Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

As a "domain specific words" generator for building up a glossary, it can't be beat. From a prompt perspective I have to tell it that we are both world class neuroscientists but it knows more about this specific question than i do. Then I tell it to reply using correct jargon for the domain like that written in a textbook

Lots of people talk about generating code with Chat GPT, but to me its real value is in having deep detailed discussions about design problems.

It’s been so successful at this that recently I gave GPT-4 the full interview design skill assessment that I give to engineers when I interview them at Microsoft. GPT 3 wouldn’t be able to handle this, but what GPT-4 did here astonished me. My assessment is that this is a principal level performance. It didn’t have to do other things that normal candidates have to do but for this raw skills assessment of design skills it was spot on. It would have impressed me even more if it figured its final solution out from from the beginning, but that’s what it gets for blurting things out before thinking about them, which people do, too.

The important thing I’m communicating here is not that I am impressed because it’s amazing that a computer can do this stuff; I’m impressed at what it has done here compared to almost every human I’ve ever walked through this question with. The approach I used here is the same I use when asking candidates this question, because in addition to testing their ability to code, I’m looking for how well I can understand the candidate’s ideas, and how well they can understand and then apply my own ideas when I ask them to take a different approach on certain things than they were thinking of themselves. This is one area where many great coders struggle; they can code like the wind when it’s their own idea but struggle to work collaboratively. This kind of mental flexibility, ability to think of things in a different sequence or consider other ways to solve the problem after thinking of their own solution is also a required skill often in real-life meetings and other collaborative settings. I’d rate this candidate as an outstanding, top-notch collaborator.

My point here is that using it only to write boilerplate code is a waste of its best value. My suggestion is to get GPT-4 with its larger token limit, and talk strategy with it. Tell it all about your biggest challenges at a level of detail that would exhaust a normal human, and talk through ideas of how to improve your world.

Talk to it about your people problems too. It’s an astonishingly wise counselor who has a wealth of positive insights and suggestions. It’s also great for elegantly wordsmithing things.

Don’t miss out on the chance to collaborate with this endlessly creative and endlessly patient collaborator.

So you're using it generate a legally actionable document. Is this a good idea?

Description of the problem, some specifics on equipment, it bangs out a solid first pass to the problem that might require some tweaks. Then it occurred to me that it had not only written the code, it had set the temperature threshold to a sensible default without my having to separately look up that information.