AI Sandbox Resources

October 30, 2023 /

Bing’s AI Copilot for writing: How to “Play” with an LLM Chatbot

Chatbots based on Large Language Models cannot flawlessly execute most complex writing tasks, but there are a variety of cases where they can be used to complement a writer’s process and assist in the thought-work that goes into good writing. Try out some of these tasks and prompts with Bing’s AI Copilot chatbot (you have free “Enterprise” access with your Trinity Microsoft account!).

Ideating

One of the most useful things an LLM chatbot can do is use its “remixing” capability to generate ideas that writers can use as “springboards” to larger, more complex endeavors. When using an LLM chatbot as an “ideation” engine, be sure to provide an ample amount of contextual information and some helpful parameters after your initial request so that your query can be answered in the most relevant way possible.

Practical Applications & Prompts:

  • “Develop a list of 5 titles for an op-ed article about [TOPIC + CONTEXT]. The titles should be no longer than 15 words, feature a 2-3 word main title, a colon, and a subtitle, and should contain some kind of alliteration or wordplay joke related to the topic.”
  • “Develop a list of 5 research questions about [TOPIC], to be used for a college-level History course project. These questions should be interpretive (not be answerable with just basic factual information), and should be designed to help inspire a student who is about to enter the library to perform research on their topic for the first time.”

Developing Examples of Common Generic Texts

For teachers, coming up with good model examples of written genres we want our students to write can be time-consuming. For students, trying to come up with “just the right way” to start a sentence or a paragraph can also be difficult if you’re new to the genre (or to the language that it’s written in!). Because LLMs are trained to recognize patterns in text, they are relatively good at predicting how sentences and phrases go together to form genre conventions for a variety of texts (particularly those with less room for creative flexibility).

Practical Applications & Prompts:

  • “Write a 4-sentence paragraph on [TOPIC] that follows the sentence progression of a PEAS paragraph, where the first sentence introduces a Point, the second introduces Evidence, the third provides Analysis of that evidence, and the final sentence articulates the Significance of the topic.”
  • “Write 5 examples of good words or phrases you can use to begin the ‘Results’ section of a lab report on [TOPIC + CONTEXT].”
  • “Write a stanza of a sonnet about [TOPIC] following the rhythmic pattern of iambic pentameter.”

Coding with ChatGPT

ChatGPT can help a lot when it comes to coding. For quick and easy tasks, ChatGPT can write short bits of code that you can use right away. This includes single-file, one-function projects. However, it is unable to produce complete large-sized projects with lots of files and multiple functions. That said, ChatGPT is a great tool when it comes to teaching yourself programming, brainstorming ideas for a development project, and solving any issues that occur along the way. So, no matter if your project is big or small, ChatGPT can be a real game-changer.

ChatGPT Plugins

ChatGPT plugins are a suite of specialized extensions designed to augment the capabilities of the core ChatGPT model, enabling it to perform a wide range of tasks that would otherwise be outside its scope. These plugins can access external databases, perform real-time computations, and retrieve up-to-date information from the web, thereby transforming ChatGPT into an even more powerful tool for academia and research.

For college staff, faculty, and students, these plugins optimize tasks such as sourcing scholarly articles, understanding complex scientific concepts, and even managing logistical aspects like travel or restaurants bookings .

Limitations and considerations for ChatGPT Plugins:

  • Reliability and accuracy concerns
  • Data privacy concern
  • Over-reliance 
  • Potential costs
  • Learning curve 

Here is the link to our post about ChatGPT Plugins with more details and list of plugins we recommend to get started with!

Image Creation

AI tools can be used to create images based on text prompts or generate new images based on existing one. Some popular options are:

As with most AI tools the quality of your prompt will determine the quality of the final product. You can also build on previous prompts by adding or specifying features. For example you can specify that you want a photorealistic image, or something in the anime style. You can specify lighting intensity and direction, background, foreground etc. DALL-E will tell you the specific prompt it used to create an image so you can build off those as suggestions. The first 4 images below were created with Big AI Companion with the prompt “create an image of a New England winter scene”. The second set added “make it in the style of Ansel Adams”

Like all AI tools DALL-E has limitations. For example when we told it to make a flyer for the AI Sandbox event the results were full of misspelings.

Explore a range of AI tools along with articles in our AI zotero collection. There, you’ll find collected tools, peer resources, and articles on this emerging technology.