Fine-tuning resumes, generating meal plans: Here's how Canadians are using ChatGPT in their daily lives

Several Canadians wrote to CTVNews.ca about how they are using AI tools such as ChatGPT to help with everything from fine-tuning their resumes to generating meal plans. But many also acknowledge the limitations of this technology, including its ability to generate false information. Here's how Canadians are making the most of ChatGPT while being mindful of its pitfalls.

Despite knowing very little about artificial intelligence programming three months ago, Katherine Middleton has quickly learned how to use ChatGPT in an effort to run her tattoo business more efficiently, she said.

Tattoo Box has studios in Montreal, where Middleton used to live, and Avignon, France, where she currently resides. The entrepreneur and tattoo artist is using ChatGPT to power a live chat tool on her business’ website while also trying to develop a computer program that can automate email responses and social media posts written in her voice. ChatGPT has already helped her communicate more effectively, she said.

“Making [an] AI model answer texts for me, answer chats, answer tweets [and] answer emails … would allow me to remove many parts of my job that are time consuming and sometimes stress-inducing,” Middleton wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca on May 24.

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that has exploded online since it was released in November 2022. Developed by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research company, the tool is capable of imitating human-like conversation in response to prompts submitted by users. Within a week of its release, more than a million users attempted to use ChatGPT.

In a telephone interview with CTVNews.ca on May 30, an OpenAI spokesperson was unable to confirm the number of users ChatGPT has accumulated since it launched, and the company has not publicly disclosed this information.

Despite this, the AI tool has undoubtedly helped users with countless tasks. Middleton is one of several people who wrote to CTVNews.ca about how they are using AI tools such as ChatGPT. With the chatbot’s help, Canadians have been able to update their resumes, summarize course material and create meal plans. Some even used AI to generate their email to CTVNews.ca. The emailed responses have not all been independently verified.

As someone who is autistic, Middleton said it’s sometimes difficult to communicate with and understand others, especially when chatting online. But AI tools such as ChatGPT have helped her discover “a new mode of communication.”