Hi all!
Chat GPT has been a life saver for me on sits. From figuring out how to unlock a child-locked washing machine to fan controls to strange coffee machine settings.
I take a picture of the apparatus’ controls and ask ChatGPT my question.
Another way I’ve used it is to learn what to do in the area according to my preferences such as “off the beaten path” and “active adventures” and “language schools”
I appreciate the lack of ads and “sponsored” suggestions.
Anyway—how has AI helped you during a sit?
I haven’t particularly used it during a sit but ask for itineraries for city breaks and, how long to stay in particular places. It was very useful to me in planning a two month itinerary in Chile and Argentina last October - December, although you can’t 100% rely on the information being accurate.
As for instructions to work appliances on sits I’ve used YouTube in the past.
We use AI extensively. Trip planning, itineraries, access to public transport, and shot lists for our YouTube channel. We even have AI in our car now (Tesla, Grock) which is incredibly convenient while on the road. Side note: AI isn’t perfect and like anything in this world it’s a good idea to use critical thinking and sometimes question/double check responses. AI is just a tool like any other tool and its effectiveness lies in the hands of those who use it.
Edit: My one pet peeve is people who use it and forget to remove the - (if you know, you know 
)
I can’t totally avoid it but don’t go out of my way to use AI. It’s accelerating climate change at a rate that is going to kill us all, not to mention all the animals and plants. I realize it’s being used as I write this, but I refuse to go out of my way to use it.
Haven’t needed to, but I will if needed.
I just arrived to sit my friend’s cat in Rome. Didn’t need it last time I was here, but you never know.
I use AI for almost everything, having essentially turned it into my personal assistant. With a background in teaching AI search engines search relevance, I am well aware of its imperfections and always correct them when needed, or fill in the gaps accordingly.
As for pet sitting, I turn to AI whenever I need pet-related information, whether behavioral or otherwise, and find it particularly useful for location research, where it tends to be more detailed and accurate than traditional sources.
My platform of choice has evolved over time. I dropped ChatGPT a year ago in favor of Gemini, then made the switch to Claude, which is today my go-to.
I much prefer Claude myself.
Tangentially, in recent weeks, I did use ChatGPT to make images of me and my dog into plushies and action figures, which are adorable. (Just upload photos and prompt away.)
I don’t want my image online here even in plushie form. But I suggest trying it for fun.
For my action figure, it inexplicably gave me an extra head as an accessory. No different from the head it gave my action figure. So I prompted it to change the extra head into a cocktail — an old fashioned, to be exact. I might go back and prompt it to change the other three accessories into various cocktails.
I also prompted it to turn my image into a bobble head, but then it randomly put my head on a spring (atop my body).
I have an actual bobble head that coworkers gave me years ago. Later, I might take a photo of that and experiment.
Note: I started using AI a couple of years ago or so, because of work that teams I led do. Now that I don’t do that (on indefinite sabbatical, deciding whether to retire early), I have just been fooling around with it.
@ChiefPetOfficer, love the curious mindset.
Over the last year then we’ve increasingly experimented & used AI tools. Main current tool is Perplexity (Pro). We use Perplexity now far more than legacy internet search engines. Simply remarkable tools.
While we have used it to aid some housesitting challenges - e.g. appliances - then we have used it more to aid travel logistics, onsite activities and everyday questions.
As we gain experience then we learn tricks. One being use of Perplexity ‘Spaces’ - we have multiple Spaces (some solo, some shared) that have specific context instructions, PDF documents/weblinks, and a history of enquiry threads on a specific topic. We find that the better we make the inputs (context, any background files, prompt) then the better we receive output. Actively experimenting.
I’m considering living part-time in China and have found humans the best source of current info. There are terrific crowd-sourced insights, more reliable than AI. Plus, humans can become network, and possibly friends.
Worth noting that curiosity is key, but tools and approaches should vary with what you’re looking into, a first principles foundation.
For folks who are newish to AI tools, there are loads of experts on LinkedIn who are pooling know-how. No need to start from scratch. That’s because even folks who are using AI professionally and are experimenting nonstop, it’s tough to keep up. (I have friends who work in AI who say this as well.)
If you follow folks pursuing what’s relevant to you, they often share scripts/prompts, so you can essentially short-cut things.
BTW, a couple of posts I read on LinkedIn that might interest folks who enjoy traveling:
What an interesting article about Hidden Wonders. Thank you for posting this. I love the concept.
I haven’t tried Claude but I’ll check it out!
Which tool is better depends on what you’re trying to do, and they continue to evolve quickly. Like I’ve led teams that have leveraged AI and constantly experimented, without getting unnecessarily wedded to any mid- to longer term. With writing, we were getting better results from Claude, which is part of its rep.
This morning I had to take à picture of the washing machine compartments and ask where I put the soap and how much. 
I did exactly this on my most recent housesit - first time in over 50 sits. Normally the compartments are labelled 1 - 3 or the layout makes it obvious which is which. This machine had an unusual layout and no labels!
@ChiefPetOfficer, your thread was timely.
It seems that some pet parents are using AI tools, for various tasks.
We just received a trip itinerary from a [nerdy] pet parent in regards a trip later this year. Seems graphical image created by AI (Google Claude) based on uploaded travel and accommodation documents. Personal information has been removed from image. Regardless, this graphic blew our minds - super cute.
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