ChatGPT: Personal (Page 2)

Find support and coping strategies for a loved one's Alzheimer's delusions with ChatGPT

The writer behind Alzheimer's Witness lives with Frank, whom the writer has loved for 44 years and who now has Alzheimer's disease. Living with Frank's delusions means answering Frank's questions quickly and soothingly, so the writer talks to ChatGPT, asking questions that ease Frank's mind and the writer's own. What the writer learned brought a better understanding of what Frank is going through and how to meet Frank's needs, and ChatGPT's strategies for coping with a delusion became 'an invaluable source of support and sanity when it is most needed'. In the writer's words: 'With AI, I no longer feel as alone.'

Write a mother's obituary for the local paper with ChatGPT (partial)

Soon after Jeff Fargo's mother died, while Fargo was still emotionally raw, the mother's friends started asking about an obituary. Fargo asked ChatGPT for an obituary to memorialize the mother and typed for a really long time to capture the nuance of who the mother was. The result was printed in the local paper. Fargo felt it was passable and saw it as a gift, since it didn't take a lot of time or more emotional effort. Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell, who read it, found it 'serviceable' but almost 'templated', without all the emotional resonance Fargo had poured in, and suggests using AI drafts as a head start to edit and make your own.

Diagnose and fix a rental property's washer that won't spin with ChatGPT

When a tenant reported that the washing machine at a rental property wasn't spinning, self-described not-handy landlord Sam Guertler asked ChatGPT. It laid out a few possible causes and a step-by-step checklist in one response. Following it, and sending photos and observations along the way, Guertler found the suspension rods needed replacing. ChatGPT gave links for replacement parts and how-to videos; Guertler ordered the parts, replaced them and used ChatGPT to check the work. The tenant later texted that the washer was 'purring like a kitten'. A traditional search, tried for comparison, led to a fix that wasn't the issue.

Adjust a 1,200-calorie diabetes meal plan day to day with ChatGPT

Ankush Joshi has lived with type 2 diabetes since 2012 and used ChatGPT to build a 1,200-calorie, high-protein, high-fiber plan of four meals a day. When a day goes off plan, Joshi asks for quick changes, such as moving calories toward dinner or adding 20 g of protein without adding calories. After 2 laddoos and a small chakli at a festival, ChatGPT estimated the extra calories and suggested lighter swaps and a 45-minute walk. Joshi says it is less accurate for homemade, restaurant and festival food, and the rule stays: 'NEVER change medicines based on AI.'

Read an 18-page blood test report with ChatGPT, then find what it missed

Simran Sukhnani gave an 18-page blood report to ChatGPT. Within seconds it flagged high triglycerides (252 mg/dL), low vitamin D (14.9 ng/mL) and blood in the urine. But it never asked about Sukhnani's life. It suggested walking 30 minutes a day, though Sukhnani walks 15,000 steps and does weight training five days a week. It recommended 60,000 IU of vitamin D weekly without asking about supplements already being taken. And it never asked whether Sukhnani was menstruating when giving the urine sample, though that was the case and is a common cause of blood in urine. Sukhnani went to a doctor, and calls ChatGPT 'a starting point, not a destination'.

Build an evidence packet for a stalled insurance drug approval with ChatGPT

Rich Kaplan has catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome, a rare autoimmune clotting disorder. Kaplan's insurer wouldn't cover an expensive prescribed medication without evidence it had helped someone with a condition that rare, and 90, then 120 days passed. Kaplan asked ChatGPT to find every reference to the drug being used for the disease and got back a referenced, five-page synthesis of trials, case reports and studies. With a short plain-language note added ('I'm alive today. I have a rare disease. I'm trying to stay alive longer.'), the packet was approved through the insurer's third-party arbitration process.

Ask ChatGPT whether an online crypto 'investment' is a scam

Margaret Loke, a 70-something widow in San Jose, met a man called 'Ed' on Facebook who persuaded Loke to 'invest' in crypto through an app that showed big profits. Loke wired money from an IRA, including $120,000 and a final $62,000, and took out a $300,000 second mortgage. When the account was 'frozen' and Ed demanded a million dollars to unfreeze it, Loke asked ChatGPT, which replied: 'no, this is a scam, you better go to police station'. That warning came too late: Loke lost nearly $1 million in a 'pig butchering' scheme, faces a huge tax bill for withdrawing the IRA at once, and could lose the house.

Spot reduced IEP services and rehearse school pushback with ChatGPT

Preparing for an IEP meeting, parent Yessenia Salomon uploaded the child's IEP to ChatGPT and asked it to break down the current services and compare them with last year's. It flagged services that had been reduced, something Salomon hadn't caught yet. Next, ChatGPT played a school administrator objecting to Salomon's requests; the objections 'matched almost word-for-word' the pushback from last year's meeting. In a new chat, Salomon asked for responses as the parent, citing IDEA, FAPE and Florida law. Salomon notes AI can make mistakes with citations, so every one gets double-checked.

Turn a parent's care needs into a shareable daily schedule with ChatGPT

Lisa Mitchell, 59, of Brooklyn, cares for a 92-year-old father who is legally blind and has several health problems. Mitchell puts all of the father's needs into ChatGPT, including occupational therapy, physical therapy, medication routines, adult day care appointments and daily care tasks, and asks for a structured daily plan to share with a brother. 'The schedule that is created gives me back time and peace of mind, and keeps my dad's care organized and my family on the same page.'

Build a zero-based budget to pay down $5,000 of credit card debt with ChatGPT

Myra Donohue, 28, an HR administrator in Grass Valley, California, had US$5,000 of credit card debt plus car payments and other bills, and a partner who had just been laid off. A Facebook post about fixing your finances in seven steps said to start with a zero-based budget, where every dollar gets a job. Donohue plugged the household numbers into ChatGPT and asked for a personalized plan instead of paying for one. 'It was really about me getting back on the horse,' Donohue said. The same New York Times report warns that AI money advice can be wrong, and advisers say to double-check it.

Study for a failed history exam retake with ChatGPT and NotebookLM

A bright, deeply dyslexic Grade 8 student failed an end-of-year history exam with 57% and had to rewrite it in summer school. Tutor Lori Kiteala had ChatGPT simplify the textbook into bullet-point summaries, then loaded those into NotebookLM to build study guides, briefing documents, timelines and a podcast for each chapter. The student also made handwritten vocabulary flashcards on neon cue cards and learned how to prompt the tools. On the rewrite, the student scored 87%.

Turn a struggling reader's story idea into a written story with MagicSchool AI

Heather Gauck, a special education teacher in Grand Rapids Public Schools with three decades in the classroom, uses ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and MagicSchool AI to adapt lessons, such as asking ChatGPT for a kindergarten-level version of a text. One fourth grader who struggled with literacy came up with a story idea, including characters, conflict and setting. Gauck typed those details into MagicSchool AI, which wrote the narrative so the student could see the idea become a real story. Gauck says the time saved adds up to 'an entire planning day that I get back.'

Make sense of a parent's medical records before a doctor visit with ChatGPT

After Heather Lambert-Shemo's dad spent time in the ICU, the family faced dozens of pages of records and a dozen medications. Lambert-Shemo photographed the pages, blacked out identifying details and asked ChatGPT to translate them into plain language, find trends and list questions for the primary care doctor. It gave the family a clearer picture of what led to the hospital stay and turned up a significant diagnosis the dad had misunderstood. Lambert-Shemo later shared the exact prompt in the post's comments.

Pay off $12,000 of credit card debt with a 30-day ChatGPT money challenge

Realtor and content creator Jennifer Allan asked ChatGPT every day for one task to make money toward $23,000 of credit card debt. Over a month, Allan says, the challenge brought in over $11,000 and paid off $12,078.93. Some ideas were quirky: Allan wrote '$23,000' on a watermelon as 'debt art' and auctioned a photo of it for $51. Others paid off: an idea to search phone apps for forgotten money turned up $100.80 on Venmo, and Allan's husband remembered a brokerage account holding $10,200. Credit counselor Noelle Carter warns that AI can help with ideas but is no substitute for human expertise.

Knit doll socks from a ChatGPT pattern, then find one that works

Knitter Ciara of The Fairythorn asked ChatGPT to write a sock pattern for an 18-inch doll. Ciara managed to knit a sock from it, but only by turning the heel from experience, as that section had a fundamental error, and the sock came out far too small for the doll to ever wear. Asked instead to point to a free pattern on Ravelry, ChatGPT offered three suggestions in under a second. The first, 'Basic Doll Socks' by Jacquelyn Fitzgerald, knitted up quickly and easily and fit the doll, with just one small error.

Write a life story book with aphasia after a stroke, using ChatGPT to edit

A 75-year-old patient with aphasia from a stroke eight years earlier had trouble finding words and forming sentences, and wanted to write an autobiography. In speech therapy sessions, the patient wrote their own content and used ChatGPT to edit it, guided by a visual flow chart and set prompts. With ChatGPT, the patient produced more sentences with fewer errors. In three out of 10 sessions the patient noted ChatGPT sometimes wrote long, complicated sentences, and preferred the 'edit the following' prompt. It took clinician prompting and modeling at first. By semester's end there was enough for a printed life story book, shared with friends and family.

Write a detailed renovation plan for a 1950s house loan with ChatGPT

Michaela Holmström bid on a house in Finland built in 1956, and the largest banks hesitated over its original condition. A first, modest plan got a discouraging response. A banker advised raising the budget and describing the workload and materials in great detail, a plan that would normally take Holmström over a week. Holmström uploaded the inspection report to ChatGPT for a summary, gave it the floor plan, materials and room sizes, and had it work out liters of paint from wall area and lengths of water pipe. Holmström cross-checked prices with real merchants and split costs into materials and labor. It still took several hours of Holmström's own work, and not every AI detail was flawless. A loan specialist at a major Nordic bank said it was the most thorough renovation plan the specialist had ever reviewed.

Write a crochet pattern from a photo with ChatGPT and Claude (gave up)

Melissa Warr wanted to crochet a Valentine's dog from an image found online, but couldn't find a pattern for it and had never written one. Basic prompts for a pattern from a picture didn't work, so Warr had ChatGPT help write a better prompt. The patterns kept coming out as numbered lists instead of bullet points, with arms and legs that weren't long enough. Warr ran the prompt in both ChatGPT and Claude; Claude's results were better but 'missed many of the parts (the tail, ears, etc.)', and both struggled with irregular shapes. Warr gave up on the AI pattern and bought a pattern on Etsy instead.

Research a Victorian-born grandfather's life with Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini deep research (partial)

Dan Taylor-Watt gave Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini the same brief, with deep research turned on, to research a paternal grandfather, Cecil, who died in 1960, starting from a Word document written by Taylor-Watt's father. Claude took about 6 minutes, used 340 sources and wrote an 11-page, 4,219-word report; it found no significant new information but flagged inaccurate dates, and it later made a 3-minute-30-second narrated video using code and an open-source voice model. ChatGPT took 9 minutes, ran 714 searches and wrote 14 pages (4,659 words); it caught an error about the year of the fire that destroyed service records, noted that the LNER railway wasn't created until 1923, found information on the first wife's family, and spotted a Lance-Corporal's chevron in a photo, but its video attempt fell short. Gemini wrote the longest and most visual report (5,347 words), but its maps were wrong (Osmotherley is east, not south, of Northallerton), it missed the date problems, and it said it couldn't make a video.

Cook a first mutton curry with a ChatGPT recipe adapted to an induction hob and no ginger

skcv cooked mutton curry for the first time and says it was really delicious. Not confident cooking it for the first time, skcv asked ChatGPT for a recipe and instructions, writing the prompt around the setup at hand: the ingredients available, an induction cooktop and no ginger. The photos show the finished curry on an induction cooktop.

Remove browser hijacker extensions that kept coming back in Chrome, in 5 minutes with ChatGPT

Arol Wright's Chrome search engine kept switching back to an unfamiliar one, new tabs opened pages Wright hadn't chosen and some searches went through redirects. Removing the obvious extension and resetting the search engine didn't hold. Wright described the symptoms to ChatGPT, which walked through the extensions page in Developer mode, then chrome://policy (the most useful step, since forced policies explained why removed items came back), then the Windows registry location for Chrome policies, Task Scheduler and installed programs, and warned to back up registry keys first. Wright pasted what each step showed and ChatGPT helped decide what didn't belong. After removing the rogue policy entries, a scheduled task, the unwanted program and the extensions, then resetting Chrome, the symptoms didn't return. The exchange took about five minutes.

Fix a crashing Windows PC by talking it through with ChatGPT voice: bad RAM, then a repair reinstall

David Gewirtz's PC had games crashing, Windows Update failing and a RAM error. Writing for ZDNET, Gewirtz talked it through with ChatGPT by voice on a phone, sending photos of BIOS screens and memory error dumps. ChatGPT walked through resetting the BIOS to defaults, clearing CMOS via the CLRTC pins and turning off overclocking (running the memory at 2,133 MHz), checked voltages, and advised against reflashing the BIOS. MemTest86 found errors on both 16GB sticks, so Gewirtz replaced the RAM (a Timetec 32GB kit for $190; the G.SKILL kit had cost $75 in 2023 and is $265 now), and MemTest86 then passed. DISM still failed at 28.1% and SFC didn't fix it, so ChatGPT suggested Windows' "Fix problems using Windows Update" reinstall, which took about 90 minutes and kept apps and files. Afterwards DISM completed, SFC found nothing, and updates and games worked. Gewirtz says it "may have saved me a few hundred bucks and many hours" and could have been done alone, but messier.

Get a lower Verizon internet bill by having ChatGPT negotiate in live chat

AJ Stuyvenberg, an engineer at Datadog, was offered faster fiber internet by Comcast for $50 a month and asked ChatGPT to negotiate with Verizon. After a little over an hour in Verizon's live chat, the agent got the plan down to $69.99 a month from $94.99, plus a $47.50 loyalty credit, which Stuyvenberg said saves $347.50 over a year.

Track down an out-of-stock gel by calling a list of local pharmacies compiled by ChatGPT

Blessing Apostle was struggling to find Reparil Gel in Uyo. Apostle asked ChatGPT to compile a list of pharmacies in the city with their phone numbers, then called them one after another until Quenthall Pharmacy on Oron Road said it had the gel in stock.