Hospitals are such a mess this way; I feel you. It’s a full on assault not only mentally but physically being IN the place. I wonder if there is a way to make it better because it’s all gobbledegook at the absolute worst time. My dad died 3 years ago so no AI buddy, but I was lucky in a way that my dad was in and out of the hospital frequently in his last year so I ramped up on the drugs and treatments and options and had some sense of what was coming. For me, the hardest decision and the most obvious inflection point was my decision to go hospice/comfort. That changed the whole nature of the fight.
Interesting experience you relate! I too hate typing on a phone, and I only use when I have to. It amazes me how people can type so rapidly on them. I also despise talking on the phone, though it seems absolutely necessary to straighten out the inevitable f**k-ups.
Love that photo of your dad and the cat assistant. ;-)
The pic of Dad with Harold is one of my all-time faves of him!
On phone use, I ultimately concluded that spending less time prompting (being somewhat more careful with how I select the prompt) and then putting the phone away to “cook” for a bit was ideal. My workflow on my laptop or a desktop is very different - both more iterative and more thoughtful since my hands are involved and I can say a lot more - yet I felt like I could take my time and get a similar enough result here.
I can totally relate. Researching all sorts of health, practical, parenting, shopping, etc. matters with GPT-5.4 thinking is easily the biggest use case I have for ChatGPT these days.
That includes lots of health stuff about my mom, Ukraine, etc. Things that matter and where being able to focus on the information rather than the search process itself really helps.
If you’re using your phone, how careful w/the prompt are you? I like to iterate, but the timing of waiting for the answers matters too (which pairs with what sort of “thinking” mode you’re using, right?).
I usually stick to thinking mode regardless but if it's a long question with lots of context, I'll typically use the built-in voice dictation feature (not realtime voice mode, just speech to text).
I guess I'm interested in whether you toggle from "Light" to "Standard" to "Extended" to "Heavy" on the thinking mode. I certainly do whenever I'm at a laptop, but this seems limited on mobile. Same w/pro: I'm never sure if I'm on "standard" or "extended", and it may well depend on the last time I set it on my computer.
I always pick Thinking Extended, unless it's a casual chat. If it's research, I never go for lower than max available thinking effort, since I want to make sure the first take is as well researched as possible.
I believe "Heavy" is only for $200 plans, so that's not an option on my end.
Heavy is thorough, but the personality of Extended can be better for certain tasks. In other words, I sometimes get more useful answers from dumber models!
This post seemed more like an ode to your father and your love for him than an article about AI assistants. Still AI is like a the discovery of lenses which can improve our vision. Eyeglasses are the most frequently used followed by microscopes and telescopes. They all give us a view of reality we couldn’t have had without them. Thank you for the ode…
AI has been a godsend in so much research and sense making. I wish more people used it .
Oh, they will!
Hospitals are such a mess this way; I feel you. It’s a full on assault not only mentally but physically being IN the place. I wonder if there is a way to make it better because it’s all gobbledegook at the absolute worst time. My dad died 3 years ago so no AI buddy, but I was lucky in a way that my dad was in and out of the hospital frequently in his last year so I ramped up on the drugs and treatments and options and had some sense of what was coming. For me, the hardest decision and the most obvious inflection point was my decision to go hospice/comfort. That changed the whole nature of the fight.
We made a similar call about 2 weeks ago. It was going to drag on so much and I’m very glad we made that call.
I also recently discovered that this ability (not to force someone to stay alive) is very recent. Can’t imagine not having that freedom.
Interesting experience you relate! I too hate typing on a phone, and I only use when I have to. It amazes me how people can type so rapidly on them. I also despise talking on the phone, though it seems absolutely necessary to straighten out the inevitable f**k-ups.
Love that photo of your dad and the cat assistant. ;-)
The pic of Dad with Harold is one of my all-time faves of him!
On phone use, I ultimately concluded that spending less time prompting (being somewhat more careful with how I select the prompt) and then putting the phone away to “cook” for a bit was ideal. My workflow on my laptop or a desktop is very different - both more iterative and more thoughtful since my hands are involved and I can say a lot more - yet I felt like I could take my time and get a similar enough result here.
Still, it was tedious.
It's a great photo!
I too sometimes have to "let things simmer" before attacking complex problems.
I can totally relate. Researching all sorts of health, practical, parenting, shopping, etc. matters with GPT-5.4 thinking is easily the biggest use case I have for ChatGPT these days.
That includes lots of health stuff about my mom, Ukraine, etc. Things that matter and where being able to focus on the information rather than the search process itself really helps.
If you’re using your phone, how careful w/the prompt are you? I like to iterate, but the timing of waiting for the answers matters too (which pairs with what sort of “thinking” mode you’re using, right?).
I usually stick to thinking mode regardless but if it's a long question with lots of context, I'll typically use the built-in voice dictation feature (not realtime voice mode, just speech to text).
I guess I'm interested in whether you toggle from "Light" to "Standard" to "Extended" to "Heavy" on the thinking mode. I certainly do whenever I'm at a laptop, but this seems limited on mobile. Same w/pro: I'm never sure if I'm on "standard" or "extended", and it may well depend on the last time I set it on my computer.
I always pick Thinking Extended, unless it's a casual chat. If it's research, I never go for lower than max available thinking effort, since I want to make sure the first take is as well researched as possible.
I believe "Heavy" is only for $200 plans, so that's not an option on my end.
Heavy is thorough, but the personality of Extended can be better for certain tasks. In other words, I sometimes get more useful answers from dumber models!
*adjusts collar
Not sure what that says about me.
This post seemed more like an ode to your father and your love for him than an article about AI assistants. Still AI is like a the discovery of lenses which can improve our vision. Eyeglasses are the most frequently used followed by microscopes and telescopes. They all give us a view of reality we couldn’t have had without them. Thank you for the ode…
Yeah, I will probably write about him (directly or indirectly) a lot over the next months.