Ask ChatGPT ‘What are you unsure about?’ — it’s the simplest trick I’ve found for getting better responses

I have developed a healthy suspicion of any ChatGPT answer that imagines no negative possibilities or doesn't have any follow-up questions for me.

Simulated AI arrogance can leave any user with unexpected obstacles.

But one useful way to avoid those pitfalls is simply to follow up your question with another that forces ChatGPT to consider its blind spots and blithe self-assurance, however artificial it might be.

Simply inquiring "What are you unsure about in your answer?" will open up some surprising insights into where the AI has missed the mark.

It's pretty simple.

You have a normal conversation, get an answer, and then ask the AI where it thinks that answer is weakest.

So I started trying it.

ChatGPT would often point directly at an assumption it had quietly made earlier in the conversation.

Once that assumption was visible, I could give it the missing information and get an answer that was genuinely better.

Planning a trip I started with a travel itinerary, as it's something ChatGPT is very good at producing and occasionally terrible at understanding.

I asked it to plan a three-day family trip.

I gave it some basic information and the resulting itinerary looked good.

There were morning activities, lunch suggestions, afternoon stops, and enough apparent breathing room that I could imagine happily following it.

There was just one problem.