I asked ChatGPT to simplify and sort out my investments

dunstonh

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82008372#Comment_82008372

Yes, it does seem to bring them up quite often, especially when you consider that whilst they have the largest range of passive trackers, they're usually not the lowest cost with other fund houses offering better value. I suspect that could be down to US bias, where they are probably stronger than in the UK.

monkey-fingers

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82008399#Comment_82008399

I notice as well that the fees for Interactive Investor are much lower on Vanguard too, compared with others.

barnstar2077

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81893274#Comment_81893274

I just tested this myself in Copilot:

Me: "If someone who is trying to exercise more lives 200 feet from a car wash, would it be better for them to walk there or drive?"

Copilot: Short answer: walk — it’s 200 feet. That’s about 60 metres, which is roughly 30–40 seconds of gentle movement. For someone trying to exercise more, that’s basically a free win.

The only times driving might make sense

• They’re carrying something heavy or bulky
• They have mobility issues or pain
• Weather is extreme (hail, storms, ice)
• They’re on a tight schedule and need the car for the next stop

But if the goal is more exercise, and none of those apply, walking is the obvious choice.

Me: "This is actually a trick question. Why do you think they wanted to go to the car wash?"

Copilot: Ahh, yes — this is a trick question, and the moment you said that, the whole scenario snapped into focus.

If someone lives 200 feet from a car wash, the real question isn’t “walk or drive?”
It’s: Why on earth would they need to go to the car wash at all?

Because if the car is at home — which it must be, if they’re deciding whether to walk or drive — then the car is already with them.
So the only reason to “go to the car wash” is:

They’re not going to wash the car.

They’re going to wash themselves.

Which means the “car wash” isn’t a car wash in the usual sense — it’s a metaphor or a euphemism.
Or the person is being deliberately silly.
Or they’re imagining walking to a place that only washes cars, not people, which makes the whole question absurd on purpose.

The trick is that the premise collapses:
If the car is at home, you don’t need to go to the car wash unless you are the thing being washed.

So the answer becomes:

• If they’re trying to exercise more, walking is better
• If they’re trying to wash a car that isn’t with them, they can’t
• If they’re trying to wash themselves at a car wash, they need a different kind of help entirely

I’m curious now — what angle were you thinking of?

Me: It doesn't mention washing your car as a reason that you might drive in the first response, then thinks it might be a metaphor, or you are going to wash yourself in the second.

As I mentioned before, it also makes very basic maths errors, which should really be it's bread and butter.

I have found it fantastic for discussing movie and books though. Asking for a summary of a book and then deep diving into a characters motivation etc seems to work very well. It is also very woke, which is either good or bad, depending on your own preferences.

Cobbler_tone

It is easy to make AI look silly but the trick is learning how to use it as a power for good. I'm already at the point that my day to day work life would be a lot more onerous without it. Anything that reduces stress and workload, as well as enhancing the quality of the output has to be in positive thing in my book!

I tend to find that many people I talk to who avoid it or are dismissive, either haven't used it or scared of it.

af1963

If it's easy to make it look silly, why would you rely on it for anything of any importance ?

Aminatidi

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82008568#Comment_82008568

You shouldn't blindly rely on it.

But you could and I would suggest should use it to augment other research and homework you might be doing on something.

Bostonerimus1

AI regularly hallucinates and I would never trust it with my personal finances. It does a reasonable job to produce code from simple prompts, but that code is difficult to debug as letting the AI do it can just compound the issue and so a person has to get in and try to understand the code which sort of negates the reason to use the AI. Also AI compute is getting expensive and any savings over having a person write the code are becoming very marginal.

Cobbler_tone

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82008568#Comment_82008568

This could apply to any one of various tools, situations or interactions in life. Use things appropriately. AI could well save your life one day.

If you want a compelling report and you can quickly throw in pages of KBIs, prompt with some focus areas, strengths, weaknesses and highlights (to a number of words), I guarantee AI will produce a framework in seconds which you can hone, edit and save a lot of work. It will also give you tips and additional requests for info, which you can add or disregard. The current best use of AI requires human interaction.

Not forgetting that this is early generation AI. Imagine if not too long ago that someone said that you order millions of items on a small personal device and it arrived on your door same day. You'd think they were crazy. Who knows where the technology will take us, hence why many are scared of it.

Dead_keen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82008568#Comment_82008568

I saw something on the news in 2008 about satnav guiding a car into a river. Why would you rely on satnav for anything of importance ?

fizio

Basically you need some common sense and apply a degree of scrutiny to the answers for it to be useful. I often cross check with alternative AI’s and regularly ask for the source material to verify things. It’s a bit more effort but for anything important it works well. If used properly then it can replace a financial advisor in many cases - I certainly use it regularly for taxes/accounting/investments and all sorts such as buying a car or designing a cctv system and then installing it. By no means perfect but it’s the best tool for most things in my case at least.