Can AI Give Better Ideas on Generating Passive Income?

My brief experiment with OpenAI ChatGPT

With all the talk about AI generated content, I finally dove into ChatGPT to see what all the fuss was about. Honestly, it felt like a better version of Google search with more natural language results as opposed to a bunch of text links with the occasional excerpt, but I certainly didn’t come away with the fear that singularity would occur in the next few weeks.

While much of the fascination (at least on Medium) has been set around AI writing full stories or even painting a master work of art, I think my Google reference is a much more practical and useful tool for ChatGPT in the short term. Using AI as a jump point and not a destination point can help lessen the “artificial” feeling one often gets when interacting with computers today. In other words, we’d get a lot farther if people used it as a tool to complement and not as a tool to replace authors or other human tasks as we know them today.

With the demands of Medium requiring authors to pump out daily stories, I can see why people might think this was a way to game the system, but that fear doesn’t address the real problem of Medium requiring such content volume from its authors (unless, Medium is not really designed for this to be a full-time job).

Since I write a lot about money and investing, I was curious to see what response it would give for generating ideas on the best forms of passive income.

At first blush, it gave a decent answer — something you might expect a student in high school to write, which in itself is an achievement. But it’s in the nuances where AI has a long way to go. For example, when I asked my very broad question several things immediately came to mind:

How long an answer would ChatGPT give?

Without knowing anything about me, would it give a simple answer or a more complex one?

Would it make a distinction between passive income ideas that take a little more activity like being a landlord versus investing in dividend paying REITs?

Would it make reference to newer forms of passive income opportunities or stick to older forms? Surprisingly, it threw in a mention on P2P lending which I was not expecting. Having dabbled in Lending Club before their old model went belly-up, I appreciated the mention of P2P platforms.

Given the nature of how the platform accepts almost any nonsensical question your mind can fancy, it’s hard to make too harsh of a criticism.

Here was the full response from ChatGPT…

Passive income is income that is generated with little to no ongoing effort on the part of the recipient. It can be an attractive source of income for those looking to supplement their regular earnings, or for those who are looking to build a long-term financial foundation. Here are some of the best ideas for passive income:

Rental properties: Investing in rental properties can be a great way to generate passive income. You can buy a property, fix it up, and then rent it out to tenants. As the owner, you will be responsible for maintaining the property and collecting rent, but you can often hire a property management company to handle these tasks for you.

Dividend stocks: Investing in dividend-paying stocks is another way to generate passive income. When you buy a stock that pays dividends, you will receive a regular payment from the company in the form of a dividend. This can provide a steady stream of income without requiring much ongoing effort on your part.

Peer-to-peer lending: Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms allow you to lend money to individuals or small businesses in exchange for interest. This can be a good source of passive income, as you will receive regular payments from the borrowers as they repay their loans.

Online courses or e-books: If you have expertise in a particular area, you can create an online course or e-book and sell it on platforms like Udemy or Amazon. This can be a good way to generate passive income, as you will receive income from the sales of your course or e-book without having to do much ongoing work.

Royalties from intellectual property: If you have created a patent, trademark, or copyrighted work, you can generate passive income by licensing it to others. This can include things like music, software, or even the rights to use your name or likeness.

Overall, there are many different ways to generate passive income, and the best option for you will depend on your goals, resources, and skills. It is important to do your research and carefully consider the risks and potential returns of any passive income opportunity before investing your time and money.

Conclusion

Thousands of hours have gone into what some may feel is a simple parlor trick, but I was actually more hopeful than ever about the future of AI.

Imagine trying to answer questions from billions of people from different backgrounds with different language and education levels all over the world.

We often forget how marvelous the human mind is, especially when we’ve often had the benefit of people feeding us information from the time we were born. Ask someone with dyslexia, or autism, or dysfluency how easy or hard something is and you’ll get a better appreciation of what it takes to make AI a reality.

I commend OpenAI for “opening” the platform to allow normal, every day users like me to get just a peek into the future.

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