I have zero coding skills, but I was able to coax ChatGPT to write a Drafts action for blogging

Cool Workflows
1
7 Likes
2

Nice! Itā€™s neat how these tools are letting so many more people help themselves, and quickly.

1 Like
3

Can it help me create Shortcuts? That would be awesome!

4

Probably! Itā€™s text-based instructions, but it seems to know the names and uses of many of the actions after asking it a few things.

That would be a great first-party use of this tech, built directly into Shortcuts.

5

I found it helpful to point ChatGPT to documentation and examples.

1 Like
6

Agreed, this would be a great way for Apple to incorporate AI.

Boy, does Siri need help! Yesterday, I tried four different ways to get Siri to tell me the official time (Central) when spring begins. The closest I could get was the day. One would think this would be an easy thing for Siri to do. ChatGPT-4 was able to provide the information instantly: ā€œ In 2024, spring begins with the vernal equinox on Wednesday, March 20th, at 4:06 AM Central Time (CT).ā€

2 Likes
7

It can indeed. Itā€™s helped me navigate some of the less familiar Shortcuts Actions like ā€˜Repeat with Eachā€™, ā€˜Split Textā€™, etc. Typically I would explain what I wanted to do and then upload a screenshot of how I had started working on the Shortcut, and then it would tell me the next steps. Occasionally the suggestions havenā€™t worked, but when I indicated that, ChatGPT would suggest a workaround. Very handy.

3 Likes
8

It seems ChatGPT-4 was a bit confused.

In the Eastern time zone, the correct time is 11:06 pm on March 19th. Which would be 10:06 pm Central time I believe.

ChatGPT, providing instant disinformation! :slight_smile:

Full Disclosure, we have just started using MS Github Copilot where I work. It can be scary good at times. And also make obvious rookie mistakes. Used correctly it can be quite useful.

9

What I typically do is explain to ChatGPT what I am trying to accomplish in Drafts, provide input/out examples, and then take an existing action, copy the code, paste it into ChatGPT, and indicate that Action does something similar. Itā€™s been really handy for creating all kinds of text editing actions specific to my needs.

10

Iā€™m guessing you wonā€™t like the output for URLs that contain a port number in the hostname (but you can fix that by improving your ā€œpromptsā€ once more).

Who would you blame for this? Yourself or ChatGPT? (Just curious)

11

Thatā€™s similar to my approach. Iā€™ve found I can just give ChatGPT the URL to an existing action and it figures out the rest.

12

I was about to point this out but @MevetS beat me to it by a day.

You always, always need to verify information you get from ChatGPT. Itā€™s often if not generally wrong, and will absolutely just straight up fabricate things like sources and quotes.

Because thatā€™s literally what itā€™s designed to do.

4 Likes
13

I agree that itā€™s always important to check ChatGPT for accuracy. I once asked it to tell me about Chaim Potokā€™s In the Beginning, and it told me Potok didnā€™t write such a book. Um, Iā€™ve only been teaching said novel for a decade!

In this case, though, I wonder if part of the discrepancy might have to do with location, since the time of the equinox varies by latitude as well as time zone. (Disclosure: I havenā€™t checked.)

1 Like
14

I am (or rather was since Iā€™m now retired) a programmer. Occasionally ChatGPT is of use in kick-starting my use of a programming language I have little experience with ā€” such as in the R statistical system ā€” except that ChatGPT gets many things wrong. It omits to mention environmental setup or uses a function that does not work or it ignores a much simpler solution found via human assistants. Most useful as a natural language interface to the web-as-corpus but even then results need to be tested.

2 Likes
15

I asked Perplexity to tell me about Mitch Wagner. It said Iā€™m a technology journalist and editor, CrossFit athlete and prominent San Diego attorney.

All of those things are trueā€”of three different people, all of whom happened to be named ā€œMitch Wagner.ā€

16

I know Drafts Actions are relatively simple, but as a nonprogrammer Iā€™d be very leery of asking an AI to generate code I donā€™t have the skills to review.

That seems considerably riskier than, say, using open source packages from GitHub that arenā€™t signed by Apple, because then thereā€™s at least some chance an unaffiliated programmer will review the code and raise a flag if thereā€™s an issue.

See AI bots hallucinate software packages and devs download them ā€¢ The Register

1 Like