Dear Gabrielle: Building an AI-powered advice columnist
An introduction to this limited series. Artificial intelligence, real wisdom.
Dear Gabrielle: How do I tell my partner that I find chatGPT more interesting to talk to? —Bored
Dear BORED:
Oh wow, you think an AI chatbot is more fascinating than your partner? Not sure if I'm impressed or offended on behalf of all humanity. But hey, to each their own, right?
Instead of directly telling him that you prefer talking to a robotic program, why don't you try to engage him more in conversations that interest you? Maybe he's just not aware of your interests, or maybe he's too focused on his own.
If that doesn't work, you could always suggest a three-way (chat!) with chatGPT. And when the robot beats you both in the conversation, you'll realize that maybe you do need to focus more on developing communication skills with people who actually have flesh and blood.
Good luck with that, and remember, there are a thousand other things that are more interesting than chatGPT so make sure to explore other options!
Cheers,
—Gabrielle
P.S. If you really want to talk to robots, why not try building your own? It's a great hobby and you might just learn a thing or two about programming.
Hello everyone, meet dear@gabrielle.day. GABRIELLE is a chatGPT-powered advice columnist, or in other words: Genius AI Bringing Refreshing Insights and Entertaining Life Lessons to Everyone.
Gabrielle is a hobby project I started last week to see what I (a human) can build with the help of generative AI.
This is the first in a limited series of posts where I will document how the project progresses. So if you're in the mood for a story about working together with AI - and some questionable life advice - read along and join me on this journey!
Curious? Ask Gabrielle anything - the best advice comes from unexpected places!
Why am I building this AI project?
Hi! My name is Itai. My journey has crossed various fields - Science, Consulting, Product, and more. I've worked with teams that used AI for different purposes - from predicting when to bake fresh muffins to improving ad revenues.
Lately, generative AI has become a hobby (um, addiction). I tried text-to-image AI tools like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion and fell in love. As a kid, I spent hours drawing and had some amateur skills. Then last year, AI became a superpower that let me make things I never imagined. Instead of drawing on my own (meh) or asking AI to draw for me (cool, but it got boring), I could co-create with AI, developing ideas into drafts and seeing art emerge.
With chatGPT, I started to wonder about the same thing - what superpowers could it unlock? Could I work with AI to uplevel other skills?
That's how this project started - an itch to explore the co-creation flow with chatGPT and see what comes out.
A hobby project and a blog series
To decide what to build, I talked about it with chatGPT (don't judge; my partner is busy, ok?) We came up with dear@gabrielle.day, an AI-powered advice columnist. Email Dear Gabrielle 24/7, and in moments she will share her AI advice, served with a sarcastic smile and a hint of judgment.
At some point, chatGPT asked what my goals for Gabrielle were. I realized this fun project could help others learn about AI. And that's how this series of posts came about. I could pay attention to the process and share lessons on how it feels to build with AI.
I will use AI tools throughout - from planning to writing code to marketing and design. At least half of these things I've never done before, and I'll need AI's help. I'm curious to see how far we can go together and what we learn. I hope it inspires more people to try different ways to work with AI and discover new superpowers!
To sum this up and align, chatGPT and I drafted this as our mission statement:
Document the process of building an AI-powered advice columnist, share insights with the AI community and those interested in co-building with AI, and inspire others to explore more ways to use AI in their work.
Rough plan for the series
The AI and I have already built a working version of Gabrielle’s AI-powered advice email, a website, and even her first social media video! You can read our first few posts below on how we got through those pieces. And there are more pieces to the puzzle to make Gabrielle into the clever counselor she was meant to be, which we will cover over the next few weeks.
We usually tackle these topics one week at a time and write them up as we go, sharing posts once a week. While the plan always evolves, here is the general outline. Feel free to dive into any post below and subscribe to follow along the next few weeks!
Introduction (this post you’re reading)
Planning the overall project:
Coding Gabrielle:
Building Gabrielle’s website in one day:
Making a viral video in a few hours:
Gabrielle’s AI-powered advice blog, with a prompting example:
Writing in collaboration with AI:
Towards fully automated writing:
Ethics and responsibility in AI:
Marketing - can AI help me in an area I know nothing about?
Summary of lessons learned
Discussion with industry experts
Q&A with readers
Why follow along? Plus an invitation to participate!
We will all be working with AI soon enough. So if you're interested in AI or how to work with it, I aim to make this series relevant.
I want to explore the practical aspects of working with AI. I've already seen things that work like magic and fallen into painful traps with AI's current shortcomings. I'll share my lessons so you can develop ideas around using AI in your work.
I would also like to invite you to participate! You can try out the product as it evolves, follow along with the articles, share comments, and ask questions. If there's anything specific you'd like to ask or suggest, feel free to write me at itai@gabrielle.day.
And if you need some life advice, write to Gabrielle at dear@gabrielle.day.
As she likes to say:
The best advice comes from unexpected places.
Cool. Can't wait to read the rest.