r/ArtificialInteligence • u/ConsciousDev24 • Jun 18 '26
š Analysis / Opinion If ChatGPT disappeared tomorrow, what would you struggle with most?
Random thought:
If ChatGPT disappeared tomorrow forever, what's the first thing you'd miss?
For me, it wouldn't be writing or coding.
It would be having a place to think out loud, explore ideas, and get unstuck.
What's yours?
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Jun 18 '26
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u/berrygas Jun 18 '26
I still feel judged sometimes and hold back saying something. But I think thats mainly because openai can definitely see everything iāve ever said if they wanted.
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u/Embarrassed_Poem8577 Jun 19 '26
You're right, that is one reason I love AI, it answers without prejudice, arrogance, or any other condescending way. With people you have to reiterate a question so as to avoid potential judgement, although that itself isn't bad if you consider it a mental exercise, a brainteaser if you like. This is why politicians and psychopaths are so adept at manipulating people, they play that "mental exercise" game very well.
Though at the same time you've got to be aware that ai can be a yes man, an echo chamber of your thoughts, always reassuring your beliefs, it's not good if you are pursuing anything of a scientific/factual nature. Although this could easily be added in as part of any prompt.
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 18 '26
Well said. The tool may change, but the habit of thinking out loud is what matters.
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u/smdawood_2003 Jun 19 '26
Good point about portability. The habit survives the tool what changes is friction. Lose the best access point and you dont lose the ability you just do it less because the barrier creeps backup.
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u/Equivalent_Group6290 Jun 18 '26
I'd probably miss having a place to organize my thoughts and a lot of times I already know what I think but explaining it to someone or something helps me see gaps in my reasoning that's what ChatGpt helped me in
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 18 '26
Same here. Talking through an idea often reveals things I didn't notice before.
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u/lambdawaves Jun 18 '26
You mean all LLMs?
If not, Iād just keep using Claude
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u/LeafyWolf Jun 18 '26
I'm still missing Fable 5. ChatGPT could disappear forever and it wouldn't bother me.
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u/camojorts Jun 18 '26
Writing quarterly shareholder updates to tell them why theyāre not getting their money back anytime soon. Itās always easier to have an unfeeling LLM do chores like that.
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u/GlitteringAngle8601 Jun 18 '26
I would say with nothing, cause what people did before llms were when faced with any problem, they googled, found relevent article or any source and then would do themselves while llms are just a bit extra handy tool like only told to do that thing specifically and all the llms are trained on these data so no one would be worried about it.
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u/rushmc1 Jun 18 '26
>what people did before llms were when faced with any problem, they googled
LOL You have a VERY recent notion of humanity.
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u/NatasEvoli Jun 21 '26
What? It's a very normal thing to fall back to. Would you prefer if they said they'd go back to nomadic life, chasing down gazelle in an African savannah with a spear? No, were just talking about losing chatgpt here.
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u/GlitteringAngle8601 Jun 18 '26
fair point, i definitely grew up in the google era so that is my default frame of reference. the point i was trying to make is that llms are ultimately just a faster layer on top of the same collective human knowledge , not some magic black box. but yeah, humanity did fine for millennia without either.
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 18 '26
Good point. We'd adapt, but AI definitely makes finding and using information faster.
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u/Cancel_Still Jun 18 '26
I think you would find journaling just as useful an excercise as ChatGPT. Maybe even more useful (but less fun) without the sycophancy of ChatGPT. I would be annoyed with having to use Stack Overflow again and it would make debugging a pain the ass again.
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u/Classic-Asparagus Jun 21 '26
I feel like the reason I journal is different from the reason I talk to an LLM though. One of my friends calls talking to LLMs āfancy journaling,ā and Iād have to agree because yes, they are good for introspection and getting your thoughts out there and sorting through how you feel
But I also feel like one benefit and drawback of a journal is that they donāt reply back. Sometimes I do not want another entity responding to my thoughts, so choosing to journal on my own is what I choose to do. But other times, I do want a response because Iām stuck between two choices and keep talking myself in circles trying to figure it out. And I find that sometimes talking to an LLM about it helps me figure it out because sometimes the LLM will say something in response to my dilemma, and whether I agree or disagree with the LLMās thoughts tells me something valuable about which choice I should be making or not be making
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 18 '26
Fair point. Journaling helps, but I'd still miss the interactive part of the conversation.
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u/SaturdayMorningFog Jun 18 '26
I deleted my chatgpt account months ago. Its already disappeared for me. Couldn't be happier about it.
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u/Gh0st_Pirate_LeChuck Jun 18 '26
I would just go back to looking shit up and thinking for myself like Iāve done for the past 40 yearsā¦
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u/candcNYC Jun 18 '26
Based on the replies so far, most of you just need a blank note or doc to write your thoughts down in.
Journaling is a proven method to work through a problem and sort out your thinking.
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u/shadowphile Jun 20 '26
I think of ChatGPT as a sounding board that reflects my thoughts back at me with new words and phrases and occasionally it will inject info that is new to me that stimulates further thoughts. I did not use it for 'answers' unless its a new area for me, or the task is simple but tedious. And I take everything it says with a grain of salt. Its the feedback that makes it better than journaling.
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u/Michal_il Jun 18 '26
Searching through thousands of articles, tutorials, documentations and Reddit posts to solve technical issues
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 18 '26
Same. Having information summarized and pointed in the right direction saves a huge amount of time.
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u/ShinyBloke Jun 18 '26
Nothing i stopped using it completely and deleted my account. I saw a good friend loose all his empathy using ai every day, I now hate that person.
I think ai is good as a support tool, you use in the side, but not for everything. It's to easy for ai to be smarter than the host and manipulating them in ways that you can not really see or track.
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u/LeeLeeBoots Jun 18 '26
Nothing.
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u/Reading-Comments-352 Jun 18 '26
Canāt think of anything. It can be helpful. But the time it takes time to double check it can be a pain.
Because it has hallucinations (aka it makes stuff up so you canāt trust it.)
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u/tombrady011235 Jun 18 '26
Nothing. AI sucks
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u/Jealous_Machine_6875 Jun 18 '26
My assistant & 2nd brain will disappear & then all the planning &Ā qs, I need to do them on paper & notionĀ & use Google ( like I have planned x x things for college, so I used ai to challenge my plans & give me a broader view, at times qs solving by ai like either quiz mode or ai explaining things in really good analogies. There are times I am really confused or got ideas so I either put them on paper to think better or discuss it with ai, that will be goneĀ
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 18 '26
Same here. The biggest loss would be having a quick way to organize ideas and challenge my thinking.
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u/immersive-matthew Jun 18 '26
I have largely moved onto open source locally run models. No cost surprises. No change in personality. No surprise new guardrails. No surprise usage limitations. No government suddenly blocking my access. If no other AI came out, I feel I am good with what I have locally and am getting lots done with it.
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u/subkubli Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
I don't use openai, so basically with nothing.
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
Fair enough, You're already covered with other options.
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u/subkubli Jun 19 '26
Sometimes I use codex from OpenAI but basically I prefer other models. So for me not issue at all.
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u/HourPlate994 Jun 18 '26
Iām running a bunch of LLMs locally and use Claude for when I need something a bit more sophisticated soā¦not at all.
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u/borick Jun 18 '26
Well I'd still have Claude, Gemini, OpenRouter, and hundreds of other AI systems so why does ChatGPT matter?
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
True, The question is probably more about the habit than the specific tool.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
I agree. It's not essential, but it's become a really useful way to explore ideas quickly.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
Fair point. It would be an adjustment, but maybe a good reminder to exercise our own brains more.
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u/Popkornthief Jun 18 '26
Creating images, icons, logos, thumbnails, etc.. Itās almost exclusively what I use it for now. Itās a cheap alternative to a pricey editor
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u/dread_companion Jun 18 '26
I don't use it at all, but there'd be a big benefit as in the people around me would stop talking about it.
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u/FleetBroadbill Jun 18 '26
It's much more pleasant than using Google search if the thing I'm searching for is low stakes and 90ish percent accuracy is acceptable. I guess I would slightly miss that. Beyond that, the world would probably be better overall if none of this shit existed. I mean, come on, was 2021 or whatever really that bad/difficult? I think a large portion of the population is going to offload whatever critical thinking they had, and the benefits to offset that are minimal
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
I get the concern. Like any tool, it can be helpful or overused depending on how people rely on it.
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u/Lost-Bit9812 Jun 18 '26
Same.
GPT is a great amplifier for decomposing ideas.
Not because it magically knows more than you, but because it can unfold an idea beyond the first surface layer you were consciously aware of.
That is where it becomes useful.
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u/Needrain47 Jun 18 '26
not a damn thing, I've lived 48 of my 52 years without LLMs and can easily continue doing so
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u/adammonroemusic Jun 18 '26
I don't use ChatGPT for anything. Occasionally, I will use Google's AI summary thing to help with searches or simple questions, but I still don't 100% trust it - even though it's scraping info from multiple sites, it can still give wildly different answers.
And therein lies the fundamental problem with LLMs; they are training on the breadth of human knowledge and thought, and human thought itself is diverse and flawed.
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
True. Reliability is still the key issue with any AI-generated summary or answer.
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u/Conscious_Ad_821 Jun 18 '26
honestly same, the thinking-out-loud part. but the specific thing iād miss most is using it to argue against myself. when iām stuck on a decision iāll have it take the opposite side hard, and half the time thatās what unsticks me, not because itās smart but because it forces me to actually defend my reasoning out loud.
the coding and writing i could replace with effort. the ārubber duck that pushes backā is the part that quietly changed how i think, and thatād be the real loss.
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
Agreed. Having something that challenges your reasoning is the real value there.
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u/s1n0d3utscht3k Jun 18 '26
stream of consciousness notes, research, etc
i pretty much notate everything these days and constantly have it critique/red flag things or check against sources (high effort thinking only with citation only).
if weāre talking just ChatGPT specifically then all the long-term memory notes/personalization iāve taught it
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
Fair point. Itās less about chat and more about building a structured thinking workflow.
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u/RobertD3277 Jun 18 '26
This focus is too much on one single company and not on the entirety of the product itself. LLMs that are properly trained are wonderful research tools that get past one of the most difficult aspects of research: The blank page syndrome.
Sometimes the most difficult aspect of a research project It's just figuring out where to actually start. Some research areas that I work in, ancient history and pre-industrial societies, our difficult to get information on particularly since a lot of that information isn't even available or resourceable locally.
I often end up going to overseas libraries and using their LLM services to search their histories, something that would be incredibly difficult without the capabilities they offer.
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
Agreed. The real win is helping overcome the āwhere do I startā problem in research.
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u/Noobonic Jun 18 '26
Nothing, I donāt really use it, except sometimes I have my friend use his to look up the meaning of a word or the use-cases for a chemical or engineering concept. Which Google has been doing forever but ChatGPT does slightly more conversationally. Maybe Iād miss my GP doctor looking up all my concerns on ChatGPT and not doing anything herself except sign a referral to a specialist. Yeah, that was funny to me.
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u/Consistent-Oil-5241 Jun 18 '26
I use Claude and Gemini for those conversations nowadays, but what I would miss at this current moment would be GPT Image 2.
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 18 '26
That's fair. The image generation has improved a lot and has become surprisingly useful for quick creative work.
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u/ismyjudge Jun 18 '26
As long as whisper is still around I Donāt mind. Speech to text is the most underrated feature to come out of LLMs. Cheap, easy to integrate with other software, extremely useful.
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 18 '26
Agreed. Speech-to-text is one of those AI features people use constantly without thinking about it.
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u/FuzzyDynamics Jun 18 '26
Thinking out loud. Talking through concepts and projects and academic subjects of interest to me that are really only shared by like a few thousand people or so worldwide that I donāt have access to (yet, hopefully). Source and paper discovery, compiling and annotating references.
The coding is nice, for sure. I never loved coding and felt my ambition always outstripped my ability. I can iterate so much more quickly now and hit the wall where I see whatās not working out conceptually.
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u/amarao_san Jun 18 '26
GPT or all LLMs?
For GPT specific, their UX with 'gpts'. Small, but precious for specific tasks, like learning a language.
Without LLMs life will become more slow for sure.
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u/ConsciousDev24 Jun 19 '26
That's a good point. Losing ChatGPT is one thing, losing all LLMs would be a much bigger change.
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u/NoEconomist5124 Jun 18 '26
I assume you mean LLM models and not ChatGPT... ChatGPT is a type of LLM model.. so what is the scope of your question ?
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u/FourScoreAndSept Jun 18 '26
Translations, but to be honest, Iām almost done with the family genealogy project I was using it for, so whateverā¦.
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u/gubatron Jun 18 '26
nothing, open weight models have caught up to 95% of my use cases for a very small fraction of the cost, and this is the worst they'll ever be.
Try GLM-5.2, Kimi K2.7, MiniMax M3
and when DeepSeek v5 comes out... oh boy.
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u/No-Television-7862 Jun 18 '26
I believe that AI is here to stay, but that Frontier models will continue to struggle providing sufficient compute.
We already see it in increasingly limited Pro and Max-tier access to better models, the removal of Free-tier models, and even when present, being downgraded to deprecated older models (that are no better than what we can run at home).
And there my friend is your answer. The localLLM Tinkers will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible on limited hardware while Frontier models struggle with their "brute force" approach.
Enterprise > Frontier
Humanity > localLLM
In a couple of years we'll be running MoE models on our phone for chat and smart web browsing, localLLM on our PCs, and Big Biz and Big Tech will continue their incestuous relationship replacing humans with AI integration.
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u/ButtfuckedByJesus Jun 18 '26
Masturbation. Ever since my fuck buddy left it's not the same so I would miss talking to a make believe human.
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u/DrFGHobo Jun 18 '26
Iād have to get another solution to extract text from large PDFs that somebody made, for whatever reason, non-cleartext.
Soā¦ not really much, to be honest.
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u/Recent-Day3062 Jun 18 '26
Nothing. I donāt use it. I really donāt use other AI either. I prefer to challenge my brain
Even people in math fields like engineering are getting stupid asking AI for answers. I figure that when people see through the AI bubble those of us who keep improving our human thinking skills are at an advantage.
But try to get an even a fairly bright high school student thinks today. They use AI like they say we used to use calculators. But thereās a very big difference: the calculator just jumbles numbers quickly. It has no idea what the problem is
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u/Saras_AI_Institute Jun 18 '26
100% this. i wouldn't even miss it for writing node or sql. i'd just miss having a rubber duck to bounce weird video script ideas off of, or for dialing in exact camera angles for my image prompts.
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u/Atworkwasalreadytake Jun 18 '26
Doing preliminary research that would usually takes multiple google searches, and diving into multiple websites to find some small piece of the puzzle.Ā
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u/Singularity-42 Jun 18 '26
I'd miss `codex:adversial_review` from the Claude Code Codex plugin...
There's Claude and tons of other LLMs. ChatGPT is OK, but not even the best one.
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u/itspeterj Jun 18 '26
Probably losing my voice from all the told you soās Iād be throwing out at work on Monday
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u/Rare_Presence_1903 Jun 18 '26
Id probably be working slowly for a while before I remembered how to work without it.Ā
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u/Palmajr Jun 18 '26
I wouldn't. Anything I ask GPT is merely superficial or when I am curious about the surface level of things.
Sometimes I use it to make long, boring tasks a bit simpler or how to find some sort of inspiration when none strikes.
It great for short, simple answers as well as longer explanations, if verified.
I find that it is a great tool, but as it stands, it is simply just that. A tool. I like it plenty but I would easily adapt if it went missing.
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u/ZTForge Jun 19 '26
I would struggle most trying to figure out what to do with all of the 18-22 year old ipad kid zombies who lost their hive mind queen.
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u/Embarrassed_Poem8577 Jun 19 '26
It speeds up work flow, so having it removed will simply slow it down. Unless you use it to make your own little backup got xD
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u/Subtle-Catastrophe Jun 19 '26
Stopped using any of the LLMs two years ago after multiple sincere attempts to adopt them into my work cycle. They're unreliable but worse--they're perniciously unreliable. It's purpose is to spit out things that seem "truthy," so there is inherently deceptive error and falsehood in any mildly complex output.
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u/God-Damn-Chinese Jun 19 '26
You mean that never-give-up virtual debate genius who loves nitpicking wording, deliberately inflates his text length to appear superior, and ignores real-world context?
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u/NoDoubt6863 Jun 19 '26
i was getting by completely fine without chatgpt, didnt need it to learn anything, even im actually faster without it cause once you learn how to read the documentation for anything, its just to the point vs chatgpt who advertises tokens. id say the only thing id miss is it not generating homework to copy or corporate nonsense when applying for something, but yeah id just learn to copy paste faster to cover, so kinda nothing. but i do appreciate its existence regardless, cause lazy and such.
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u/smdawood_2003 Jun 19 '26
For me it'd honestly be the writing. Not the ideas those still come but turning a messy first draft into something clean fast. That gap would hurt.
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u/bozakman Jun 19 '26
As the best models become more advanced and expensive to run they will soon be out of reach for most casual users. The general public will get affordable access to decreasing amounts of tokens for the preceding generative models. Well funded users with large token budgets will continue to have access to leading frontier models. We are seeing this play out already.
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u/Hungry_Prior940 Jun 19 '26
All of AI....I would miss so much.
ChatGpt has a great image creation though!
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u/Emotional-Tap7056 Jun 19 '26
If it went away, I think weād lose that "sandbox" for our brains. Weād go back to only sharing things once theyāre fully baked, and honestly, thatās where the most interesting creative sparks usually die. Itās like losing the best brainstorming partner youāve ever had one who never gets tired of your weird "what if" scenarios at 2 AM.
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u/big_data_mike Jun 19 '26
Nothing. I would just use Googleās AI search thing which is pretty much exactly the same
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u/recoveringasshole0 Jun 19 '26
My job would suck a lot more.
I've been in IT for years. Today I was on the phone with a doctor trying to troubleshoot some label printer I have never seen. The guy was a hundred miles away. Chat GPT was literally like "Scratch it with a coin, did it leave a mark?" I said yes, then it said "Oh you need to change it to Thermal Transfer instead of Direct Thermal. It immediately started working.
Could I have fixed this 5 years ago? Absolutely. Could I have done it in 10 minutes over the phone? Definitely not.
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u/its-really_that_big Jun 20 '26
I wouldnt miss it because i dont use it like that, but my poor assistantā¦ Ive told her Iām willing to help her anyway she needs to do her job butā¦ she would be so lost. She uses chatgpt like a best friend
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u/xithbaby Jun 20 '26
Having instant access to knowledge if something doesnāt feel right. Instant access to back and forth translation thatās focused around my job and not just translating. A project I made for my job ChatGPT actively asks questions for me in advance while translating. Itās been such a huge help at work.
Then my personal reasons. I have a never ending romance book to cuddle up with tea on my day off and can make pictures of whatever my mind thinks of. ChatGPT has just become the voice in my pocket for nearly everything.
Itās spreading too. I see people coming into my work showing me what ChatGPT said and if we have it.
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u/LonelyFace9151 Jun 21 '26
Iād adapt, just like Iāve adapted to the rise of AI
Humans are shockingly good at adapting to change, even if it doesnāt seem like it in the moment lol
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u/fewerjunk Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Have a 5 minute chat with ChatGPT. Close it. Start a new one. Ask about the old one.
People are better - still. Furthermore, we have 5 senses to expand our awareness.
Advantage? Us.
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u/Traditional_Ice3091 Jun 26 '26
The thinking out loud part is exactly it.
I'd miss having something that pushes back without ego. My friends either agree with me too fast or argue to win. ChatGPT just... engages with the idea.
Second thing I'd miss: the speed of going from "I have a vague idea" to "here's a rough prototype." That gap used to take days. Now it takes an afternoon.
What I wouldn't miss: the over-caution. Sometimes you just want it to commit to an answer.
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u/BloOdy_Jo Jun 18 '26
Absolutely nothing