#54 - Using GPT4 to help me get in shape

What I’m Reading

I’ve almost finished reading Sapiens: a brief history of humankind. It is one of my most insightful reads in recent memory. Covers a whole range of topics going right back to hunter-gatherer times, how religion, science, and systems of governments interrelate. Even explores how we think as humans and how our belief systems have evolved. It’s very thought-provoking and challenges a lot of what we take for granted. Would say it’s a must-read if you’re at all interested in economics or history.

Resource of the week

Most of you on this newsletter list have probably signed up via my TikTok link. In case you wanted to access back issues you can do on my site: www.hans-chan.com (I'm leaving the screener from last week's newsletter live for another week for those that just missed it).

Quote

If tensions, conflicts and irresolvable dilemmas are the spice of every culture, a human being who belongs to any particular culture must hold contradictory beliefs and be riven by incompatible values.

It's such an essential feature of any culture that it even has a name: cognitive dissonance.

Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens

News and Trends

• Rental demand is a whopping 51% up from the 5-year average according to Zoopla, however, there might be signs it has peaked, with the latest data showing a slowdown.
• Looks like the rise in rates is hitting not just homeowners. The trade association for UK banking and financial services saying thousands of landlords are behind on their buy-to-let mortgage payments.
• Online courses are a massive business. With the reach of social media a lot of creators are making bank. Vox looks at the different types of courses out there.

It’s no secret that the deposit required for a buy-to-let property has been steadily increasing in recent years due to reduced yields and higher property prices. Now, with the higher mortgage rates, it has really changed the picture. In London, you need twice(!) the deposit for an investment property compared to just last year. Not looking so great for the rental market in London and the South East in general in the next few years.

Thoughts

The latest news this week is I’m continuing to be amazed by AI. GPT4 wrote me a meal plan for my ongoing weight cut. And taught me how to make a turkey chilli con carne! On a serious note, I think the likes of Google should be seriously worried as GPT is proving to be the better tool in a lot of situations.

I’m now just going to ChatGPT direct for a lot of stuff that I would have Googled before. My thinking now is, I’ll still use Google for the cases where it’s something very specific that I already know what I’m looking for, like the address of my local post office or buying a specific ink I had in mind. But for anything that requires a bit more in-depth exploration I find myself defaulting to ChatGPT a lot.

Of course, it’s still not perfect, you still want to independently verify stuff if it’s an area you have no prior knowledge of, but it’s more capable than anything we’ve seen before. Nothing drives progress like competition, and we’re seeing a lot of that with Google’s Bard, Bings version, and undoubtedly the multitude of alternatives from tech companies scrambling to get a piece of the action. Almost reminds me of the days when the first iPhone came out and how we saw big jumps in performance every year for those early years.

Have you started playing with AI chatbots? Let me know if it’s improved any area of your life, just hit reply for any feedback, questions etc.

Have a good week!

Hans