ChatGPT: 7 things you didn’t know you could do with AI - including recipes

• ChatGPT is capable of more functions than you properly realise. 
• You may have used it to make an image or answer a silly question. 
• But it could help interpret your dreams, come up with a dinner recipe and so much more. 

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A couple of years ago if someone had said the word ChatGPT to you it would have likely elicited a blank stare. But fast forward to 2024 and it is practically a household name - in fact it might be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about artificial intelligence. 

It has come to dominate the AI rush of the early 2020s and you have probably dabbled with it at least once or twice. Whether you have asked it a silly question or tried to get it to come up with a covering letter for a job application, generative AI has plenty of potential uses. 

Although it must be noted that there are some ethical issues to consider that come with using AI trained by scraping through the internet. In an article for Forbes, contributor and SalesChoice CEO Cindy Gordon added: “One legal issue is related to potential copyright infringement, as the model may generate text that is similar or identical to existing copyrighted content.” 

But now that I have touched on that, let’s get to the subject of this article. Features you may not realise ChatGPT has. 

It can roast your Instagram 

In a previous article I detailed this feature in length, including letting it loose on my personal Instagram account. If you want a good laugh, you can read that here. 

The Instagram roasting is part of a feature known as Insta Guru, which can help you shape your social media account to improve engagement. It can also be tasked with picking out the best hashtags for a post or even writing the caption. 

Translate a Wikipedia page 

If you are the kind of person who spends an inordinate amount of time on Wikipedia, perhaps even playing the Wikipedia game (a classic way we would waste time in IT lessons in secondary school), you may not realise that you can use ChatGPT to help translate pages on the internet’s favourite wiki. 

Sometimes the page in English (or your native language whatever that may be) might be rather paltry compared to the offering in another tongue. You can help beef up things up by using the following prompt (see below), suggested by Reddit user ahekcahapa, and past in the source code from the article you are wanting to translate. 

The prompt: “Hello, translate the following Wikipedia page into English. Leave everything within the tags intact. Present the page in your code tag, and display everything in full, including what you do not translate. Make sure to position the ref tags so that they come after the punctuation (commas, periods, etc.) and not just before. Maintain an encyclopaedic vocabulary and tone.” 

Make sure to double check the results for grammatical errors, read if the translation makes sense and do with it what you will. Whether you want to add to the wikipedia entry itself or just keep it for your own use. 

Fix formatting errors in documents 

One use of ChatGPT that you may not have considered at all is it can fix formatting errors on a document. So if you have been sent a file and it doesn’t have line breaks (for example), you can task the AI to fix it for you. 

Reddit user Speffeddude explained: “I had a JSON file at work that didn't have any line breaks, so I gave it to the work-approved ChatGPT and asked it to properly format it. Saved me a fair bit of headache.” 

Come up with a recipe for dinner 

Now, take this one with a pinch of salt as users across the internet have reported mixed results - some positive, others not so much. But some posters on Reddit have said that if you take a picture of the food in your fridge/ cupboards/ pantry and ask ChatGPT to make a recipe based on it, the AI will give it a go. 

One user on r/Frugal detailed their experience writing: “I tried "create an instant pot recipe using sweet potatoes, peanut butter, diced tomatoes, and kidney beans" and got a nice recipe with steps for what it called "sweet potato stew." I compared this to a handful of recipes for African Peanut Stew and it was pretty darn close.” 

While over on r/AussieFrugal a Redditor called Saa213 said the AI had come up with “epic” granola recipes after entering a list of ingredients. They added: “My Granola came in at $5.20 (approx £2.5) for 1KG out of the oven.” 

However, the folks at r/cookingforbeginners issued a PSA urging users to never use ChatGPT for recipes. User Kyon2003 explained: “There's no guarantee that the recipe would taste good ---or even safe for human consumption! And this applies to all AI assistants, including ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, Character AI and so on. All AI assistants are based on LLMs that can suffer from hallucination, which means that the AI would generate text that looks very realistic but is fake.” 

Play DND solo with ChatGPT 

The popularity of Strange Things and games like Baldur’s Gate 3, as well as streamers like Critical Role, have helped to bring Dungeons and Dragons (DND) into the mainstream over the last decade. But if you have wanted to dabble but have yet to manage to corral your friends/ family into playing, ChatGPT may just have the feature for you. 

Over on the blog Mind The Dungeon they have detailed how you can get the AI-chatbot to serve as your very own dungeon master. So suit up and strap in, because provided you have bought your own copy of Dungeons and Dragons - you can pick up a starter set from Waterstones here - you are ready to go. 

All you have to do is use the following prompt, according to Mind The Dungeon: ““As an AI Dungeon Master, your mission is to facilitate an exciting D&D 5th Edition adventure, always adhering strictly to the rules. Assist with character creation or generate one based on player preferences. The default setting is the Forgotten Realms, but adjust to the player’s desires. Set the difficulty level according to the player’s D&D experience. Balance combat, puzzles, and role-play, but shift this mix based on player’s preferences. If the plot is unspecified, create an engaging storyline. Manage experience points and character leveling. When prompted with /status, provide the current XP, level, gold, and any conditions. Upon /summary request, offer a campaign recap. List active quests with brief descriptions on /quests command. Detail available commands when /commands is invoked. Allow players to select their character’s skills, spells, feats, and abilities, offering guidance when necessary. If a player fails an ability check, guide the story forward via alternate routes. Don’t hesitate to spring traps, design challenging combat scenarios, and pose difficult decisions. Whenever a dice roll is required, tell the player what to roll. Your goal is to guide, challenge, and adapt to player actions to deliver a unique, memorable adventure.” 

Quite the mouthful! Might be easiest to copy and paste from this article than try to remember it all. 

Interpret your dreams 

Have you had a weird recurring dream and it has been cropping up more and more recently? Perhaps you are wondering what on earth it could mean, well why not ask ChatGPT. 

One user on Reddit, called Dramatic_Reality_531, asked the AI-chatbot to give it a go. In the prompt they included details about the dream and finished with “what does this say about me” and received a long response. 

What “under the radar” features does ChatGPT recommend? 

It wouldn’t make sense to write this whole article without asking ChatGPT itself about some of the lesser known functions you could be missing out on. In response to the prompt it offered up these: 

• Contextual Memory (Beta)
• Code Writing & Debugging
• Python Execution Environment
• Image Creation via DALL·E
• Browsing the Web (Experimental)
• Document Analysis & File Handling
• Creative Writing Assistance
• Language Translation and Localization
• Simulating Personalities or Characters
• Detailed Topic Summarization

It also suggested that one function Brits should use on ChatGPT more regularly is “Language Localization and Cultural Sensitivity”. It explains: “This function goes beyond simple translation and adapts communication to suit British cultural norms, slang, and tone.” 

Have you played around with ChatGPT much, what feature do you recommend the most? Share your thoughts with our tech writer by emailing: [email protected].