Is ChatGPT a boon or a bane?
Top research laboratories have made significant progress in the last several years with AI-generated text tools, training the bots on billions of written words, ranging from blog posts to classic literature.
And unless you’re living under a rock, you have already probably heard about ChatGPT, an AI tool that has been taking the internet by storm.
So, what really is ChatGPT and how can it make everyone’s lives better?
A brief ChatGPT history
On November 30, 2022, ChatGPT was launched by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based startup that conducts AI research. Whisper, an automatic speech recognition system, and DALLE•2, a well-known AI image and art generator, were also produced by OpenAI.
OpenAI had so much promise that even Microsoft took the chance of investing $1 billion on it. And we could very well say that the tech giant made the right decision.
In fact, Microsoft is now looking to pour more investment on it as it finalises its $10 billion investment deal into OpenAI which would allow the tech giant to receive a 75% cut of the startup’s income up until it recovers its investment.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is not a search engine but it may very well give a huge boost to Microsoft’s Bing if the tech giant chooses to adopt it in its own search engine.
How ChatGPT is changing people’s lives
With a focus on simulating real conversations, ChatGPT can provide explanations, recall prior statements, elaborate on concepts when prompted, and even apologise when it misunderstands.
Client support, online shopping, staff hiring and training, optimising business processes, and delivering more individualised customer experiences are just a few of the many uses for ChatGPT.
Through ChatGPT, interactive narrative experiences may also be made that let people explore and gain knowledge from virtual environments.
Many people are already using it in their official writing requirements. The tool has been so prevalent that schools in New York have already banned it.
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What ChatGPT can’t do
Despite being a robust AI-based chatbot system, ChatGPT has certain drawbacks. Only the information used to train it can be used to generate answers.
ChatGPT lacks the capacity to perform an internet search because it is not a search engine. Instead, it generates responses using the knowledge it gained from training data. As a result, errors are unavoidable and therefore every piece of output should be fact-checked for accuracy and timeliness.
It’s also possible that the chatbot won’t be able to explain things thoroughly or grasp conversational nuances or context.
Users should be mindful of the risks associated with potential bias as is the case with all AI products. The responses that ChatGPT produces will be biased if the data it was trained on is biased. To ensure that the chatbot’s output is devoid of prejudice and offensive material, everyone must be carefully monitor its generated responses.
What the future holds for ChatGPT
As previously mentioned, ChatGPT may play a big role on the evolution of search engines with Microsoft’s involvement with its parent company, OpenAI. It all depends on how the relationship between the two companies go.
Techwire’s early reports claim that ChatGPT can be effectively used in an organization’s security and development process to improve defence capabilities above the current (existing) security standards.
The report, however, malicious actors can increase the attack surface by teaching AI to look for flaws in well-established code and systems. This allows them to strike more quickly and intelligently.
According to Techwire, well-regulated companies like FSI spaces would not be able to respond or recover quickly due to how current cybersecurity and regulation are set up.
People have forecast the advent of a new profession termed “prompt engineers,” even speculating that they may displace data scientists or conventional programmers as generative AI gains popularity.
Although this appears incredibly unlikely, employing prompted generative AI will probably become a routine part of our professions, just like using search engines is today.
The possibilities for how ChatGPT could simplify our lives—from creating business emails to plotting novels to amusing the elderly—have erupted on the internet. However, as AI specialists point out, generative AI has enormous risks.
It’s always up to us on how we use the cards that we’re dealt with.
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Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.