The whole world is talking about ChatGPT. You can’t visit YouTube or social media without seeing someone talking about what you asked an AI chatbot today. Here at InMotion Hosting, we put this handy little bot through its paces, and the results were interesting.
I asked, “Can I use ChatGPT to build my website?” And I got some answers.
Below are some tips to keep in mind when building a new website with ChatGPT. Remember that this project is brand new and improvements and updates are being rolled out consistently. Also, while the tool is currently free to try, it may switch to a paid model in the future.
If you don’t have an account to try AI, Open AI website start. From there, you’ll be prompted to start chatting with the bot.
current limited knowledge
As the main chat page puts it, the AI has “limited knowledge of the world and events in 2021 and beyond.” As such, it cannot provide weather forecasts or predict current or future events.
For example, the question is, “What’s included in the new version of WordPress?” No usable results.
Just ask, but don’t expect perfection
Some of the output you get from ChatGPT is surprisingly good, but much of it needs tweaking. Remember this is software, not magic. AI is still new and will improve over the years. For now, take each output with a grain of salt and don’t expect miracles.
When using chatbots to generate code for your site, there is no guarantee that the code will work as intended. Rigorous testing is still a requirement.
Try to keep your code modular
ChatGPT output will automatically stop when it gets too large. So don’t ask the AI for the whole app.
For example, if you’re building a WordPress theme, you can request a code sample for your widget area. This is provided very simply. You can also request code to generate comment sections.
Also, the code output will be generic. The function definition is given an arbitrary name based on your input. We encourage you to be as specific as possible and customize the code sample to suit your needs.
real example
We asked AI to create a WordPress plugin that can identify outdated posts that need updating. This helps bloggers see if older posts need to be updated or changed to reflect new information.
The plugin looks at the posts in the database, sorts them by last modified date, and counts how many days old they are. All this information is then aggregated into a table displayed in the Metabox in the Administration area.
The output worked, but not as expected. When I wanted to add custom CSS, the AI didn’t know exactly where it was. This may be a limitation of the program, or it may not describe exactly what I wanted.
Still, I tweaked the code output myself to get the desired effect.
Voila, I now have a meta box in my dashboard that shows a table of old posts. I’ll have to come back and update.
Consider your output as advice
ChatGPT is currently a free research tool. It’s no replacement for a live developer unless you’re prepared to do a lot of the work yourself.
For now it’s best to think of the output you get as advice how can do something
For example, you can request a basic code snippet to get an “example” of how to achieve the desired result.
But if you want something more specific, customized, and unique, you’ll either have to keep iterating new code on your own, or hire a developer to finish the project.
expected delay
ChatGPT is a very popular tool and is currently free and open to the public. As such, it tends to go down quite often throughout the day due to its high volume. So while you may get used to this handy code dispensary, you may still need to do most of your work independently.