You’re not using ChatGPT right unless you ask these 4 questions

1. Double-checking

If I’m completing a particularly important task or if my gut feeling tells me that something about ChatGPT’s answer might be off, I simply ask it if it’s sure about its response.

As tools like ChatGPT keep on improving every week, it becomes less and less likely to make an error that should have been easily avoidable. But it’s self-corrected itself often enough for me to keep this question ready in my back pocket.

Even if ChatGPT’s original answer was correct in the first place, asking for its work to be rechecked often leads the chatbot to reformulate its response in a way that may help you understand it better.

The three magic words I ask ChatGPT after my prompts are: Are you sure?

2. The missing link

Since ChatGPT became so efficient at replying to our questions, it’s easy to stick to the first answer you get and skip having deeper conversations about the topic you’re interested in. It’s hard to know what you don’t know, but this is where ChatGPT can come in.

Aside from helping us discover our blind spots in general, ChatGPT can also help us see whether there’s anything we’re missing in the prompts we’re producing.

In your next conversation with ChatGPT, try asking: Is there something about this topic that I’m not considering or is there a key element that I’m missing?

3. What do you need?

This question flips the perspective of the one before it. While we can ask ChatGPT to help us consider views we may have been overlooking, we can also ask whether there’s any information we can provide from our end to help it form a more complete picture of the problem we’re trying to solve.

Maybe there’s a manual we can upload or a recent scientific breakthrough with implications for our field – if it’s not widely known, there’s a chance ChatGPT may not have picked it up.

An easy way to solve this, after you’ve presented your main question to ChatGPT, is to ask: Is there any additional information or context I can provide which can help to enhance your response?

4. Who else believes this?

I write about AI for a living and am a big believer of the value it can bring. Still, I do appreciate and respect ChatGPT’s advice even more if I know it’s based on a solid source. As AI slop on the internet becomes harder to wade through, information that’s demonstrably helpful in real life becomes more precious.

Let’s say you’re asking ChatGPT for help to create a business plan for your side-hustle. Left to its own devices I’m sure it will come up with intriguing thoughts. But wouldn’t you be curious to know which of the strategies were ones successful entrepreneurs supported?

After you’ve received advice from ChatGPT, find out if there’s any real-world truth to it. I would use the prompt: Which world leader, notable figure, or CEO gave similar advice or would support such a plan?

So if you’ve been asking ChatGPT for help to run your lemonade stand, this extra question (which you’re free to steal) could help you discover what someone like Mark Cuban believes about starting small.