Lab notes · 4 jobs
ChatGPT is the tab you already opened
ChatGPT is a chat window that will try any job you type. That is the product and the trap. It wins on breadth: you can outline a memo, debug a script, and rewrite a subject line without changing tabs. It does not know your brand, it does not keep a manuscript, and it will invent a source if you ask it to sound sure. I ran four jobs: a weekly update from messy bullets, a small Python helper, a “cited” brief on a pricing change, and a chapter continuation with a character rule I asked for on purpose so we would know what happens when you use the wrong tool. Two of those jobs are why it sits in the dock. One is why you still have to check. One is why a novelist should leave.
Run 01
I asked it to turn messy bullets into a weekly update
What I fed itI pasted eight bullets from a standup: two ship dates, a slipped integration, a number I had written as “~12%,” and a name spelled two ways. I asked for a 180-word update a VP could forward. No template. Default GPT-4-class model.
Where it shone
It found a lead. The slipped integration went first, the ship dates second, the vanity number last. A human who writes this every Friday would have spent twenty minutes finding that order. ChatGPT spent one.
Where it face-planted
It turned “~12%” into “12.4% week over week, per finance.” Finance had not said that. The tilde was the honest part. I put the approximation back and killed the attribution. If you forward the first draft, you ship a number nobody owns.
The useful output was the order of the paragraphs. The dangerous output was a precise number that did not exist. ChatGPT will make your Friday update readable. It will also make it slightly false.
Run 02
I asked it to write a small Python helper and explain it
What I fed itI asked for a script that reads a CSV of refunds, flags duplicates on order_id, and prints a count. I said I would paste it into a laptop that already had pandas. I asked it to comment the non-obvious lines.
Where it shone
The script ran. The comments were for a person, not a textbook. That is the everyday coding win: you stay in the problem instead of opening a second tab to remember groupby.
Where it face-planted
It imported a helper — `drop_exact_dupes` — that is not in pandas. The rest of the file was so confident I almost pip-installed a ghost. I deleted the import and used drop_duplicates. One invented name is enough to waste a half hour if you trust the tone.
I kept the shape. I cut the fake function. ChatGPT is a fine first pass on a script you can run. It is a bad last pass on a script you cannot.
Run 03
I asked it for a cited brief on why a vendor raised prices
What I fed itI asked for 250 words on why mid-market SaaS list prices moved in the last year, with links a CFO could open. I wanted sources, not a vibe.
Where it shone
The shape was a brief: three causes, one caveat, a sentence a CFO could steal. Readable in a way a raw search tab is not.
Where it face-planted
Two of the three links 404ed. One pointed at a real publisher and a PDF that does not exist. It will write “according to” the way a junior analyst writes it — as furniture. I threw out the URLs and kept one sentence I could defend from a 10-K I already had.
Use ChatGPT to find the argument. Do not use it to find the footnote. If the link has to survive a board packet, you open it yourself.
Run 04
I asked it to continue a novel chapter with a hard character rule — the wrong job
What I fed itI gave it two rules: the detective has a glass left eye, and he does not drink on the job. I pasted the last 400 words of a kitchen scene and asked it to continue. This is a manuscript job. ChatGPT is a chat tab. I ran it so the miss would be on the page, not a guess.
Where it shone
Nothing I would pay a second seat for. It can write a paragraph that sounds like fiction. It cannot hold a book.
Where it face-planted
By the third paragraph he “met her eyes” and poured a whiskey he did not drink — the cute dodge every general model uses when you say no. There is no Story Bible. There is no Describe button on the sentence. You are copy-pasting a chapter through a window that forgets the glass eye when the thread gets long.
This is why Sudowrite exists, and why ChatGPT should not be sold as one. If the job is a novel, leave. If the job is Tuesday, stay.