How to use ChatGPT for Time Series in R
Written by Matt Dancho
![](/assets/064_chatgpt_timeseries_thumb.jpg)
Writing R code is a slow process especially when you are first learning Time Series Analysis. What if you could speed it up? You can and this is how. In this free R-tip, I share a real case study where I made the working R code for my time series analysis and saved over 3 hours of work using ChatGPT.
Table of Contents
Today I share how to automate 80% of your Time Series Analysis code with ChatGPT
. Here’s what you’re learning today:
- ChatGPT Prompts: The mistakes you’ll make and how to get ChatGPT to write your time series analysis code correctly.
- 2-Minute Case Study: How I made a time series analysis with
ChatGPT
.
- Bonus: Sneak Peek At My NEW Shiny App that extends this ChatGPT tutorial 👇
![ChatGPT Made This Shiny App](/assets/064_bonus_shiny_app.jpg)
Bonus: A shiny app that extends this tutorial
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: ChatGPT for Data Scientists Workshop on August 14th
Inside the workshop I’ll share how I built a Machine Learning Powered Production Shiny App with ChatGPT
(extends this data analysis to an insane production app):
![ChatGPT for Data Scientists](/assets/lab_82_chatgpt_rcode.jpg)
What: ChatGPT for Data Scientists
When: Wednesday August 14th, 2pm EST
How It Will Help You: Whether you are new to data science or are an expert, ChatGPT is changing the game. There’s a ton of hype. But how can ChatGPT actually help you become a better data scientist and help you stand out in your career? I’ll show you inside my free chatgpt for data scientists workshop.
Price: Does Free sound good?
How To Join: 👉 Register Here
R-Tips Weekly
This article is part of R-Tips Weekly, a weekly video tutorial that shows you step-by-step how to do common R coding tasks. Pretty cool, right?
Here are the links to get set up. 👇
My Previous ChatGPT R Tutorials
So listen, time series is a tough problem to solve. And there’s a learning curve with ChatGPT. To help I’ve done 2 R-Tips on ChatGPT. These are good to start with if you’ve never used ChatGPT before (or want starter tutorials that are great for beginners):
-
I showed you how ChatGPT I made a full R Shiny App in under 10-minutes. That was insane!
-
I demonstrated how important ChatGPT prompts are giving you a full ChatGPT prompt guide and walkthrough
But now I want to take it a step up and demonstrate using ChatGPT for a more difficult problem…
Using ChatGPT for Time Series in R
I’m going to be fully transparent here. ChatGPT is NOT 100% with Time Series yet. It got me 80% of the way there. BUT the last mile, I actually had to know time series.
I also tried Bard. Bard was even worse than ChatGPT’s GPT-4 model.
To help, I want to give you some pointers.
ChatGPT Prompt Guide for Time Series
The mistake I made when I first started using ChatGPT was not being specific enough in directing chatgpt
what R code I want it to write for me. I’ve since learned from this.
Here’s a good starter chatgpt prompt for my time series problem:
![ChatGPT Prompt for time series](/assets/064_chatgpt_timeseries_prompt.jpg)
Looks pretty straightforward, but it’s actually quite complex. Let’s break it down.
![ChatGPT Prompt Guide for Time Series](/assets/064_chatgpt_timeseries_thumb.jpg)
The key is specifying:
- Which R Libraries to Use: I specified to forecast using the
modeltime
library. Full Disclosure: I’m the creator. But, it IS awesome for time series.
- What Time Series Goal: For my time series project it’s to forecast. Other time series problems might involve exploratory plotting, anomaly detection, or decomposition.
- What Inputs to the Time Series Problem: For this time series project, I want to forecast initially the next 30 days (the forecast horizon) and it’s a daily time series data set with 2 columns: date and value.
And ChatGPT generates the code for me:
![ChatGPT Code OSMdata Example](/assets/064_chatgpt_initial_response.jpg)
Steal my code (it's legal).
Does the code work?
A big problem that data scientists are facing is that chatgpt
code isn’t working out of the box.
So let’s test the code. I ran it, and it turns out…
ChatGPT has Hallucinations
![Does the ChatGPT code work?](/assets/064_chatgpt_hallucinations.jpg)
It didn’t run. What happened is so common people have termed it “ChatGPT Hallucinations”.
Yep, chatgpt makes stuff up. And this is why it’s important to know how to code. Case in point: modeltime.arima
is not an R package. I have no clue where it got this.
The reality: You need to know how to code and do time series
Fortunately, I’ve been doing this a while. And I just had to debug the code. So here’s what my process looks like:
- ChatGPT wrote the code (15 Seconds)
- I debugged the code (10 minutes)
The net time was a little over 10 minutes for me to get this code working.
![ChatGPT Corrected Code](/assets/064_corrected_chatgpt_code.jpg)
Get My Working Code Here (It's in the 064_chatgpt_time_series folder).
And the modified ChatGPT code now produces a test forecast using an ARIMA model. Now, let’s set aside that the forecast isn’t actually that good (I’ll improve this with a different model). But I have something usable.
![Test Forecast from an ARIMA Model](/assets/064_arima_forecast_part_1.jpg)
Total Time Savings: 30 minutes.
I don’t have the completed solution yet
I just have a test forecast at this point. I had to go back and request chatpgt to refit the ARIMA model on the full dataset and forecast the next 30 days.
![Refit and Forecast Next 30 Days](/assets/064_chatgpt_refit_full_dataset.jpg)
What it gave me again had some hallucinations that I had to fix. No big deal. This took maybe 5 minutes.
![ChatGPT Corrections](/assets/064_chatgpt_corrections_2.jpg)
Steal my code (it's legal).
And, the modified chatgpt code now produces a 30-day forecast into the future, which is pretty cool.
![The second time series forecast](/assets/064_arima_forecast_part_2.jpg)
So at this point I’ve spent 15 minutes making this forecast. Something that would have taken about an hour to write 100 lines of code.
Total Time Savings: 45 minutes.
But here’s where the time saving stacks up.
BONUS: I asked ChatGPT to make a Shiny App to Forecast with Modeltime
![Bonus Shiny App](/assets/064_bonus_shiny_app.jpg)
I asked ChatGPT to make a Shiny App using my corrected code. Making a shiny app is a task that would have taken me 3+ hours.
![Asking ChatGPT to Make a Shiny App](/assets/064_asking_chatgpt__to_make_a_shiny_app.jpg)
I spent 15 minutes correcting the code. And I was able to produce this shiny app that uses a better XGBoost Model to forecast this time series.
Total Time Savings: 3 hours 30 minutes
Want my Bonus Shiny Time Series App?
Want all the code I just showed you PLUS my bonus Shiny Time Series App? It’s my free gift to you: You can have my shiny app library.
![Bonus Shiny App](/assets/064_get_shiny_app_code.jpg)
Steal my shiny app from this tutorial.
The code for the bonus shiny time series app is inside of R-Tip 064_chatgpt_time_series
. Enjoy.
Oh, I forgot to mention something. There’s a…
Big Problem: You still need to learn how to do Time Series
If you learn one thing from this tutorial, it better be that ChatGPT isn’t the full solution. It’s a productivity enhancement. As you just saw, I completed 4 hours of work in under 30 minutes.
But, what’s going to happen when you try this on your own?
Don’t know? Allow me to answer: If you can’t do data science, time series, OR code… Well, then you aren’t going to get very far.
Would you like help? Here’s how I can help you become a data scientist and land a 6-figure job you love and learn how to use ChatGPT better (all for free).
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: ChatGPT for Data Scientists Workshop on August 14th
Inside the workshop I’ll share how I built a Machine Learning Powered Production Shiny App with ChatGPT
(extends this data analysis to an insane production app):
![ChatGPT for Data Scientists](/assets/lab_82_chatgpt_rcode.jpg)
What: ChatGPT for Data Scientists
When: Wednesday August 14th, 2pm EST
How It Will Help You: Whether you are new to data science or are an expert, ChatGPT is changing the game. There’s a ton of hype. But how can ChatGPT actually help you become a better data scientist and help you stand out in your career? I’ll show you inside my free chatgpt for data scientists workshop.
Price: Does Free sound good?
How To Join: 👉 Register Here