Lose Your Thumbs, Find Your Voice

Imagine sitting in front of a blank screen, the cursor blinking, daring you to type the first word. For many, this is the hardest part of writing. In the era of generative AI, we often forget that we can bypass this hurdle altogether by simply using our voice.

For all the hype about Natural Language Processing (NLP), it’s easy to overlook the fact that for most of us, typing isn't our natural language. In fact it’s a bottleneck that slows down our thought process. In the age of AI, we can bypass our fingers or our thumbs on a screen, at least to get ideas out.

Truly “natural language” is the spoken word. Spitball, workshop, hash it out, chat about it: speaking is how we work out ideas and relate to one another. But it wasn’t until very recently that we’ve been able to really speak with a computer conversationally. While building the fastest growing consumer app of all time, OpenAI quietly also revolutionized voice to text with a feature (product???) called Whisper. Very few people fathom how much of an unlock this technology — paired with the reasoning capabilities of the LLM that powers it —really is.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) with generative AI can cater to our spoken language, making the process more intuitive and effective. We can think and speak simultaneously, allowing our ideas to develop more organically.

Expanding the Collaborative Surface Area

Using your voice with ChatGPT not only overcomes the initial hurdle of the blank page but also expands the collaborative potential. When you're using your fingers and thumbs, you're tied to the screen—usually sitting at a desk. But with voice input, you can collaborate with AI while on a walk, stretching, or even driving. This flexibility creates new opportunities for synthesis and reflection that were previously unavailable.

For example, I've found it incredibly helpful to dictate thoughts and reflections into ChatGPT while driving from one meeting to another. This real-time processing allows me to capture ideas that might otherwise be lost and provides a written record that I can revisit later. Whisper's exceptional transcription capabilities ensure that I have an accurate record of my thoughts, enhancing my ability to reflect and synthesize ideas effectively.

Using your voice isn't just about overcoming the bottleneck of typing—it's about leveraging the natural flow of spoken language to unlock new levels of creativity and productivity. Whether you're brainstorming, planning, or simply reflecting on the day, using your voice with generative AI can transform your approach.

Brain vs. Fingers: The Speed Challenge

Often, my brain moves faster than my fingers can. For instance, I seriously struggled to write this very blog post. Despite having shared this very idea to thousands of other humans via keynote address or podcast — or perhaps, because I’ve shared so much publicly — I was weirdly paralyzed when it came time to ink this idea via the blog. I sat here for 30 minutes, staring at the screen, trying to bang out the first few sentences. It wasn't until I started talking to ChatGPT that the ideas began to flow.

I see this all the time: when trying to solve the problem of structure, order, and synthesis, I end up losing many ideas because my fingers can't keep up. Even during this process, I've realized that valuable thoughts and beliefs can't always make it onto the page due to the sheer volume of ideas swirling in my head, and the bottlethumb effect.

Traditional freewriting is one way to tackle this (here’s another fun old post on that topic), but “freespeaking” with ChatGPT may be even more effective. By vocalizing your thoughts, you can surface all relevant material, stimulate your imagination, and collaboratively synthesize to reach a better outcome. This method allows you to capture the full breadth of your ideas without being constrained by the speed of typing.

Ditch your thumbs and raise your voice. By actually speaking with generative AI, we can transform the way we create and collaborate. Next time you're faced with the blinking cursor, try speaking to ChatGPT instead. Next time you’re stuck in a commute, try verbalizing your reflections into ChatGPT, and ask it to synthesize or respond in whatever way might drive your work forward.

You might be surprised at how much easier and enjoyable the process becomes.

I'd love to hear how you use your voice to collaborate with ChatGPT. Drop your experiences in the comments below. Can't wait to learn from each other.

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*As a related aside for Paint & Pipette subscribers: for the past several weeks, I’ve been running a low-key GenAI Skills Bootcamp via email. This private beta is just me, sending an elite cohort corporate teams a series of drills, one per day, to unlock the tremendous potential of this transformative technology. My goal is simple: spark folks’ imaginations with copy/pastable GenAI drills that they can immediately put to practice in their own context. In honor of today’s post, I thought it’d be cool to share one of my favorite drills. This is from “GenAI Bootcamp: Day 7.” Enjoy.*

Howdy team - 

Got lots of great feedback from folks on yesterday’s drill. If you thought that was fun, then buckle up. Today's drill is a HUGE unlock. It involves accessing a little-known feature of ChatGPT called "Whisper." While building the fastest growing consumer app of all time, OpenAI quietly also revolutionized voice to text... and very few people fathom how powerful it is. 

There's a lot of talk about the "natural language processing" that these systems are capable of, but what often gets missed is that our fingers and thumbs on keyboards and glass screens are hardly our "natural language" -- many times, typing is actually the bottleneck!

Shifting to voice bypasses this bottleneck and unlocks all sorts of possibilities. Try this drill while you're in the car, or while you're stretching for a run, just to get a sense of how much this can expand your potential.

Go to voice

- Open ChatGPT and go to voice (instead of text)

- to do this hit the microphone icon in the text box

- Request a post-call debrief / recap / request

- right off the top of your head, stream of consciousness, share everything on your mind

- Don't stop talking until you've gotten everything out of your head

- at the end of your ramble, ask ChatGPT to quickly summarize the main points of what you've shared, and then compose a draft of an email you can send to yourself or your team with next steps

- hit submit (up arrow), and see what kind of draft it gives you.

- make minor revisions and send to the folks you want to follow up with

Speak this script into ChatGPT:

Hey! I​'d like to unload a bunch of random thoughts following a meeting. When I'm done, please summarize all that I've shared, and use the summary to craft a quick debrief note I could send to myself or my team to follow up on next steps 

(​Then share your reflections free-form. Don't worry about synthesizing or getting everything right (like you do with Siri) - just put it all out there without any rhyme or reason)

When you're done, speak this script into ChatGPT for part 6:

Ok... that's about it... please summarize the main points of what I've just shared, and then use that summary to craft a quick debrief note I can copy/paste to myself or my team to follow up on the appropriate next steps. Please include at least one cheesy dad joke. 

Watch this video for inspiration:

https://www.loom.com/share/c610ad151b5841eaa66e0a1ae89e20e2?sid=64313da9-0a91-4118-942c-1b9ce8e1f19c

Related: Unleash Your Subconscious
Related: Try Brainspeedstormwriting!

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