At this point, you might have heard about ChatGPT. Anyone who writes stories, does research, or teaches students to do those things might have been a little worried that the evil dark side had prevailed over human creativity and ingenuity. We still need people, but the tool does have some interesting applications.
First, the tool is now in its fourth iteration and according to their website is more “creative and collaborative than ever before.” Dymaptic shared 6 suggestions in their blog, “6 Ways to Use Chat GPT in Your Everyday GIS Work.”
- What tool to use
- Ask for help
- Compare apps
- Write code
- Tell jokes
- Explain GIS (Hey, we get it. Sometimes your friends don’t understand GIS.)
Second, we believe it might be helpful to give reasonable explanations of common geospatial topics. We took it for a test drive on some general topics.
What is an overview of geospatial technology?
“Geospatial technology refers to a collection of tools, techniques, and applications that are used to collect, manage, analyze, and visualize data that has a geographic or spatial component. This technology relies heavily on geospatial data, which is information that is tied to a specific location or geographic feature…” Read more
Why should you use location intelligence?
“Location intelligence refers to the process of analyzing and visualizing geographic or spatial data to gain insights and make better business decisions. There are several reasons why businesses and organizations use location intelligence…” Read more
What’s the role of GIS for improving healthcare?
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can play a crucial role in improving health care by enabling health professionals to better understand the distribution and determinants of diseases, plan effective interventions, and allocate resources efficiently. Some of the ways GIS can be used to improve health care are…” Read More
What is remote sensing?
“Remote sensing is the science of obtaining information about objects or areas from a distance, typically from aircraft or satellites. Remote sensing technology is used in a wide range of fields including meteorology, agriculture, forestry, geology, and environmental science...” Read More
Can ChatGPT write a lesson plan?
Being a former K-12 educator and geospatial curriculum writer, I wondered if it would generate a lesson plan for teaching GIS. It’s not exactly what I would do, but for a general skeleton of a lesson…not bad.
“Here's a sample lesson plan for teaching GIS:
Title: Introduction to GIS
Grade level: High school or college
Duration: 2 hours
Objective: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to describe what GIS is, identify examples of GIS applications, and use basic GIS functions to create a simple map.” READ MORE
More Resources
Third, if you do a search for ChatGPT and GIS, you’ll find many items to get you started. Here are a few that we found interesting:
- GeoDelta Labs has a collection of tutorial videos that might help you.
- For the Esri community folks, we found a conversation about using it there, https://community.esri.com/t5/python-questions/anyone-using-chatgpt-yet/td-p/1242271.
- Forrest Cain shares his adventure with the tool also, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/adventures-chatgpt-gis-forrest-cain/.
Give it a try. You might be surprised by its helpful nature or find a funny joke for your next Zoom meeting.
Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything!
Why did the geography teacher break up with the history teacher? Because the history teacher kept dwelling in the past while the geography teacher was all about moving forward!
Why couldn't the bicycle find its way home? Because it had lost its map-titude!