A friend asked me how Braincat could be used with ChatGPT, the wildly popular AI tool that seems to have taken over the world’s homework assignments. So of course I asked ChatGPT! Here’s the bot’s answer — a modest starting point:
“I’m not familiar with a specific integration between ChatGPT and a tool called Braincat. However, ChatGPT is a general-purpose language processing model and can be integrated with various other tools and platforms to perform a wide range of natural language processing tasks such as text generation, question answering, and language translation. In order to use ChatGPT with Braincat, you would likely need to integrate the API or build some sort of custom integration between the two platforms.”
What can be learned here? I see three implications that suggests a powerful collaboration of Braincat with ChatGPT.
- Like any information resource, ChatGPT is only as good as the questions you ask it. So the first step is to upgrade your questions.
- ChatGPT produces a stream of text. This may be useful just as it comes, but you don’t yet own it. I’m not talking about copyright — I’m referring to mental ownership. Your initial relationship to the content from ChatGPT is purely passive. Something more needs to happen for it to become your thought, not the bot’s.
- If they are any good, ChatGPT’s answers may (actually should) prompt further questions.
Is there a way to translate these insights into a Braincat-ChatGPT process? The answer is yes. Here are the suggested steps (and thanks ChatGPT, but no API was needed!):
Brainstorm questions. Braincat now has a special addition to the DISCOVER module designed to stimulate your creation of questions for ChatGPT. Open DISCOVER in the INPUT module and scroll down to open the question set “Enhancing ChatGPT”.
This will prompt you go beyond your first, top-of-mind question for ChatGPT and generate a whole range of additional questions that are both broader and more precise. You can select from this new inventory of questions to draw more out of the AI.
Use Braincat’s TextBreaker. This is the stage where you get to radically upgrade your use of ChatGPT. Once you’ve queried the AI, copy the resulting output and drop it into Braincat, using COPY & PASTE in the INPUT module. Select “PHRASES” and allow Braincat to disintegrate ChatGPT’s answer into a stream of notes.
Now use the CATEGORIZE function to organize the notes. The effect will be that you take ownership of ChatGPT’s answer. By sorting the components of the provided answer under headings you devise, you’ll gain complete mastery of the content. It will be organized in your own mind, on your own terms.
Generate New Questions. This step takes a little extra effort, because you’ll need to go outside Braincat and use another tool: a spreadsheet such as Excel or Google Sheets (I much prefer the latter!). First categorize and sequence the ChatGPT answer. Now, in the OUTPUT module of Braincat, select EXPORT to csv. Copy and paste the resulting file into a spreadsheet.
You’ll now have a column on the left with the categories and a column to the right of it with the detailed data, broken into phrases and organized under your headings. Broaden the third column and head it NEW QUESTIONS. Scan down the imported data, asking yourself: “What new question does this suggest?”
It may be that only one or two points offered by ChatGPT suggest new questions. More likely, it will be several. Write those questions into your column. Now go back to ChatGPT with your new questions.
You can of course repeat this cycle as often as you like depending on the depth and complexity of your project.
What’s happening here is that you’re changing from being a passive consumer of ChatGPT’s first thoughts to being an active conversationalist, investing your own mental effort alongside the bot. So this is AI plus HI — artificial intelligence plus human intelligence.
Note that for students, this use of ChatGPT will actually advance your learning, rather than gaming the system to avoid homework.
ChatGPT (or its rapidly improving equivalence) is here to stay. The challenge is not to ignore it, nor to merely succumb to it, but to harness it as your partner in an active thinking process. For this, Braincat can help you enormously.