It started out like any other ChatGPT project.
I was working on a Sunday. I wanted to see if ChatGPT could turn a few slides from a presentation I had done into a section for a white paper I was writing. I didn’t expect perfection, but I figured I’d use what it gave me as a starting point.
I had a sample to provide, work I had done turning a few slides from the same presentation into a section for the companion white paper. I uploaded these with my initial prompt (see below).
It asked me a number of questions about style and tone, content depth, technical details and more. I answered them all.
Then I uploaded the slides I wanted it to turn into a section of a white paper, with some additional detail.
It asked a few more questions on structure and subsections, technical implementation, and other things, which I answered.
Then this:
And then I waited. And nothing happened. This was new — usually ChatGPT responds almost immediately.
A few minutes later I engaged again.
48 hours? I pushed back.
I waited a little more than an hour and asked for a status…
And I waited a while longer, either a half hour or an hour…
And I waited another 30 to 45 minutes…
And 30 minutes later I finally got something that looked like it might be the deliverable I’d asked for…
But it wasn’t pages for a white paper – it was a vague restatement of the outline I had provided. At this point…
And in response from the GPT…
So that’s the tale of the Lazy GPT.
I did the work myself and it really didn’t take too long — but I was hoping ChatGPT could do it faster. Or at least give me a rough first draft that I could start from.
I probably should have taken a more iterative approach — although I did answer all its questions and I did ask, early on, how I could make this happen more quickly. And I didn’t get any constructive feedback on that.
I have not had anything like this happen again.
Odd. Very odd.
Have you experienced anything like this? If so, would love to hear about it…
Until next time,
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
