5 Ways To Use ChatGPT For Research
Written By A Serial Novelist
Today, we welcome a special guest, Elle Griffin.
I’ve been following Elle on Substack for a while now, so when she reached out and offered to share her AI research methods, it was an easy yes!
In 2022, Elle published her first book, a gothic novel called Obscurity, as a serial in her newsletter The Elysian. Since then, she has written about better ways to run countries and businesses, and how working with AI could change our future.
She’s been featured by the BBC, Business Insider, Fast Company, The Information, Publisher’s Weekly, Means of Creation, and Morning Brew. And she’s been awarded one of 10 places in Substack’s coveted fellowship program.
Here’s Elle:
Imagine you are granted access to The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world.
You’re standing in front of every book ever written in every language.
Where do you start?
If you are an avid reader, you will no doubt feel overwhelmed.
Even if you spend the rest of your life reading, you’ll never you will never read or know it all.
But what if you could search it?
Think about it. A world of knowledge at your fingertips. All you need is a search query to access it. No matter what you want to know, you can ask endless questions about it.
And if you have a thirst for knowledge and want to dive deeper and deeper into the things you’re most curious about, AI is like your personal librarian—always ready to pull the right book or piece of knowledge off the shelf, as long as you know what you're looking for (without shushing you).
As a writer studying human progress, this has completely revolutionized my work.
Before AI LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, I spent way too much time weeding through Google ads and SEO-optimized content, desperately trying to come up with a search term that would yield more trustworthy results. My research was limited to the studies I could find through Google and Wikipedia, and I spent hundreds of hours (and money) downloading and wading through Kindle books just to chase an argument.
“I always felt limited to what I knew or could find online, and knew there were many more resources out there I just couldn’t get to.”
Then ChatGPT came along.
It’s like having a personal librarian who knows everything ever published—and can summarize it for you on demand. Now, when I need information, I don’t waste hours sifting through scattered sources.
I just ask questions like:
“Sum up all of David Graeber’s work and the arguments for and against it.”
“List the most prominent technologists throughout history and their impact on humanity.”
“Create a chart of democracies worldwide—when they transitioned, how they fell, and why.”
“Detail Austronesian migration patterns by year.”
“Rank the richest companies and countries by annual revenue.”
Not only does ChatGPT provide answers, but it also cites sources, letting you dig deeper and follow up on the topics that intrigue you most.
This combination of breadth, depth, and accessibility has completely transformed how I approach research.
5 Ways To Leverage ChatGPT As Your Personal Research Assistant
Here are five specific ways I use AI as my personal librarian:
1. Trace An Argument Through Centuries Of Books
Most people don’t have the time to read through hundreds of years of history, which is why this is one of my favorite research strategies.
When I was recently exchanging letters with an anarchist thinker, I asked ChatGPT to sum up the arguments of the most prominent anarchist thinkers throughout history and compare where they were similar to and differed from prominent capitalist thinkers.
Suddenly I was able to follow the whole argument throughout history, and pick and choose which authors I wanted to spend more time reading.
Here’s a prompt to help you do this same:
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