Self Awareness: Powered by AI?
some of my recent GPT explorations
My one self-imposed constraint with this newsletter is to have long-form content with “original” takes, or at the very least original stories and learnings - but I am making an exception this time. In the last two weeks, I spent most of my spare time going down GPT/AI rabbit holes and I’d be remiss if I didn’t share some of what I’ve been exploring.
ChatGPT as a Counselor
… I simulated a psychological counseling interview with ChatGPT.
A motivational interview in psychology is a counseling approach designed to help you find your internal motivations, often with the goal of driving behavior change.
I attempted to simulate such an interview with GPT.
Here’s the prompt I started with:
GPT proceeded to ask me one question at a time, each of which I answered candidly and instinctively, the way I would if talking to a friend.
I did the exercise up to 9 questions and then asked it to summarize.
Not going to share the response here:) but GPT’s assessment of what drives me and of my personality felt quite spot on to me.
Another thing I’ve tried is sharing journal entries with GPT and asking it to help me become aware of what I truly care about. Few months back, I was wrestling with a major life decision and found myself confused with all the options and conflicting advice I was receiving from friends & family. It became hard to listen to my inner voice. So I journaled on the matter at hand every day for a week and fed all the entries to GPT. I then asked it questions like - “what do you think this person really wants?”, “what are their recurring thought patterns?”, “summarize the decision they are struggling with” etc.
One way to think of this is to imagine if you were talking to a friend for hours every week about a problem or a major life decision - and at the end of it the friend can synthesize all of what you say and tell you things like:
Recurring thought patterns
Which specific topics got you excited when talking
Any specific statements you kept repeating / anything you keep coming back to
Sometimes, all we need is someone to listen to our zillion unorganized, unprocessed thoughts and state it back to us in a way that makes sense. In some ways, this is a logical exercise and not so much an emotional one. If it is more of a logical exercise than an emotional one, then why wouldn’t AI do it better than do humans.
Could AI Replace Therapists?
… Not quite, not completely. Obviously, therapists and licensed professionals have an important, ineffaceable place, especially for mental illness and trauma of any kind.
That said, I think AI can really step in the game as a tool for self-awareness and self-improvement. The kind of inputs you’d get from a life-coach or counselor, you could perhaps get from AI.
Universal Primer - GPT for Learning Anything
Adding "Universal Primer" by @blader to my GPTs sidebar - great for learning almost anything. I tried learning about LLM Transformers - gave the exact same prompts to ChatGPT and compared the results.
The first notable difference with Universal Primer was the friendly tone and simple language. The more important & key difference is that it asks you a question at the end of every response to test your understanding and then frames further responses based on that - this was really cool!
I could perhaps prompt engineer my way to getting the same results from the regular ChatGPT (as opposed to using this custom GPT) but imagine someone taking a complex technical course and at the end of it, they have this interactive quiz. It needs to be seamless. That's where the real magic is... that's when it gets as close as possible to having a 1:1 tutoring session. If I have to prompt-engineer and write a long para of specific instructions, that takes away from my learning experience.
# 1 GPT in the GPTs Store
The #1 most used GPT in the GPTs store is by Canva, the design tool.
I asked it to make a graphic for a social media post on public speaking tips.
Clicking on the image results takes you to Canvas website to see & customize the full design.
Wonder if this actually helps bring in new users?
Will we reach a point soon where custom GPTs become a meaningful source of top of funnel for new companies / tools?
Recommended Links:
1. Interview with the head of developer relations at OpenAI
2. Sam Altman Address at Cambridge
Sam Altman Address at Cambridge Union
“It's a tool that could redefine the way we understand and solve our biggest problems it's a tool that I think can lead to more scientific advancement and understanding than anything that's come before consider Healthcare AI can improve our Global Healthcare infrastructure especially in regions where medical reason resources are scarce years down the line AI can maybe solve every disease in education tailored learning experiences facilitated by AI can cater to the unique aptitudes and interests of every student democratizing access to knowledge and I mentioned this before but I want to say it one more time because it's the thing to me that is most exciting AI can significantly accelerate the pace of scientific discovery.”
Quote
“I think of myself as a software writer not a software engineer… I write stories that the computer can understand and execute and I want those stories to sing...”
~ DHH
From : DHH’s interview on the Aarthi & Sriram Show:
https://twitter.com/aarthisrirampod/status/1750221321412218912
p.s. - I love hearing from readers so if you have any thoughts/questions/comments on what I shared today, feel free to write back at manannewsletters@gmail.com