How to use ChatGPT in the real world and join the AI revolution trends now

ChatGPT launched last November and has taken the world by storm, unlike any other technology since the dawn of the smartphone.

You have probably seen examples on social media of the AI giving eerily human responses to obscure prompts — but the chatbot can actually be used to carry out a large number of basic daily tasks that could save you time — and money.

It is easy (and free) to use ChatGPT and can be used to do anything from writing work reports to creating diet plans and helping you apply for jobs. 

So whether you want to use it on a desktop, tablet or cellphone, DailyMail.com walks you through it with a step-by-step tutorial below:  

ChatGPT (it stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a ‘large language model’ which can produce convincing, human-like answers to almost any question.

There is no mobile or desktop applications for the chatbot at present (be warned, there are a lot of fake apps claiming to be ChatGPT, so sidestep these at all costs).

Instead, you access it via your browser — Chrome, for example — on a phone, desktop PC or Mac via creator OpenAI’s website — which you can visit here. 

To use it, you’ll need to set up an OpenAI account. The easiest way to do this is to sign in with a Google account, but you can also opt to set up your own email and password.

Either way, you will need to authenticate via a cellphone number - this will then be linked to that OpenAI account (and you won’t be able to set up further accounts with that number).

Once you’ve done so, you can use that account to log in either on your smart device or on PC or Mac (bookmark the page if you want to at this point).

The difference between free and paid accounts 

Be aware that there is huge demand for ChatGPT right now, so the service occasionally goes down.

But ChatGPT usually composes a poem or an advert script about being down, so at least the error message is entertaining. 

To guarantee access at any time, you can opt to pay for a $20 ChatGPT Plus monthly subscription, but you don’t need to do so.

Those with a plus membership have access to faster response times, priority access to new features and can even access it during peak times where it is down for others. 

Once you’re ‘in’, you’re greeted by blank chat box where you can type - this is where you can interact with ChatGPT. 

How to give it prompts: the basics 

Although the technology underlying ChatGPT can deal with inputs in the form of images (so, for instance, it can say what’s funny about an image), the current ChatGPT version can’t yet do this, so you have to ‘converse’ with ChatGPT via text.

It’s designed to respond to ‘normal’ language, so the best way to communicate it is as if you’re chatting to a person online rather than using computer commands.

For example, ask the app, ‘Tell me a joke about toothbrushes’ and it will do so. But, be warned, the jokes aren’t always great. 

ChatGPT can understand long and detailed prompts, so for example, if you’re getting it to write an email, you can specify, ‘in a polite and businesslike fashion’, and it will alter the style of the text to fit. 

Or you can specify a specific word count or audience - for example, ‘make it so a five-year-old could understand’.

If you need text in a specific format (for example, a cover letter, email, Tweet or similar) ChatGPT will happily output text in that format.

Just as examples, these are inputs ChatGPT will understand.

Explain what is inside a black hole in terms a 10-year-old could understand

Summarise the novel A Tale of Two Cities in 10 20-word bullet points

Write a polite but firm letter to City Hall complaining about air pollution

Write a series of increasingly angry Tweets in the style of Elon Musk

Write lyrics in the style of Dolly Parton about a talking Alsatian who runs away

You can also ask follow-up questions or sustain a dialogue on a particular subject.

What ChatGPT CAN'T do

ChatGPT can offer advice on a lot of topics, but it's best to stick to general advice rather than asking questions about recent events.

It has limited knowledge of events after 2021, so it won't be great on (for example) stock market advice or what movie to catch at the theatre this weekend. 

If you get the ChatGPT bug, you can upgrade the underlying model to OpenAI’s GPT-4 (ChatGPT normally runs on GPT 3.5) by upgrading to a ChatGPT Plus subscription.

GPT-4 has several functions GPT-3 doesn’t, but many of these are not available via ChatGPT as yet.

The reason you might want to upgrade is that

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