ChatGPT as Task Manager?

ChatGPT can now handle reminders and tasks. They’ve added a specific model for this purpose: “4o with scheduled tasks”. And if you ask it to give you a reminder at a certain time or create a task list, it’ll do that for you.

I didn’t see this coming. I think we’re going to see a lot of action in the LLM space as they start interacting with external apps as agents. Putting tasks in ChatGPT feels like a step in that direction.

In order to use this feature, you’ll need a paid account. Currently, you can only run 10 active tasks at a time, so this feels a lot more like an experiment than anything else.

My Transcription Workflow for the Obsidian Field Guide (MacSparky Labs)

In this video I demonstrate how I used two AI tools, MacWhisper and ChatGPT, to generate transcripts and SubRip text (SRT) files for the Obsidian Field Guide videos.…

This is a post for MacSparky Labs Level 3 (Early Access) and Level 2 (Backstage) Members only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?

Is ChatGPT Really Artificial Intelligence?

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with some of these Large Language Model (LLM) artificial intelligence services, particularly Monkey. Several readers have taken issue with my categorization of ChatGPT Monkey as “artificial intelligence”. The reason, they argue, is that ChatGPT really is not an artificial intelligence system. It is a linguistic model looking at a massive amount of data and smashing words together without any understanding of what they actually mean. Technologically, it has more in common with the grammar checker in Microsoft Word than HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You can ask ChatGPT for the difference between apples and bananas, and it will give you a credible response, but under the covers, it has no idea what an apple or a banana actually is.

One reader wrote in to explain that her mother’s medical professional actually had the nerve to ask ChatGPT about medical dosages. ChatGPT’s understanding of what medicine does is about the same as its understanding of what a banana is: zilch.

While some may argue that ChatGPT is a form of artificial intelligence, I have to agree that there is a more compelling argument that it is not. Moreover, calling it artificial intelligence gives us barely evolved monkeys the impression that it actually is some sort of artificial intelligence that understands and can recommend medical dosages. That is bad.

So going forward, I will be referring to things like ChatGPT as an LLM, and not artificial intelligence. I would argue that you do the same.

(I want to give particular thanks to reader Lisa, who first made the case to me on this point.)