not an inquisitor. Give GPT a character or a knowledge level from which it should shape its answer. For example, tell ChatGPT that it's a chemist, an oncologist, a consultant, or any other job role. You can also instruct it to answer as a famous person would, such as Churchill, Shakespeare, or Einstein, or as a fictional character such as Rocky. Give it a sample of your own writing and instruct ChatGPT to write its answer to your question or complete the task in the way that you would.
• Remember that any task or thinking exercise (within reason and the law) is fair game and within ChatGPT’s general scope. For example, instruct ChatGPT to check your homework, your kids’ homework, or its own homework. Enter something such as computer code or a text passage in quotation marks and instruct ChatGPT to find errors in it or in the logic behind it. Or skip the homework checking and ask it to help you think instead. Ask it to finish a thought, an exercise, or a mathematical equation that has you stumped. The only limit to what you can ask is your own imagination and whatever few safety rules the AI trainer installed.
• Be specific. The more details you include in the prompt, the better. Basic prompts lead to basic responses. More specifically, concise prompts lead to more detailed responses, more nuanced responses, and better performance in ChatGPT’s responses.
• Use iterative prompting to refine ChatGPT outputs. Iterative prompting involves giving an initial prompt, analyzing the AI's output, and then adjusting the prompt to improve the accuracy, quality, or relevance of the answer. Using a series of prompts in this manner generally leads to a much-improved output.
• Use prompt chains. This technique uses multiple prompts to guide ChatGPT through a more complex thought process. In prompt chaining, the output from one prompt becomes the input for the next. Each response builds on the prompt you just entered and the prompts you entered earlier.
• Take advantage of ChatGPT’s memory to make prompting easier. You can prompt ChatGPT to remember or forget anything and the chatbot will do so over several chats, Add special instructions to Custom Instructions and ChatGPT will apply those instructions to all prompts which saves time because you won’t have to repeat yourself in prompts, and outputs will be customized to your liking.
• Give ChatGPT one or more roles. ChatGPT will respond to your prompt in one or more roles to give you added perspectives and information shaped by the role. You can also prompt ChatGPT to respond as members of a group such as a company meeting, a consumer test group, or a board meeting.
• Use output stitching. Get outputs from different models and then use parts of each result to combine into one unified piece of work. This way you aren’t limited to one AI for outputs. You get to use the best of all AI worlds.

Use ChatGPT but don't trust it

Any generative AI model, ChatGPT included, can and does lie. AI trainers are working on a fix, but it’s damn tough to do considering the very thing that makes these generative AI models work so well is the same reason they fail so badly on occasion. ChatGPT generates — which is to say creates — outputs. It can therefore also create lies, called hallucinations in AI-speak. These lies can seriously harm your job, your business, your community, your country, and possibly your species one day. But so too, theoretically at least, can the person sitting to either side of you at work or on a bus, train, or plane.  

To compete in an increasingly fast world where production quotas and expectations are soaring, you’ll be at a distinct disadvantage if you don’t use AI such as ChatGPT to assist you with your work. But if you use it without double-checking its outputs, you’re at considerable risk too. If ChatGPT succeeds in doing the work for you without your intervention, the model will likely replace you on the job soon. Or if ChatGPT makes a massive error, you'll be at risk of losing your job for failing to manage its results.

Use GPTs and extensions to do more with ChatGPT

GPTs in this context are specialized ChatGPTs that you’ll find under the ‘Explore GPTs’ button in the sidebar on the left side of the user interface.   GPTs make it easy for you to add functionality, reach, and capabilities to ChatGPT. Browser extensions enable you to easily connect with ChatGPT or ChatGPT-like functionality from your browser.

Examples of OpenAI GPTs and extensions follow:

• ChatGPT search extension for browsers: You can change your default search engine to ChatGPT search by installing the ChatGPT Search extension on Chrome or Microsoft Edge.  Image Generator GPT: This GPT is specialized in generating and refining images within ChatGPT.  Consensus GPT. This GPT is specialized to query science and medical research by directly connecting with the world's scientific literature. It can search references, provide explanations, and write articles or blog posts backed by academic papers.

• Canva GPT: This GPT is specialized to produce presentations, logos, social media posts and more inside of ChatGPT.

• Code Copilot GPT: This GPT is specialized in writing computer code like a programmer.