I find ChatGPT to be an effective tool for boosting productivity. For example, I vaguely remembered a quote from a book I’d read years ago from an early American president. I could not remember whether it was George Washington, John Adams, or another president. I only remembered the gist of the quote. I also failed to include the reference in Endnote.
So, doing what all moderns do, I asked ChatGPT. Not only was the quote found, but I asked for the APA 7th Edition citation. The result is below. I also checked this with other sources.
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Adams, J. (1850). The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations (Vol. IX). Little, Brown and Company.
Using ChatGPT saved me at least an hour of work.
I’ve read that ChatGPT-4 is much more powerful than the free version.
What is the least expensive way to access ChatGPT-4?
If you can program at all, the API is almost certainly the best way to go. It’s pay-per-use. If you can’t program, apps are starting to appear that let you bring your own API key.
My recollection was pretty bad. I was thinking “American forefather,” “George Washington,” “morality,” and “democracy.” I’ve done these types of searches before. I usually have to go to multiple links and in the vast majority of cases, a quote will be given but without proper citation. ChatGPT provided both with only one query. I find that impressive, not to mention time saving.
I’ve been using Bard a lot. With the new engine, it performs much better and is available for free. If you don’t use too many prompts, there are also 100 free each month with Grammarly free version.
If he’d known it was John Adams, Google might have been quicker. But he didn’t. Try what he actually gave ChatGPT, with your Google-style mods to the last words:
american forefather quote +“morality” +“democracy"
and it’s a lot more stuff to sift through.
And ChatGPT formatting the citation for him is pretty cool.
The difference between your terms and mine is that I did not know it was John Adams until after I found the quote. I could not remember the president, but I thought it was Washington. When I searched using my terms as noted above, I evenually found the quote but as usual, no citation was given for the quote. When I used ChatGTP, it took me to the exact quote and provided the citation correctly formated. I did not have to click and search multiple links.
I went to the site and read this: “Using TeamSmart does not require purchasing ChatGPT Plus, but an OpenAI API key is needed. Using your own API key is usually much cheaper than ChatGPT Plus!”
I know nothing about programming. How does one obtain an API key, what is it, and does it require programming to use?
Sorry, but it remains pure luck to get from ChatGPT what you are looking for.
I run the question myself three times thru ChatGPT. Here are the results:
Generate a key. Copy it down somewhere safe. Go over to the “Billing” tab, and punch in your info. Set your monthly spend limit to put the brakes on runaway craziness in case your account gets hacked or something.
Then put that key you just generated into TeamSmart.
TeamSmart is the software that does the lookups to ChatGPT, and the API key lets ChatGPT bill those lookups to your account.
Or to put it back into the 80s…
You need to make photocopies. There’s a photocopier available (TeamSmart), but you need to get an access code (API key) from the librarian. You punch your code into the copier, the copier makes copies and bills them to you, and the librarian settles up with you every month.
Does that make sense?
Well, yes and no. By my understanding, ChatGPT learns from individual users’ interactions over time. So the more a given user interacts with it, the more likely it is to give a relevant result in the future.
And Google seems just about as random to me sometimes. Why the seeming hatred for ChatGPT if somebody likes it and finds it useful?
Ok, so perhaps I should have been more precise in my post regarding the prompts I provided. My exact prompt was:
give me a quote from an American Founding Father who said morality was necessary for democracy
RESPONSE:
One example of a quote from an American Founding Father who emphasized the importance of morality for democracy comes from John Adams, the second President of the United States. In a letter to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Massachusetts Militia in 1798, he wrote:
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Prompt:
give me the APA 7th edition citation for the above reference
RESPONSE:
Sure, here’s the APA 7th edition citation for the reference:
Adams, J. (1850). The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations (Vol. IX). Little, Brown and Company.
Prompt:
who wrote the book cited above?
RESPONSE:
The book “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations” was not actually written by John Adams himself, but rather it was edited and compiled by his grandson, Charles Francis Adams. The book was originally published in 1850 and contains a collection of Adams’ letters, speeches, and other writings.
To hate somebody, or something, you must have a kind of relationship with him/her/it!
I am just keep pointing out, that those so called “AI” are simply not capable of doing, what a lot of people seems to expect from them, or are believing to get from those systems!
I have limited and I think realistic expectations and I also recognize that I must learn how to use the system well. As to the results, it looks like my ChatGPT is better than yours given I got the correct answer with the prompt and you did not. Perhaps the AI knows you don’t like it?
Seriously, AI is a young developing imperfect technology. The results will vary but will get better over time.
All I can say is that when I used ChatGPT to find what I was looking for; it was correct the first time and it took me far less time than a typical Google search. And, one of the great advantages was the formatted citation.
I’m still checking the original source for the quote before I ever use it in the public domain. I also don’t trust AI enough to make assumptions about accuracy. For that matter, I can say the same about what I find on the internet. It can be notoriously difficult to verify original sources.
That said, after reading the quote, I recall reading it in a reputable book, which is why I searched for it. The main point I was trying to make – which I did not make well – was that ChatGPT has the potential to radically change how we find information. As its accuracy grows, we will save a lot of time!
