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Understanding ChatGPT Work

simonwillison.net

211–216 of 216 posts

Re: Understanding ChatGPT Work

#211
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The correct way to handle “busy-work with little value” should be to understand what lead to that point, fix it, then eliminate what’s unnecessary, not spend more resources (money, time, sanity) on making useless work be done faster. Good luck trying to bring this through your typical bigco process management. Either your initiative dies, having gotten caught in a spider web of red tape, or it succeeds but now half…

“You won’t have luck implementing a sensible solution on a dysfunctional system” is an evergreen answer which doesn’t offer any insight. It’s a cop-out and discourages any attempts at improving anything. Not everyone works for big corporations, and of those who do some work in departments with sensible bosses where they can make some change. As an exaggerated example, we could also say “one way to resolve issues in a…

Having a name for these "thought-killing statements" or "thought-terminating cliches" has helped me recognize them in all sorts of settings in my life. Corporate, social, religious, the list goes on.

It makes sense as humans that we do many things to simplify things or even eliminate them in order to save energy and avoid stress, and we should be careful to recognize a need for balance while still working towards some greater goal, purpose, or good.

Even so, much like kerning, once you are aware of it, it is painfully difficult to ignore.

Re: Understanding ChatGPT Work

#212
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When do you get to enjoy your morning? And when does your family get to enjoy time with you? You're working when you wake up, working while you make coffee, working while you walk through the garden. Is that really space age? It sounds more like TikTok doomscrolling but for techies. IMO these tools introduce faux productivity while taking away your free time and making you work more.

It's not the techs fault. This person chose to use it this way. They could have also carved out 20 mins at the start of their workday to do the same thing

I disagree. They could've carved out 20 minutes at the start of their workday to do the same thing, but that's explicitly at the start of their workday – not during their free time. I don't know anything about this person, but I know that if I were using these tools the way they do, it would mean the complete obliteration of what little semblance of work/life balance that I have left.

Re: Understanding ChatGPT Work

#213
post #194

Thanks a lot for this writeup. I've been really liking "Work", but also scratching my head about some very obvious overlap/duplicated functionality across Chat, Work, and Codex use and wondering if it was just me holding it wrong. Having both a "Codex" vs "ChatGPT" and a "Chat" vs "Work" split, with some conversations appearing in multiple of these places, really doesn't help.

I think its moreso ChatGPT desktop is the platform, and the split is Chat, vs Codex/Work. Codex and Work being largely the same thing, but with UI and tool surface differences geared towards SWE vs Business work. But yes; terrible UX and discoverability on OAI's part.

I think so too, but visually, the parent switch in the macOS application is Chat GPT Codex, and within ChatGPT, there is Chat Work (and within Work, there is "on your computer" and "in the cloud"). I'd naively not expect ChatGPT -> Work to share state with Codex, but this is the case for "on your computer" tasks.

Also, there's still "Codex Cloud", much older and entirely separate from all of this (I think it might even predate Codex the local app?), and this also seems to live in the "Codex" parent tab on a project by project basis.

None of this seems to be documented either. I literally had to start a "Hello World" project in each category to figure out what's going on.

Re: Understanding ChatGPT Work

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll need a subscription ($20 tier should be fine) and then need to add "connectors" to your services (Gmail, 365, etc) so that it can access them. Then you just use the Claude Cowork (Or ChatGPT equivalent) tabs and chat with it.

You do not even need a subscription. Even ChatGPT free account has some quota for Codex/Work use.

I wasn't aware of that. I am aware that Google connectors are gated behind the $20 ChatGPT sub.

Re: Understanding ChatGPT Work

#215
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to go to the HuggingFace incident! Go back in time to the New York Times legal brawl where NYT lawyers started being able to scoop up all their logs not covered by a ZDR. That's what keeps me from giving OpenAI access to anything too personal. My employer offers to let us use our corporate seats for personal stuff so we can be covered by our corporate ZDR, but AFAIK that enables HR to see all my chats…

You can have OpenRouter filter for ZDR providers. There are nuances like contractual ZDR vs technical ZDR but definitely worth investigating

exactly, and contractual can mean anything

the providers are actually still training on data, using a concept called Generate Data Refinement that thye've publisehd: https://trustedrouter.com/blog/they-are-still-training-on-yo...

Re: Understanding ChatGPT Work

#216
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not even need a subscription. Even ChatGPT free account has some quota for Codex/Work use.

I just signed into https://chatgpt.com using my burner free account and I don't see a "Work" tab. Do you know if free tier gets ChatGPT desktop app access to Codex and Work? And if that Work access is local-only or includes Work Cloud?

It might be hidden somewhere or they’re doing A/B testing. Cowork was part of the left sidebar for Claude but when I was looking for it, it was gone. I had to do a search query to find it.
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