Get ChatGPT to explain your job in terms a 5 year old would understand

[Matt N]

Hi guys. I was having a read through Facebook this morning and stumbled across a link to a Reddit thread in r/ChatGPT, where a user asked ChatGPT to explain their job to a 5 year old:
From: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1mjdyvl/i_asked_chatgpt_to_explain_my_job_to_a_5yearold/


The opening poster admitted that ChatGPT’s explanation made them question their usefulness, but many others had quite sweet and fun explanations. With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; what does ChatGPT come out with if you ask it to explain your job to a 5 year old?

I’ll get the ball rolling! I recently secured a temporary employment post at a civil service body, and my formal job title, to my knowledge, will be Graduate Data Analyst. For purposes of ease, I asked ChatGPT to explain what a data analyst does to a 5 year old, and it came out with the following:

Okay! Imagine you have a big box of LEGO blocks all mixed up. There are red ones, blue ones, tiny ones, and huge ones. It looks like a big mess!

A data analyst is kind of like a helper who sorts through that box.

• They count the blocks (like “We have 50 blue ones!”).
• They group them (like “All the red ones go here, all the green ones go there”).
• They look for patterns (like “Wow, we have twice as many blue blocks as yellow ones!”).
• Then they tell a story with what they find (like “We can build a bigger castle if we use the blue blocks first”).

So, a data analyst’s job is to take a big messy pile of information and make it easy to understand—kind of like turning that LEGO mess into a nice picture of what you can build.

Do you want me to give you a fun little real-life example, like about candy or toys, instead of LEGO?

And when I took it up on its offer to give me a real life example, it came up with the following:

Alright! Let’s use candy .

Imagine you dump out a huge bag of candy on the table. It’s all mixed up—chocolates, lollipops, gummies, and mints. A data analyst would:

• Count them → “We have 12 chocolates, 8 lollipops, 5 gummies, and 3 mints.”
• Sort them → Put each kind into its own pile.
• Find patterns → “Hey! Chocolates are the most common, and mints are the rarest.”
• Tell a story → “If we want everyone to get candy, we can share chocolates first since we have the most. But we’ll have to be careful with the mints because there are only a few.”

So, a data analyst is like a candy detective —they take a big messy pile of stuff and figure out what’s going on, then explain it in a simple way.

Want me to turn this into a fun little picture so you can see how it looks?

And the fun little picture it gave me was this:

But I’d be interested to know; how does ChatGPT explain your job to a 5 year old?

 

[DiogoJ42]

I struggle to explain my job of the last 24 years to people who work in my industry. Good luck.

 

[Alix]

[Redacted]

 

[NuttySquirrel]

Fortunately unlike @Alix I have no need to redact my answer! I thought I'd give this a go since I'm not entirely sure what my job is a lot of time and none of my colleagues in the same role were able to really tell me when I was applying for it either!

The question I asked was: Explain what a Student Data and Systems (Student Journey) Technical Lead does in a way that a five year old would be able to understand.

ChatGPT's answer:

Okay! Imagine a big school with lots of kids — some are just starting, some are almost done, and everyone is doing different things.

Now, think of a giant magical notebook that knows

• Who the kids are
• What classes they take
• What grades they get
• When they need help
• And even when they’re ready to graduate!

The Student Data and Systems (Student Journey) Technical Lead is like the head wizard in charge of making sure that magical notebook works really well. They:

• Fix problems if the magic notebook isn’t working right
• Help the teachers and helpers use it easily
• Make sure the right kids get the right help at the right time
• And build new magic tricks (like buttons or pages) to make the notebook even better

So basically, they help the school understand each kid’s journey — from the first day to the last — using smart computer magic!

Not bad - althought it's missed the context of this being a university system and not a school one.

And I do love the idea of the system we are implementing being thought of as a 'magical notebook' - since we know there is absolutely nothing magical about it at all and it's really just the least bad of a very limited number of options.

 

[Alix]

Magical notebook?? Any five year old worth their salt would be unimpressed by that

So can it grant wishes?
Can it give me a horse?
Can I get sweets?
Can I disappear?
Huh. Some magical notebook