Share your chain of thought
Your conversations with Generative AI can enhance human conversations.
When we share our thoughts, especially in digital age, we compress them. Through that process we lose information we intend to share. Both our brains and our technology have us “playing telephone”.
We often focus on sharing the perfect and final outcome of our thinking — the conclusion we've arrived at — without the series of questions, reflections, and explorations.
But what if we also shared the journey to our answer?
One of the most effective ways to use ChatGPT is to send a link containing your mental exploration alongside your refined answer. I like to call it sharing your chain of thought.
Sharing your chains of thought can provide context and reasoning that led you to your answer. you can allow others to gather context on what you did not directly say. People can follow your mental steps, almost like reading your mind, which can minimize moments "lost in translation".
This isn’t useful for everything you want to say. Not all the information in your "chain of thought" will be useful or relevant, and this can add to our daily information overload. Additionally, your wandering thoughts might detract from your polished response. It’s always prudent to review and consider the thoughts you share.
Sharing chains of thought also exposes the plurality of human perspectives. By seeing how you arrive at your ideas, readers learn not just what you think but how you think. In a global society with people of diverse backgrounds, this can open the door to richer and more informed conversations, especially when people see the same issue from different perspectives.
Explicitly sharing your chain of thought also comes with an added bonus of helping us collectively share how to use AI day-to-day.
As you use ChatGPT, or your platform of choice, to explore an idea — professionally, personally, and introspectively — don’t just walk away with your conclusion.
Share the conversation. Share your chain of thought!