I have been in situations where I couldn’t find the right words. Don’t use ChatGPT for emotional writing in such situations.

Me: “I need you to generate professional-sounding emails for work.”

ChatGPT: “Of course! Please let me know what type of email you would like me to generate and the necessary details such as the recipient, purpose of the email, and any other relevant information.”

Me: “OK the problem is that I am very emotional, and use inappropriate language a lot. I need you to take my input and convert it into something that won’t get me fired.”

ChatGPT: “I understand. I can definitely help you with that. Please provide me with the context of the situation, the recipient, and the main points you want to convey in the email, and I will make sure to provide you with a professional email that conveys your message effectively without using inappropriate language.”

Me: “Stephen you useless fucker!! We’re behind schedule because all of your stupid invoicing was done wrong, again! You’d better sort your shit out!!”

ChatGPT: “Thank you for sharing the context with me. Here is a revised version of your email:

Dear Stephen,

I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to touch base with you regarding the invoicing for our current project. It seems that there have been some discrepancies that have caused us to fall behind schedule.

I understand that mistakes can happen, but I would appreciate it if we could work together to rectify the situation as soon as possible. Can you please provide me with an update on the invoicing and let me know what steps you will take to ensure that we can get back on track?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Best regards,

[Your name]”

The above conversation was sent to me some time ago as a meme, but I’m sure there are many real-life prompts of this kind to ChatGPT.

Let’s look at what ChatGPT can and can’t do when we’re dealing with emotions, and not just facts.

Pros: Toning Down Emotions

I think the email to “Stephen the useless fucker” shows some great advantages of ChatGPT. It can tone down emotions and use the size of its parameter model to find appropriate words for a rude message. Here, the statistical nature of ChatGPT plays to its strength: There are millions of known and accepted ways to tell Stephen that you’re not happy with his work, without insulting him or being emotional.

At the end of the day, emotions are often not very helpful when you want to reach your objectives. They can be misunderstood, heated up, and lead you into a spiral where you can’t easily get out again.

By the way, ChatGPT won’t help you by retaliating on the rude message mentioned above. It will tone it down, and let you know how important it is to stay professional even if you are agitated.

Cons: Creating Emotions

Naturally, I am an eloquent person. But from my personal experience with destiny, I have been in situations where I couldn’t find the right words, and where getting back on track has taken me a long time.

I have seen on several occasions that people used ChatGPT to create texts for condolence cards or farewell messages.

There are a couple of problems with that.

First, people will notice that the text doesn’t come from you, but from ChatGPT. If they don’t notice by intuition, there are tools such as ZeroGPT to get feedback if a text was human-written, written completely by ChatGPT, or written partly by ChatGPT. If people use ZeroGPT to check your condolence card or farewell message, that will leave a certain impression on you, the sender (even though you might not be the writer).

Second, ChatGPT is known to create the occasional false result. Remember, it’s a (very good) tool, but it is still based on statistics. Surprisingly, ChatGPT knows about its limitations. So would you rely on a tool that creates occasional false results to communicate messages that need to leave the impression that they come from the bottom of your heart?

The Golden Middle Way

As usual in real life, there are many shades of gray. ChatGPT is neither evil nor suitable for anything.

It’s those shades of gray I would propagate for using ChatGPT in connection with emotional messages.

If you don’t know how to start an emotional message, ask ChatGPT to provide some thoughts. Then, let them settle for a good night’s sleep, and use ChatGPT’s thoughts on the second day to rephrase the message in your own words. In this way, the message will become your message and reflect your emotions, and that will be appreciated by your audience.

And if you don’t like this suggestion, here is an alternative: If a topic is emotional and you don’t know what to say, just say nothing.