The Top 7 Chatbots for Writing

ChatGPT

Trained on the most data so it is the most powerful overall AI. Faster than other chatbots and can answer more difficult, complex questions than many other chatbots with better memory. Processes up to 25K words and can use both images and text as inputs. It doesn’t do sourcing and does not pull from the most recent info. Can browse the internet with Bing. Performed faster than other chatbots in tests, offering more-thorough answers, and answers more-difficult, complex questions. The advance voice mode makes it easy to chat with while you are on the go, making it a useful replacement for search quires. There’s a feature that allows users to customize the tone and voice to their own style of writing. There is a limited free version or pay $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus.  

Perplexity AI

A good research option among the generative AI tools when accuracy is critical. It acts like a search engine but includes results from the web (unlike ChatGPT).Automatically shows where the information came from, so it’s more reliable than ChatGPT. Users can specify where they want the information to be drawn from among a few categories such as academic sources or YouTube. Users can also upload documents as sources and ask it to rewrite prompts. It suggests follow-up questions you might not have considered. Less useful for creative writing. In tests, it was better at summarizing passages, providing information on current events and do coding better than other chatbots. Unmatched speed and accuracy in processing millions of data makes it very useful to data scientists for advanced predictive models. The free plan allows 3 pro searches every four hours. Video tutorial here.

ChatSonic

Created by WriteSonic built on top of the same technology that powers ChatGPT. Can assume personas such as a philosopher or stand-up comic. Create up to 100 AI-generated images each month for free. Connected to the internet, so it can provide real-time, up-to-date answers, which ChatGPT cannot do. Free.

Claude

Writing, coding, in-depth analysis AI. Designed to be inoffensive. Like ChatGPT, it can act on text or uploaded files. Useful for summarizing long transcripts, clarifying complex writings, and generating lists of ideas and questions. Can analyze huge documents, up to 75K words at a time. In tests, it is more conversational, gives direct answers, sometimes links to sources, and offers better creative writing suggestions than other chatbots but can be slower. It can mimic your writing style and users have the option of three presets: formal style, concise, or explanatory style. Trained on the AP Stylebook. Free plan allows up to 40 messages a day.

Gemini

Google claims this large language model is better at math, coding and other tasks than many other programs. It provides real time responses with the help of Google’s search engine. Besides text, it can take commands that come as videos, images, voice and code. It has access to more timely and updated information than ChatGPT. Gemini Advanced costs $20 a month after the trial period ends.

Jasper AI

AI story writing tool for fiction and nonfiction. Pick a tone of voice for style. Pre-built templates available. A more business-focused AI that is particularly helpful for advertising and marketing. Remembers past queries, However, no sources are provided and limited to pre-2022 information. Short free trial. $29 month.

Poe (Platform for Open Exploration)

Created by Quora, this AI lets users create a personalized chatbot using one of 70 bots (such as OpenAI or Anthropic). Poe lets you compare and contrast models to find the right fit for your specific need in any given moment. (Poe doesn't have its own large language model.) Free.

AI Text Tools for Everyday

ChatGPT for quick inquiries

Claude as an everyday workhorse

Perplexity for research

NotebookLM to condense large amounts of information

Infography.in for text to infographics

Napkin AI to convert text into visuals and charts.

More AI Tools

AI Weather Forecasting

GenCast, a new model from Google’s DeepMind artificial-intelligence lab that can provide accurate forecasts up to 15 days in advance, a leap beyond current predictions. The public will be able to see real-time forecasts from the model within the first few weeks of 2025, says a company spokesman. -Wall Street Journal

Honesty

How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people. -Edward Beson

How to Know Someone is Still Young

If they talk about the past and they talk about all the things that happened that they did, they've gotten old. If they think about their dreams, their aspirations, what they're still looking forward to — they're young." -Ric Elias

The Test

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't. -Richard Bach

What Would You Do?

You have applied for a job and the interviewer asks you a question that lands like a bombshell: do you have a boyfriend? Then another: do people find you desirable? And a third: do you think it is important for women to wear bras to work? If you are a woman you probably know what you would do. Perhaps you would refuse to answer, complain or walk out. You would certainly be furious.

This is how 197 female American undergraduates, asked to imagine such an interview, said they would react. But they—and probably you—were wrong. The psychologists who asked them, Marianne LaFrance and Julie Woodzicka, orchestrated a real-life version of this ordeal, by advertising for a research assistant and arranging for male accomplices to interview the first 50 women who applied. 

Half were randomly chosen to be asked those three questions. Not one refused to answer, let alone complained or walked out. When they were asked afterwards (and offered the chance to apply for a real job), they said they had felt not anger, but fear.

Videos of the interviews showed how much this supposedly minor sexual harassment threw the women off their stride. They plastered on fake smiles.

In a final twist, the researchers showed clips of the videos to male MBA students. Fake smiles are fairly easy to tell from real ones: they involve fewer facial muscles and do not crinkle the corners of the eyes. But many of the men saw the women as amused, even flirtatious.

The Economist

Luck

I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work the more I seem to have of it. (attributed to Thomas Jefferson but not found in his writings)

Making a Mistake

He who never made a mistake never made a discovery. -Samuel Smiles

Chatbots & Health Care

It’s not that chatbots can’t do some impressive things in health care. The problem is that they’re designed to respond with an “average” answer, says Rachel Draelos, a physician and computer scientist who founded the health tech start-up Cydoc. “But nobody’s an average. What makes medicine really interesting is that every patient is an individual and needs to be treated that way.” - Washington Post

Laughter and Madness

 He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. (the opening line of Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini)

In Five Years

If you kept going the way you are now, who would you be in five years? Instead of focusing on what you’ll become, in terms of work and social success, think about what you are learning and what kind of person you are turning into.

A 'Not-to-Do List'

New Year's Eve is time to resolve what you want in the year ahead. Rather than creating a list of resolutions, Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, sits down and does the opposite. Before setting down any strategic objectives, he comes up with three corresponding things to stop doing. So if he decided he wanted to read more, he first determined to unplug the TV.

He suggests you ask yourself what you're:

a) passionate about

b) good at

c) able to make a living doing.

Then consider how you're spending time. How much of it falls outside those three factors? If the answer is most of it, a not-to-do list could be a valuable tool.

The daily battle

The daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing. -Deirdre Sullivan

Wonder

I’m very concerned that our society is much more concerned with information than wonder, in noise rather than silence. How do we encourage reflection? -Mister Rodgers

17 Articles about AI & Legal Issues

Pending copyright-infringement lawsuits could derail AI’s economic potential – Wall Street Journal 

AI and the Law – University of Chicago  

To Whom Does the World Belong? The battle over copyright in the age of ChatGPT. – Boston Review  

Agentic AI in legal: What it is and why it may appear in law firms soon – Reuters

Recent Decisions on Whether AI Training Violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – JD Supra

An AI companion suggested he kill his parents. Now his mom is suing. – Washington Post

Denying Copyright for AI-Assisted Art Threatens Innovation – Data Innovation  

Law firm use of data scientists grows alongside AI’s challenges – Roll Call

Judge Rules in Favor of School That Gave Student a Bad Grade for Using AI – Gizmodo 

Stanford Professor Accused of Using AI to Write Expert Testimony Criticizing Deepfakes – Gizmodo  

Navigating legal drafting: A how-to guide for law firms using AI-powered tools – Reuters  

Google unveils invisible ‘watermark’ for AI-generated text – Nature  

Lawsuit claims Character.AI is responsible for teen's suicide – NBC

Parents sue after student disciplined for using AI on school project in Massachusetts - CBS Boston  

Five Canadian news media outlets sue OpenAI for copyright breach – Al Jazeera

The role of legal teams in creating AI ethics guardrails – Legal Dive

Writers Guild Calls on Studios to Take “Immediate Legal Action” Against AI Companies – Hollywood Reporter

AI Writing & Old Language

Because of copyright restrictions, the training data sets for LLMs are largely restricted to old texts from the early twentieth century. As a result, some researchers have used the frequency of certain words that were popular then but have since fallen out of common parlance as evidence of generative AI. from The-Scientist

Will Human-generated Content Maintain its Value?

Multiple times daily, I find myself silently asking, Did you really write this or did AI? Just like handwritten notes have decreased over time, human-generated content will also decrease over time, but it will maintain its value—because we hunger to be heard and cared for by another human. However, unlike handwritten notes, it will be harder to distinguish between AI-generated content and human-generated content. - Tara Chklovski writing in Fast Company

The price of avoiding uncertainty

In order to manage the avalanche of information that our senses are absorbing at all times, our brains work to find patterns, simplify information, and look for clarity. That allows us to be able to make decisions and act. But sometimes in the rush to make order of the world, our brains jump to unwarranted conclusions — taking in the myriad of information around us and deducing something that just isn't quite right.

A high need for closure isn't necessarily a bad thing. You may just be the type of person who likes to make plans and avoid surprises. However, the need for closure can lead to two major pitfalls in decision making.

The first is what psychologists call the "urgency effect," which is basically the tendency to jump to conclusions. The second is the "permanence effect" — a stubborn tendency to stick with your beliefs and not change your mind, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Both of these effects result from your brain trying to avoid feelings of uncertainty.

If you have a high need for closure, research suggests you should be careful making decisions, especially in times of fatigue or stress.

Ana Swanson writing in the Washington Post

Jesus’ Doings

It happened in those days that a proclamation went out from President Augustus that every citizen must register. This was the first registration while Quirinus was Secretary of War. So everybody went to register, each going to his own hometown. Joseph too went up from south Georgia from the city of Valdosta, to his home in north Georgia, a place named Gainesville, to register with his bride Mary, who by now was heavily pregnant.

While the were there, her time came, and she gave birth to her first boy. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in an apple box. (There was no room for them at the hospital.)

Now there were some farmers in that section who were up late at night tending their baby chicks. And a messenger from the Lord appeared to them, and evidence of the Lord was shining all about them. It nearly scared the life out of them. And the messenger said to them, “Don’t be afraid; for listen, I’m bringing you good news of a great joy in which all people will share. Today your deliverer was born in the city of David’s family. He is the Leader. He is the Lord, And here’s a clue for you: you will find the baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in an apple box.” 

And all of a sudden there was with the messenger a crowd of angels singing God’s praises and saying. “Glory in the highest to God, And on Earth, peace to mankind, The object of his favor.” 

When the messengers went away from them into the sky, the farmers said to one another, “Let’s go to Gainesville and see how all this the Lord has showed us has turned out.”

So they went just as fast as they could, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in an apple box. Seeing this, they related the story of what had been told them about this little fellow. The people were simply amazed as they listened to what the farmers told them. And Mary clung to all these words, turning them over and over in her memories. The farmers went back home, giving God the credit and singing his praises for all they had seen and heard, exactly as it had been described to them.

Clarence Jordan, Cotton Patch Gospel

He Came … to Give

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. -Mark 10:45

When Jesus took the time to explain his reason for coming among us, he was simple and direct: to serve and to give. Not to be served. Not to grab the spotlight in the center ring. Not to make a name or attract attention or become successful or famous or powerful or idolized. 

Charles Swindoll, Improving Your Serve