Seemingly overnight, there’s been an explosion in the world of artificial intelligence. The truth is that technologies like ChatGPT have been incrementally advancing for decades, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive.
If you’re not familiar with ChatGPT, it’s essentially a computer program that can respond to you in a conversational style, and it answers questions with relative accuracy. You can ask it to do things like write articles, songs, and jokes for your work or entertainment.
Interestingly, ChatGPT is pretty good at designing workouts and diet plans. When asked for a lower-body strength workout, it responds with the following sequence:
Exercise 1: Glute Bridges
Exercise 2: Romanian Deadlifts
Exercise 3: Cable Pull-Throughs
Exercise 4: Step-Ups
Not bad. It can even recommend exercises for people who have lower back pain and can’t deadlift. When asked for healthy, balanced meal ideas it spits out some suggestions:
-Grilled chicken or fish with a side of quinoa or brown rice and steamed vegetables
-A salad with mixed greens, avocado, nuts, and a lean protein source such as grilled chicken or shrimp
-A bowl with a base of brown rice or quinoa, topped with grilled vegetables and a protein source such as tofu or tempeh
However, type “lower body strength workout” in Google, and this is the first response:
Exercise 1: Squat
Exercise 2: Lunge
Exercise 3: Deadlift
Exercise 4: Box Step Up
Exercise 5: Bulgarian Split Squat
Looks eerily similar to the ChatGPT workout…let’s try asking Google for examples of healthy, balanced meals. Among some long-winded articles, it gives this:
-Toast + Avocado + Tofu Scramble with Spinach and Tomatoes
-Pasta + Vegan Meatballs + Salad with Olive Oil
-Baked Potato + Vegan Butter + BBQ Beans + Roasted Broccoli
-Smoothie with Mixed Fruit + Protein Powder + Peanut Butter + Plant-Based Milk + Granola on Top
These are all plant-based options, so markedly different from the ChatGPT response. Still, they fit the bill of being balanced and relatively healthy. So, can AI solve all of your fitness problems? At this point in time, it seems to be on-par with Google, with one big difference: it extracts information for you, so that you don’t have to read articles.
Another caveat is that the company that makes ChatGPT, OpenAI, hasn’t released its algorithm yet, so we can’t be quite sure how they determine whether or not information is accurate. That means ChatGPT could give you an incorrect answer. The advantage to Googling information is that you get to check the source, and decide for yourself whether or not it’s trustworthy.
At this point in time, ChatGPT is fun to play around with, and you can get some quick workout or nutrition tips from it. Unfortunately, it can’t solve all of your problems (yet).
