Ken Colburn
Special for The Republic
QUESTION: I keep hearing about how incredible ChatGPT is, but what can it do for non-technical people?
ANSWER: The world of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is exploding and one of the first generally accessible AI tools, ChatGPT is open for public use.
Getting started
You’ll start by signing up for a free account which then provides access to the start page for ChatGPT with some examples of what you can ask it.
Your questions are referred to as “prompts” by the community, which will be important to remember for a research tip I’ll provide later.
Learning complex concepts
Much like a search engine, you can use ChatGPT to learn things, but you won’t have to weed through a plethora of websites because it’s more like having a conversation.
For example, you can ask it, “Explain black holes to me like I’m a 10-year-old” and if the explanation isn’t helpful, you can click on a button at the bottom that says “Regenerate response” for a different one.
