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The Cheapest Way to Experiment with Ai in Your Writing
Most marketed artificial intelligence writing tools are overpriced, because you have to pay for a limited amount of generations.
Most marketed artificial intelligence writing tools are overpriced, because you have to pay for a limited amount of generations.
This defeats the entire purpose of using Ai in your writing, because limiting generations discourages writers from experimenting. Sure, this makes sense if Ai is generating useful text at the push of a button. But that’s rarely the case. Ai’s greatest strength is in coming up with new ideas.
Why should we pay for Ai like we pay for a human copywriter? If you are using Ai as a copywriter, then you are using it the wrong way.
The best way to use Ai is to explore and play with new ways of thinking … not trying to generate massive amounts of content. That’s probably why many writers hate the idea of using artificial intelligence.
That said, every writer should experiment with Ai, and here is the cheapest way to do it, step by step.
1. Start with OpenAI
OpenAI is the developer of GPT-3, the large language model that most Ai writing tools use. You are going straight to the source.
OpenAi’s original goal was to make GPT-3 freely available. Though no longer a purely non-profit enterprise, the free trial is generous and pricing is way below other tools. All you need to do is find their playground and create an account.
OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company. Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits…openai.com
OpenAi’s playground is a space for developers to experiment with GPT-3, but it is quite hidden.
To find this space, scroll to the very bottom of OpenAi’s website and click login. Then click sign up.
Once that’s done, you’ll see this screen, but you can ignore most of it. Just click “Playground” at the top.
2. Experiment with Different Inputs
You will be in the Ai editor with free credits. Now write some kind of input into the editor. This can be anything:
Headline
Heading
Introduction
Opening line to a story
First line to a poem
Sentence fragment
The Ai will guess how to complete your input. That is basically how this technology works. Using the massive amount of data available in the large language model, OpenAi will try to guess the best thing to write next.
Remember, it is always just a guess. GPT-3 does not have the ability to reason or infer context.
You can also try writing commands. For example:
Write a review of Transformers.
Write a love poem about the moon.
Write a headline for OpenAI instructions.
Results will definitely vary. Without guidance from the user, the Ai is “shooting in the dark.” And that’s the worst kind of guess.
3. Feed Context
Keep in mind, the more context you provide, the better the output will be. For example, in this headline, I made sure the audience, purpose, and message is easily discernible.
If you find the generation interesting, just hit submit, and the Ai will write more. You can also edit or add to what you have before re-submitting. Or you can redo what you already have.
The more you experiment with the input, or what’s already been written, the more interesting output you will get from the Open Ai Model.
4. Experiment with the Settings
You’ll notice some pretty cryptic settings on the right side of the editor. You can mostly ignore those, unless you decide to go deeper. These parameters enable developers to shape the Ai’s output in various ways.
Here are the three most useful settings for beginners. You can leave the others as is.
Model: There are different models for different purposes. Davinci is the best for generating content, though there are a few faster models that work in similar ways.
Temperature: Simply put, this is the creativity dial, which determines how “risky” the Ai guesses. Turned way up can create random trains of thought or mismatches. Turned way down can cause the Ai to repeat itself.
Maximum length: This determines how long each generation can be. Shorter is usually better, because you can adapt the context before the Ai guesses the next text.
Any Ai writing tool built with GPT-3 will have some settings like this, so this is a good opportunity to get a sense of how these parameters might work.
5. Have fun with your free trial.
That’s enough to get you started with experimenting with Ai. OpenAi does have some interesting presets (or frameworks) that you can experiment with too.
It takes time to learn what Ai can do for you. Think of this as a brainstorming tool. Try it out every time you are exploring ideas for your writing and see what happens. If you run out of tokens, you can buy more for 6¢ (1k tokens is about 750 words).
If you are interested in a more expansive set of Ai tools that includes custom frameworks, you might check out ClosersCopy. Hands down, one of the most sophisticated Ai tools that allows writers to better control Ai output.
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ClosersCopy
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