5 Ways to Augment your Intelligence using ChatGPT as a Data Scientist, Programmer or Web Developer

Aneesha Bakharia
4 min readDec 30, 2022
Female with an aura around brain — brain interface to ai image used as intro image for blog post on chatgpt augment in intelligence — created with Stable Diffusion.

Let’s go beyond asking ChatGPT to write code from scratch for you ….

We need to stop thinking that ChatGPT will replace humans! Suppose indeed technology like ChatGPT does become ubiquitous and affordable. In that case, everybody will have access and if everybody can use it to create, then everybody will need to up their game. Think about that for a moment ….

The true winners are going to be those humans who can partner with and guide AI to take things to the next level. Iterative design in conversation with other humans and AI’s will be an essential skill. With that in mind, after trying a few things in ChatGPT, I’ve come up with 5 ways to augment your intelligence. All 5 are equally relevant to Data Scientists, Programmers and Web Developers.

1. Convert code between languages

Do you have code in one language, but need it in another? Let’s look at some common scenarios.

ChatGPT can convert Matlab to Python and explain the language differences. In the example below ChatGPT is provided with Matlab code for Non Negative Matrix Factorization and asked to convert the code to Python.

ChatGPT converting Matlab code to Python
ChatGPT converting Matlab code to Python

Know Pandas and need to quickly upscale to PySpark — No problem for ChatGPT.

ChatGPT converting Pandas to PySpark
ChatGPT converting Pandas to PySpark

How about converting to Dask?

ChatGPT can convert Vanilla Javascipt to Typescript. Here a Javascript function that takes an object as input, appends the uppercase of the keys and values to a string and returns the string.

ChatGPT converting Javascript to Typescript
ChatGPT adding types to a javascript object
ChatGPT adding types to a javascript object

Conversion with ChatGPT is important to keep enhancing and directing the result to obtain the required outcome.

2. Explain code

ChatGPT is great at explaining code. In Python sometimes one-liners can be mysterious and indecipherable. ChatGPT does a great job of explaining what is going on.

ChatGPT explaining what is happening in a Python List Comprehension.
ChatGPT explaining what is happening in a Python List Comprehension.

ChatGPT can assist you in commenting and documenting your own code or perhaps code you inherit for maintenance.

3. Optimize code

Have some long-running code that you need to speed up? Just ask ChatGPT for suggestions.

Asking ChatGPT to optimize a loop
Asking ChatGPT to optimize a loop

With some additional discussion, I got an implementation using AsyncIO.

ChatGPT generated code for asyncio
ChatGPT generated code for asyncio

4. Understand a concept or algorithm

Ask ChatGPT about algorithms. I’ve tried all sorts of algorithms and received simple explanations. Here is the reply I got on why the Virtual DOM in React is fast:

ChatGPT explaining Virtual Dom.
ChatGPT explaining Virtual Dom.

5. Write summaries and emails from bullet points

Full emails can sometimes be hard to write, particularly if you have many to write or need to write them when trying to fix a critical bug. ChatGPT can take bullet points with your main ideas and generate a cohesive and polite email that is easy to read.

ChatGPT can convert bullet points into paragraphs
ChatGPT can convert bullet points into paragraphs

Want more ideas — Try these 10 things as well (includes ideas for fixing bugs and identifying security vulnerabilities).

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Aneesha Bakharia

Data Science, Topic Modelling, Deep Learning, Algorithm Usability and Interpretation, Learning Analytics, Electronics — Brisbane, Australia