Daily cultural updates with AI

Sun, 2 Feb 2025

My pal Matt Colyer recently explained how to use ChatGPT’s 4o model to craft a sophisticated, information-dense prompt to then pass to the o1 model — which can in turn provide rich responses.

I’ve used this technique a few times already, to wonderful effect. One example is a daily cultural update.

Each morning, while I’m AeroPressing my coffee, ChatGPT reads aloud several pieces of news. So far: I learned about Islamic geometric art and reached out to Ahmad Angawi to thank him for his inspiring work; I heard about fashion trends, then studied how algorithmic changes have influenced aesthetics; And, I laughed with Eileen about a robot cat designed to blow on hot liquids.

Generally, subjects like art, music, literature, and architecture are fascinating and nourishing for me. But I have a hard time dipping into these topics, maybe because of the limited time I allocate. Editorial features are too elaborate, and social algorithms (especially the atrocious shorts format) are too fragmented. What I needed was an assistant to toss a few things my way each day, and be able to dig in if something sounded interesting. So for a week now, I’ve been using ChatGPT as just such an assistant. Let me explain how I set it up.

How I set up daily cultural updates

Initial setup: First, I asked 4o for guidance on improving my cultural awareness in a way that would not be overwhelming. It gave me the typical numbered-list feedback, encouraging me to diversify what I read, watch global trends, and broaden my exposure to art and music, suggesting and linking to a variety of sources online.

4o as prompt-writer: Next, I asked 4o to use this information to write an expert prompt for o1, so that o1 could craft a plan for cultural exercise and help me build good habits. As part of this prompt-building, I instructed 4o to use its web-searching ability to find supporting information (o1 can’t do that) and to make sure that the plan centered on a daily briefing. 4o then wrote me a prompt for o1 (essentially an essay full of links).

Over to o1, and back: Finally, I copy/pasted the 4o prompt to o1 and received in response a structured plan for daily cultural briefings. Copying the o1 plan back into a new 4o chat with scheduled tasks enabled (another thing o1 can’t do), I asked ChatGPT to act as my assistant, scheduling a daily cultural awareness update at 7:00AM.

🎭🎶📚

I appreciate Matt sharing this tip about using 4o to write better prompts for o1. I’ve also used it to create a dedicated chat for surprise-me style deep-dives into topics that interest me, and to set unique career goals that match my interests and aptitudes. It’s exciting to use AI as a tool in these ways.