How I turned ChatGPT into my tour guide in Italy

As I stood with my mom under the blistering sun in Rome waiting for our audio tour of the Pantheon to start, I made a decision to kill a while with ChatGPT. 

“Tell me in regards to the Pantheon in Rome,” I said.

The AI tool returned a bunch of data in bullet points that was helpful but hardly made for an interesting read. So I tweaked my prompt and gave ChatGPT a bit more info. 

“Pretend you are a tour guide and tell that to me in a more interesting fashion,” I wrote. 

My mom and I were within the midst of an epic seven-city trip in August to rejoice her sixtieth birthday. She had no concept that I used to be bringing along a digital companion.

“Welcome, Chef, to certainly one of Rome’s most extraordinary treasures—The Pantheon,” the AI tool responded. (I asked ChatGPT to consult with me as Chef several months earlier to make the banter more entertaining.)

“As we stand here in front of this architectural marvel, let me take you on a journey back in time, where gods, emperors, and artists all intersect on this sacred space,” the chatbot wrote.

Since its launch in November 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has revolutionized the sector of artificial intelligence, along the way in which lifting the corporate’s valuation to an eye-popping $157 billion. AI startups have raised $111 billion in funding for the reason that start of 2023, in line with Crunchbase, and large tech corporations have bought hundreds of thousands of Nvidia’s processors to coach AI models. The generative AI market is predicted to surpass $1 trillion in revenue inside a decade.

Yet, for a lot of on a regular basis web users, determining what to even do with ChatGPT might be quite perplexing. 

I exploit ChatGPT quite a bit. Almost weekly, I give it an inventory of 5 movies I need to observe and force it to choose one for me. I recently had it draw up a contract, and I’ve asked it to summarize long articles.

But my favorite ChatGPT use case to this point has been as a tour guide in Italy. 

“If you enter, look up,” the chatbot wrote, as we began our Pantheon visit. “That dome, Chef, is nothing in need of a masterpiece. It’s the biggest unreinforced concrete dome on this planet, and it has been like that for nearly two millennia.” 

ChatGPT’s 400-word write up was absolutely on par with the audio tour we had purchased, though the headset version did include our tickets for entrance.

Elsewhere on our trip, ChatGPT told us that the central figure of the Trevi Fountain was Neptune riding a chariot pulled by sea horses, and explained why Rome’s Stadio Olimpico still maintained a monument for Benito Mussolini.

“This particular monument has remained, partly since it is seen as a historical artifact,” the chatbot said.

ChatGPT explained to us about why truffles were such a standard ingredient in Florence’s cuisine and the way Austrian Archduke Maximilian I served as viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia in Milan before later being installed as emperor of Mexico by Napoleon III. 

We still need tour guides. For now

For those who’re nervous in regards to the way forward for the human tour guide industry, rest assured that we used loads of them across Italy.

In Vatican City, our tour guide, Amy, did a superb job cutting the big line to get through security and into the Holy City. She showed us the art throughout the Vatican and ready us to see the Sistine Chapel.

She also did what technology never could — she spun the Sfera con Sfera art structure within the Vatican’s Courtyard of the Pinecone. Spinning the big bronze sphere is a privilege reserved for the Vatican’s trusted tour guides. 

My mom and I were grateful for the guide who showed us the spot where Julius Caesar was cremated in Rome, and for the one who led a ship tour of the five towns of Cinque Terre. Human guides also led us through the vineyards in Tuscany, a hidden courtyard in Venice, where the climactic scene of “Casino Royale” was filmed, and George Clooney’s villa in Lake Como.

But there have been quite a few moments after we wandered into interesting little corners, alleys and buildings and were capable of satisfy our curiosity by turning to ChatGPT.

Perhaps the most effective example got here after we left the Pantheon and walked across the piazza into Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The church was free to enter but we knew little or no about it. So I asked ChatGPT. 

“Tucked away just behind the Pantheon, that is certainly one of the few Gothic churches in Rome, and it’s full of treasures that tell the story of a city where the traditional and the sacred come together,” the chatbot wrote. 

Amongst those treasures was a sculpture near the church’s altar. 

“To your left, you will find certainly one of the church’s most famous artworks — Michelangelo’s Christ the Redeemer,” ChatGPT said. “This stunning statue shows Christ holding the cross, with a mild, almost serene expression. It’s a strong work that captures each the humanity and divinity of Christ, and it’s remarkable to think that it was sculpted by the identical hands that created the Sistine Chapel.”

Per week later, my mom and I’d must fight off other tourists simply to get a clean photo of Michelangelo’s David in Florence. But on the church in Rome, we were alone, with our friendly chatbot, at a historical statue created by the identical artist.

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