I’m incredibly grateful for the power these tools grant us. As an individual without a large team or massive resources, they’re the closest thing to a superpower I’ve seen. I brainstorm better, get more done in less time… it’s amazing!
But here’s the catch: the value you get from AI is directly tied to how well you use it. Realizing that potential boils down, at least with chatbots, to one core skill: asking good questions.
Think of it like leadership. Surround yourself with brilliant people, but if you don’t ask them specific questions, you won’t get much. An AI chatbot is similar; it’s overflowing with potential, but you need to draw it out with the right prompts.
This highlights why old-school learning still matters. Books won’t always hand you the exact answer, but they do something equally important: they help you formulate better questions. They introduce topics and terminology you didn’t know existed, and that’s invaluable. If you haven’t heard of something, how can you ask an AI about it?
In the age of AI, I’ve come to see lifelong learning as an absolute necessity. It’s the key to unlocking the full might of your AI toolkit. The more you know, the more precise and valuable your inquiries become. Yesterday, learning was about having the answers; today, it’s increasingly about knowing what to even ask in the first place.
That’s why I believe curiosity and a passion for learning are essential. They open the door to realizing how much these AI tools can truly do for you.
]]>I wrote about this topic years ago. At that time, I wrote that my dormant talent was coding. I have a background in computer science, but at that time I hadn’t developed an app in years. My wish was to develop my coding talent again.
Fast forward to the present, I’m happy to report that I have been developing my coding talent! I’ve developed several apps in the past years, and I still do now. So, my coding talent is no longer dormant. It still has a lot of room for improvement, but I’ve been working on it actively.
That’s the good news. Unfortunately, there is also bad news: I have another talent of mine that has become dormant. That talent is writing.
You see, I used to write a lot on this blog, but in recent years I’ve been writing less and less. In fact, it has been more than three months since I last published a post at Life Optimizer. This is unfortunate because my writings, especially on this blog, had opened many doors for me in the past.
My writing talent has become underused and underdeveloped. Realizing this, I’m working to develop my writing talent again. It may take time, but I hope to get better at it. My goal is to become a better writer over time.
What about you? Do you have a talent that has become dormant? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
]]>However, what I’d like to share with you here isn’t the health lessons from the book. Instead, it’s a quote by Sun Tzu that I found there:
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
Interesting quote, isn’t it? Strategy without tactics might lead you to victory, but it’s the slowest route to get there. You will waste a lot of resources along the way. On the other hand, tactics without strategy is even worse. You might do a lot of things, but there is no coherence in your effort. As a result, it’s simply noise before defeat.
So, you need both strategy and tactics. You need to know what you want to accomplish and how to do that efficiently.
It’s easier said than done, of course. But here are two simple tips:
Let’s dive into them one by one.
In Outlive, the author plans his strategy by first studying the opponents. Because the book is about longevity, the opponents are the four chronic diseases of aging: heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and type 2 diabetes. The author examined them to learn how they work, and then formed a strategy based on that.
Similarly, you should study your opponent before you form your strategy. In a business, the opponent could be your competitors or the obstacles that prevent people from buying your products. In personal productivity, it could be the distractions that prevent you from doing what’s important.
By studying your opponent, you will know how to handle them. You can then form your strategy accordingly.
Based on your strategy, you then need to plan your tactics. These are the practical actions you will do to carry out your strategy.
For this, two things you should do are simplify and experiment.
First, you need to find a simple way to get the result you want. Why should it be simple? Because you need to be able to stick with it for the long term. With diets, for example, you might not be able to stick with a complex diet for long. But if it’s simple, you are more likely to stick with it.
You still need to experiment, though. That’s because your situation is unique and what works for others might not work for you. So, experiment with the tactics to see whether it works for you. If it does, you can keep it. If not, then you need to replace it with something else.
***
Both strategy and tactics are essential to success. The simple tips above can help you find the right strategy and tactics for you. Study your opponent to plan your strategy, then simplify and experiment to plan your tactics.
]]>One of the winners of this AI boom is Nvidia. Its chips power most of the AI applications being used today.
But what’s most interesting to me is the fact that Nvidia was already prepared long before the AI opportunity came. In a recent earnings call with investors, Jensen Huang – the CEO of Nvidia – said this:
It costs a lot of money to do it because you have to do all the software and everything, and you have to build all the systems and so on and so forth. But we’ve been at it for 15 years.
And what happened is when generative AI came along, it triggered a killer app for this computing platform that’s been in preparation for some time.
Isn’t that interesting? Nvidia had been building its computing platform for many years before generative AI came along! When generative AI did come, it became the killer app for something that had been prepared for years.
It reminds me of this quote by Abraham Lincoln:
I will study and prepare myself, and someday my chance will come.
I really like this quote. Why? Because it reminds me of the power of preparation. You prepare first, and someday your opportunity will come. You don’t wait until the opportunity comes before you start preparing; no, that would be too late. Instead, you prepare yourself before you even know what the opportunity might look like.
In the case of Nvidia, it’s so prepared that it essentially has no competitors. Here is what WSJ wrote:
The company currently has no competitor that can match it in its breadth of chips and software for the computing-intensive demands of generative AI.
Furthermore, its advantage is not easy to replicate:
Huang said Wednesday that the company’s software would not be easy to replicate.
“You have to engineer all of the software and all of the libraries and all of the algorithms, integrate them into and optimize the frameworks, and optimize it for the architecture, not just one chip but the architecture of an entire data center,” he said on a call with analysts.
I think this is a great example of the power of preparation. Prepare yourself, and someday your chance will come.
]]>I’m excited about the course because I believe that Bing Chat is better than ChatGPT. Here are a few reasons why:
The course shows you how to use Bing Chat for various tasks such as planning, education, content creation, and more. I also plan to add new videos about Bing Chat’s additional features like Image Creator and the sidebar. Once you get the course, you will get the new videos for free.
The link below gives you a 5-day coupon with the best possible price from Udemy. You can watch the free videos first to see whether the course is for you.
Bing Chat Masterclass: ChatGPT on Steroids ››
Feel free to send me your feedback. Have a great day!
]]>Since it was launched in November last year, ChatGPT is taking the world by storm. Its ability to converse intelligently surprised many, including me.
There was a slight problem, though: I didn’t find it very convenient to use. It didn’t (and still doesn’t) have features like search, favorites, and tags. I ended up having to copy and paste the answers I liked one by one to a note-taking app. I wished there was a better way.
The opportunity came in early March when OpenAI launched ChatGPT API. It allows developers to develop their own ChatGPT-based apps. I took the opportunity to develop an iPhone app with the features I wished.
Well, I’m happy to announce that Chat Ace is now available! Chat Ace helps you use ChatGPT in an easy way. It’s powered by GPT-3.5 Turbo, the same engine that powers ChatGPT Plus. That means you will get the same high-quality answers that you’d get from ChatGPT, and you will get them quickly.
Think of it as having a personal assistant in your pocket. Whenever you have a question, you can get a well-composed answer right away. Furthermore, you can mark, search, and share your chats easily. Everything is automatically backed up to your iCloud account, so if you switched to a new device, your chats will be available there.
I also put some buttons to help you get fun content with single taps: Fun Fact, Stand-Up Comedy, Surprise from History, Surprise from Science, and Today in History. As I mentioned above, this is the app I wished I had for ChatGPT.
You can try the app for free. If you liked it, you could then upgrade to Premium for $11.99 per month which is cheaper than other premium options. But each developer only gets a limited quota from OpenAI, so only a limited number of Premium slots are available.
I hope you will enjoy the app!
]]>This is a recent development because the tools emerged only in 2022. The underlying technologies have been developed for several years, but they seemed to reach a tipping point last year with the launch of tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and ChatGPT.
We are only at the beginning of this new era. When someone at Reddit asked Bill Gates about his views on ChatGPT, his response was “It gives a glimpse of what is to come. I am impressed with this whole approach and the rate of innovation.” So, what we are seeing now is just a glimpse of the future!
The questions are: Will we be threatened by AI? Will AI take over our jobs? How should we approach this new development?
I believe these are important questions. The developers of GPT-4, the newest version of ChatGPT, wrote this in their technical report:
The impact of GPT-4 on the economy and workforce should be a crucial consideration for policymakers and other stakeholders. While existing research primarily focuses on how AI and generative models can augment human workers, GPT-4 or subsequent models may lead to the automation of certain jobs. This could result in workforce displacement. Over time, we expect GPT-4 to impact even jobs that have historically required years of experience and education, such as legal services.
If you think that the current technologies aren’t good enough, then you may be right, but the developers also wrote this:
We think it is important that workers, policymakers, and researchers not focus overly on just the current state of capabilities. We expect GPT-4 to accelerate development of new applications built on top of generative models, and that these applications will often solve more complex tasks than the model on its own.
So, while current technologies may not be good enough, they can accelerate further developments in this field. It is the results of this acceleration that could displace workers.
The good news is, we are still at the early stage of these new developments, so we still have time to prepare ourselves. The bad news is, we’d better start preparing ourselves now. The word acceleration means that things could happen sooner than expected. Before you know it, the seemingly faraway threats could become immediate.
So, what should we do? How should we prepare ourselves?
Well, I believe these are two keys to surviving the threats of generative AI:
Let’s dive into them.
As I wrote a while back, a passion for learning is essential. Here is what I wrote:
Today, however, there is an abundance of resources. For instance, you can learn just about anything you want from YouTube. You can buy and download e-books instantly. And there is a very thorough encyclopedia that you can access for free.
…
That’s why I believe that a passion for learning is essential. If you have a passion for learning, you will be motivated to learn new things. Instead of thinking of it as a chore, you will think of it as an adventure. As a result, you will reap more benefits from the available resources.
In a talk a few years ago, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were asked about an important trait they have. They both gave the same answer: curiosity. Curiosity is just another way to say a passion for learning. Isn’t it interesting that both of them gave the same answer?
This post has some tips on developing your curiosity.
This new AI age requires you to adapt to new situations quickly. Having a passion for learning is necessary, but it’s not enough. Why? Because you also need to act upon what you’ve learned.
It’s easier said than done because you might need to leave your comfort zone. You might need to leave a career that you have built for years and start something new. In other words, you might need to reinvent yourself.
I believe that the ability to reinvent yourself will become increasingly important in the future. A good example from the past is Cornelius Vanderbilt who reinvented himself at the age of 69!
***
These two keys can help you survive and thrive in the age of generative AI. They complement each other: the first one helps you know what to do, and the second one helps you do it. With these, you will be in a good position to face the threats of generative AI.
]]>This blog, Life Optimizer, is about personal effectiveness. So, I’d like to share with you my thoughts on how to maximize your personal effectiveness with AI tools.
But before we get into that, there is a question that I’d like to answer: is the emergence of AI tools a threat to humanity? Will they eliminate jobs and take over the world?
Well, I believe that the short answer is no. Of course, AI tools might threat the existence of some jobs. But that has always been the case since at least the Industrial Revolution. New technologies constantly emerged that required people to adapt. But the overall impact is good, and people become more productive over time. I believe that’s also the case with AI tools.
Instead of threatening you, I believe that AI tools can boost your personal effectiveness. It can help you become more productive than ever. But you need to know how to make the most out of these tools.
Without further ado, here are my four tips on how to maximize your personal effectiveness with AI tools.
Before you can use a tool, you need to know that it exists. So, keep yourself informed about what AI tools are available.
Personally, I often learn about new tools from Hacker News, but you can also search for AI tools on YouTube. Of course, there are many other resources out there. Feel free to share your favorite resources in the comments!
To make the most out of a tool, you need to know its capabilities. YouTube is a good resource for this because you can visually learn how people use the tool. For example, search for ChatGPT tips on YouTube and you will find useful videos to learn from.
Many of the recent tools require you to give them good prompts to get the best results. For that reason, I like to take notes of the good prompts that I’ve found.
While it’s important to know the capabilities of a tool, you also need to know its limitations. Otherwise, you could assume that you get the correct output from a tool while it’s incorrect.
For example, at the time of writing, ChatGPT may give you incorrect results for things that require calculations. I would then be careful not to use ChatGPT for such cases.
Again, I often find about these limitations from Hacker News. You can also try to search <tool name> limitations on Google or YouTube.
Now that you know the capabilities and limitations of a tool, think about how you can best use the tool. Everyone’s needs are different, so think about how the tool can best meet your needs.
For example, a blogger could use ChatGPT to get title suggestions for a blog post and use DALL-E to generate a picture for the post.
***
Keep in mind that AI technology is always progressing, and the possibilities keep expanding. So, keep refining your use of AI tools. Apply these four tips again and again, and you will become more effective over time.
]]>For me, a lesson I learned is the importance of taking risks to make progress in life. I already learned about this years ago, but this year I have a heightened awareness of its importance.
What about you? What lessons did you learn in 2022?
Please share your answer in the comments so that everyone can read it. Thanks!
]]>Let me explain.
I recently read Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein. It’s an insightful book about the history of finance. It covers topics such as the origin of paper money, the stock market, and banks. I learned a lot from the book.
One thing stated in the book is that for many centuries, people’s occupations barely changed. They mostly just did what their parents and grandparents did. The way people lived was also similar from generation to generation.
But this changed in the early 1800s thanks to the Industrial Revolution. It was a turning point in the history of humankind. It’s as if there were two different worlds: before and after the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution was marked by inventions that increased efficiency, mainly in the cloth business. Cloth making was done by hand back then. As a result, clothes were very expensive and most people could afford only one or two sets of clothes.
In the early 1800s, machines were invented to make the process more efficient. This was good news for many people because clothes then became much more affordable.
But it also threatened the jobs of those who made clothes by hand.
This was the first time in history that there was such a dramatic change in a single generation. These people, called the Luddites, felt threatened by the machines. So what was their response? They made a movement to destroy the machines! Only after the government made destroying machines punishable by the death penalty did the destruction stop.
Well, guess what? The world didn’t slow down since then. Instead, it moves even faster than before. Just to give you an example, I remember how life was before I used the Internet; it’s almost unimaginable today! There was no Google; my only hope of finding the information I need was by getting physical books or magazines!
Today, however, there is an abundance of resources. For instance, you can learn just about anything you want from YouTube. You can buy and download e-books instantly. And there is a very thorough encyclopedia that you can access for free.
In such a world, what would make the difference between those who thrive and those who don’t? What would be the determining factor?
The answer is no longer the availability of resources. Instead, it’s the motivation to make the most out of those resources! Your level of motivation determines how far you will go.
That’s why I believe that a passion for learning is essential. If you have a passion for learning, you will be motivated to learn new things. Instead of thinking of it as a chore, you will think of it as an adventure. As a result, you will reap more benefits from the available resources.
Thomas Friedman used the term “the motivational divide” to explain the difference between those who are motivated and those who aren’t. I think it’s a good term to remember. Make sure that you are on the right side of the fence.
]]>