Ep 60 - How I Use Empathy With ChatGPT - The ChatGPT Experiment - Simplifying Chat GPT For Curious Beginners

Ep 60 - How I Use Empathy With ChatGPT

Wed Mar 12 2025

In this episode, Cary Weston explores what he calls the "empathetic position" and how it plays a crucial role in writing, problem-solving, and even workplace interactions when using ChatGPT. He shares how taking a step back to consider the...

Summary

Podcast Summary: The ChatGPT Experiment - Ep 60: How I Use Empathy With ChatGPT

Host: Cary Weston
Release Date: March 12, 2025
Episode Title: How I Use Empathy With ChatGPT

Introduction

In Episode 60 of The ChatGPT Experiment, host Cary Weston delves into the intriguing concept of leveraging empathy—termed the "empathetic position"—to enhance interactions and outputs using ChatGPT. This episode is particularly insightful for writers, professionals, and anyone keen on harnessing AI to create more meaningful and audience-centric content.

Understanding the Empathetic Position

Kerry Weston begins by defining the "empathetic position" as a strategic approach to writing and communication that prioritizes the audience's perspective. He emphasizes that empathy involves “putting yourself in their position” to understand what the audience needs to hear, see, and feel.

Kerry Weston [00:35]: “Empathy is taking on the role, thinking about what position they're going to be in, what do they need to hear, see, feel, what questions are they going to have, putting yourself in their position.”

This approach ensures that the content is not just informative but also resonates deeply with the intended audience, making it more valuable and impactful.

Collaborating with ChatGPT for Empathetic Writing

Weston shares his methodology of using ChatGPT as a collaborative tool rather than a mere content generator. He outlines a step-by-step process to infuse empathy into writing:

Brain Dump and Outlining:
He begins by brainstorming ideas and allowing ChatGPT to help organize these thoughts into a coherent outline.
Defining the Audience:
Weston stresses the importance of clearly identifying the target audience. He engages ChatGPT to explore the audience's motivations, interests, and challenges.

Kerry Weston [02:15]: “Imagine that you are this target audiences, like, what reason would they have to even want to look at this article, much less read it in its entirety?”
Evaluating and Refining Content:
After drafting, he asks ChatGPT to assess the content from the audience's perspective, ensuring it addresses their needs and questions effectively.

Kerry Weston [04:20]: “Is there a way that I can make the article more valuable to this empathetic position?”

Weston highlights that “the more detailed and specific you are with the feedback you give ChatGPT, the better the outcome is going to be”, underscoring the importance of guiding the AI with precise instructions.

Enhancing Problem-Solving Through Empathy

Beyond writing, Weston illustrates how the empathetic position can be pivotal in problem-solving, especially in interpersonal contexts. He recounts using ChatGPT to understand and navigate complex human interactions by simulating the perspectives of others involved.

Kerry Weston [08:50]: “When we're trying to understand what's happening, when we're trying to problem solve and understand a situation, it certainly helps us to try to be in the other person's shoes.”

By feeding ChatGPT detailed information about the individuals and situations, he leverages the AI to uncover underlying motivations, concerns, and dynamics that might not be immediately apparent.

Role-Playing Scenarios with ChatGPT

One of the standout applications discussed is role-playing. Weston explains how he uses ChatGPT to simulate conversations and scenarios, which is especially useful in professional settings like managing employee relations.

Kerry Weston [12:10]: “I'm going to give you as much background as I can about this person... and then I want you to be that person and be as authentic as you can to the personality that I've described.”

This technique allows Weston to anticipate and prepare for various responses, enhancing his ability to handle real-life interactions more effectively. He notes the flexibility of ChatGPT in adapting to different personas, enabling realistic and tailored practice sessions.

Real-World Applications and Listener Feedback

Weston shares anecdotal evidence of the empathetic position's effectiveness, including feedback from listeners like Frank from Massachusetts, who is utilizing ChatGPT to transform his father's wartime notes into a book. This example underscores the versatility of the empathetic approach in diverse projects, from writing to personal storytelling.

Kerry Weston [14:00]: “Frank's writing a book. He heard the podcast episode about writing a book with ChatGPT and he's putting one together and wants to know how we might be able to use ChatGPT to further his efforts.”

Such stories highlight the practical benefits and real-world impact of integrating empathy into AI-assisted workflows.

Conclusion and Takeaways

In wrapping up, Weston reinforces the significance of the empathetic position in maximizing the utility of ChatGPT. He reflects on the rapid advancements in AI and the importance of maintaining a humane and considerate approach in leveraging these technologies.

Kerry Weston [15:10]: “The most important component to you getting the most out of ChatGPT is to stay and remain curious.”

He invites listeners to engage with him through his website, chatgptexperiment.com, offering workshops, trainings, and one-on-one sessions to further explore the empathetic use of ChatGPT.

Final Thoughts

Episode 60 of The ChatGPT Experiment offers a profound exploration of empathy as a tool to enhance AI interactions. Cary Weston’s insights provide valuable strategies for anyone looking to create more audience-focused content, solve interpersonal issues, or simply deepen their understanding of human-centric AI applications. By adopting the empathetic position, listeners can transform their curiosity into tangible capabilities, making their engagements with ChatGPT both meaningful and effective.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

Kerry Weston [00:35]: “Empathy is taking on the role, thinking about what position they're going to be in..."
Kerry Weston [02:15]: “Imagine that you are this target audiences, like, what reason would they have to even want to look at this article..."
Kerry Weston [04:20]: “Is there a way that I can make the article more valuable to this empathetic position?”
Kerry Weston [08:50]: “When we're trying to understand what's happening... it helps us to try to be in the other person's shoes.”
Kerry Weston [12:10]: “I'm going to give you as much background as I can about this person... and then I want you to be that person..."
Kerry Weston [14:00]: “Frank's writing a book. He heard the podcast episode about writing a book with ChatGPT..."
Kerry Weston [15:10]: “The most important component to you getting the most out of ChatGPT is to stay and remain curious.”

Stay Connected

For more insights and to participate in future discussions, visit chatgptexperiment.com. Engage with workshops, trainings, and personalized sessions to continue your journey in mastering ChatGPT with empathy.

Transcript

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Kerry Weston (0:35)

Hey there and welcome to the Chat GPT Experiment. This is the podcast designed to help curious beginners better understand just what ChatGPT is and find some ways that you can use it for your personal or professional needs. My name is Kerry Weston. I'm your host. I'm glad you're with me and if this is your first time, welcome. And for those of you that are familiar with the show, welcome back. I appreciate it. Today's topic short talk about how I use empathy or what I call the empathetic position in the work that I do with ChatGPT. And just quick overview here. What do I mean when I talk about the empathetic position? Well, this has been an experiment for me in my writing and it's proven to be incredibly effective as far as making things better. And when I say better, I mean more valuable for specifically the audience that I'm writing for. So when I write, I typically write either articles or content or something that is meant for an audience to read, find value in. Right. Get information from that kind of thing. And there's a couple different ways in which you can go about that. One is I have this stuff to say, I have this stuff to share and I'm going to get it out, which is awesome because you're going to be able to share experiences and get nuggets of information out there. And then there's an audience there that you're writing for, isn't there? And the empathetic position, empathy, being feeling with sympathy, being feeling for. So empathy is taking on the role, thinking about what position they're going to be in, what do they need to hear, see, feel, what questions are they going to have, putting yourself in their position. Right. And so the empathetic position for me has been a phrase that I've been using more and more of in my experiments with ChatGPT, where I pause and I've shared with you before that I don't use ChatGPT to write for me, I use it as a tool to write with. Okay? And so some folks, when they write, the empathetic position is something that comes natural. You think about other people and what they need to hear and see and what questions they may have. And for some people, that may not be natural. I think in my own personal writing, if I were just to write without a tool like ChatGPT, I think using the empathetic position is something that comes fairly naturally to me. The problem is I tend to think faster than I type and I tend to want to get a lot out in a short amount of time. And what ChatGPT allows me to do is to organize my thoughts. So let me give you a very specific. For instance, if I were writing an article talking to a particular audience, I will brain dump my thoughts and have ChatGPT outline it for me. And then I'll say, listen, before we go any further, let's take a look at the audience. Who am I actually writing for? Let's get a. Let's get on the same page. So I'll think about who that audience is going to be and who they're writing. And then I'll ask ChatGPT. This is how I use the empathetic position. I will say, let's think about why somebody would want to read this article. What interests them? What position are they in? What value are they seeking? Like, what is it the takeaway? What is the goal? Why would somebody that I'm writing for be interested in writing this? These are actual questions that I'll ask ChatGPT. I'll actually say, imagine that you are this target audiences, like, what reason would they have to even want to look at this article, much less read it in its entirety? And there'll be an exercise there that'll say, well, here's your audience and these are the things that they think about. And maybe this is why they're coming here and this is what they're dealing with. And the answers typically are beyond just education. So it's about they want to learn something to apply to their craft, or they're dealing with an issue or, you know, there's usually in life, there's a reason that we learn. Some people learn just to learn, but there's a reason we want to apply it right? We want to gain some sort of benefit, solve some sort of problem, advance in some way. And so I really find that pausing and just saying, let's think about this for a minute before we write or even after we've written, let's take a look at what they might be thinking about and then we get to revisions based on the answers. Because one of the things I found again in my experiments was with ChatGPT is it doesn't always do that analysis for you up front, even though you might ask it. And the more detailed and specific you are with the feedback you give ChatGPT, the better the outcome is going to be. So even if you've already written a draft or produced something, ask ChatGPT to take a minute and think about the audience and think about those situations that I've just shared with you. And then once you've got that, let's just call it an attribute list, you know, things that they're worried about, the reasons they'd want to come, why would they be interested in the article? You've got a list of things, right? You're, you're basically, you've got a list of characteristics. Once you have that, go back and ask ChatGPT, say, great, now that we've got that list, let's look at what we've written through that lens. Is there a way that I can make the, whatever it is, the article, the writing, more valuable to this empathetic position? And more often than not, and I have yet to have it come back and say, no, it'll come back and go, yes, now that I look at it through that lens, here are some suggestions I could make. And then you can evaluate the suggestions and based on the revisions, but it's really based on you guiding it to give it additional thought for the audience. Right? For the purpose, here's another tool or another question in that empathetic position realm is you can say, put yourself in the position of the audience and take all of the things that we've talked about into consideration. The reason that they'd be here, why would they be looking for the article? Why would they read it? What outcomes do they wish to gain? All that stuff and then layer on another one based on that position. Based on the reasons we've identified based on the audience and the goals that they might have, what questions would they have while reading this? So these are doors in our mind that are going to be opened as they're reading what we're doing and we need to close them by answering those questions, right? So some of them, you may have information in there, some of the questions that come back. And this is an actual question that I would ask ChatGpts, as you're reading this, as that audience, what questions are going to arise, right? What doors are we going to open in their mind and it'll give you a list. And then I usually ask, have we answered those questions in the article? And more often than not, there's at least one that we have not. And then once it gives me that list again, I'm talking to ChatGPT the whole time as I'm doing this just like a person. Okay, great. Well, let's take a look at the article. Let's take a look at the questions that we haven't satisfactorily answered yet. And how do we do that? How do we work those answers in without dramatically changing what we have? Right? And then it'll give you suggestions and move forward from there. So that's another way that I use the empathetic position, by looking at questions as well as purpose and goals and mindsets. Here's another way that I use the empathetic position. It's in problem solving, trying to understand something that's happening, a situation, usually with another person. And how hard is it for us to take someone else's position and truly understand it? Right? I mean, there's a whole, there's a whole political statement there, isn't there? But when we're trying to understand what's happening, when we're trying to problem solve and understand a situation, it certainly helps us to try to be in the other person's shoes. And I have used in my experiments ChatGPT as a partner for that exact exercise. And what I'll do is I'll start a conversation and I'll say, hey, I need your help trying to understand a situation. Here's what's happening, here's who it's happening with. And then I will literally ask it, give some thought as to the person that I'm trying to understand, what might be causing this, what might be going through, why might that this be happening? And when I can flip it to the perspective of the other person. ChatGPT almost becomes a counselor or guide of some sort, where it's walking through some questions or some scenarios to think about, and then from there you can take the path wherever you want to go. And this is where the interviewing the back and forth questions and answers of ChatGPT, that capability comes in really handy. So utilizing the empathetic position of the other person and then asking for objective insights as to what might be happening, right? You can say what motivations or underlying concerns or what might be happening in their life or all that kind of stuff, the ability for you to dig in and take that other person's position. It's very powerful. And then I think the last scenario here that's relevant when we talk about empathetic position is just flat out role playing, right? Pretend that you are a, could be a customer or a team member, could be a competitor, could be a prospect, could be a spouse, could be an employee. Right? I did this in last week's episode. I mentioned that I did some presentations to contractors last a couple weeks ago and one of the issues that I brought to their attention was the use of ChatGPT in dealing with employment issues, dealing with employees, trying to solve problems, understanding a situation. And I did this by talking, not just typing, but talking to it. And so I was sharing, hey, this is, this is who I am. I'm an employer, I have this business, this is what we do. And I have an employee issue and I've addressed it, but I want to better understand it because I have to deal with it and I want to make sure that I deal with it the right way. So whatever decision I have to make later, I've done so under the guise of doing the best I can to resolve it. And I said, let's role play. I'm going to give you as much background as I can about this person, about their attitude, about the conversations we've had to date, about what I'm seeing about the impact it's having on the company. And then I want you to be that person and be, you know, be as authentic as you can to the personality that I've described. And we go back and forth and what caught a lot of people's attentions in doing that is when the answers came back that didn't sound authentic. I would tell, hey, listen, I don't think that person would say it that way. That sounds a little too polite. I need more of a chip on the shoulder. I need more impatience. They use smaller words, shorter thoughts, whatever that might be. And you can mold the role playing to the situation and get it as real as you can possibly make it. But you do that by being empathetic to who they are as a person, right? And then you can practice. This is really great. You can practice, you can ask it questions. How could I deal with it if they said this? How could I come back and deal with it based on the Persona that I've been creating, the empathy that we've into this conversation, should this be the response? How do I deal with it? Or if I say this, what would they might most likely say? And you can practice it and you could get to the point where you could truly understand in advance some of the things that might happen and how to deal with it in the moment. Right. So there's some scenarios in which I've used what I call the empathetic position with ChatGPT. And it can go all the way from just, hey, let's make my writing better, to literally, let's solve a physical problem I have or an actual problem I have with another human being. And ChatGPT is very flexible, very flexible. And every time I introduce that concept, the empathetic position, to clients or folks in a workshop, the eyebrows get raised. There's an aha moment because it seems to be something that makes sense but isn't really thought of ahead of time. It's not something that naturally comes to a lot of people when they're using a tool like ChatGPT. So if you're in a situation where you deal, either you're writing for someone else's goals or trying to understand working with other humans, I hope this has a little bit of benefit. I'd love to hear back from you as well. So there's a tip here that's resonated. I love it when people shoot me emails. ChatGPT experiment.com is the website. You can find ways of getting a hold of me there. There's also workshops and trainings that I offer. You can see there. But I'd love to hear if these tips are resonating with you just like Frank from Massachusetts did. I'm getting together with Frank next week. Frank's writing a book. He heard the podcast episode about writing a book with ChatGPT and he's putting one together and wants to know how we might be able to use ChatGPT to further his efforts. He reached out through the podcast and what's really cool is he's writing about his father's experience as a gunner on a B24 in World War II and his dad's left notes and he's looking to take those notes and turn it into a book. I think that's really cool. Looking forward to that. Looking forward to that. Conversations. If you've got a situation that you think might be worth sharing, go ahead and send it through the website. Let's see if we can get you on the show. If you need help with the situation, I've got sessions you can sign up for online@chatgptexperiment.com love to spend some one on one time with you, listen to what's going on and help you the best I can. But for Today, the empathetic position was the concept that I wanted to share, and I hope you got something out of it. There's a lot. There's a lot to this thing, and it's getting more involved and more valuable every time I use it. I can see the logic. They're putting a lot of investments into what we'd call logic. Even though we know it's not thinking, it's certainly processing at speeds. It makes us. Makes us feel like it's thinking, doesn't it? Which is scary. Which is why I remind you, every time I use it, I say please and thank you. Because when the robots do take over the world, I want to be on their good side. All right, hey, that's all for today. Again, I appreciate you joining me, appreciate you listening. And as always, the most important component to you getting the most out of chat GPT is to stay and remain curious. That's probably why you're here, and I appreciate it. So do stay curious. Okay, talk soon.