The Promise and Danger of ChatGPT, an incredibly powerful AI chatbot

Analysts and experts predict that Open AI’s new ChatGPT will bring about everything from the “death of the school essay” to the dawn of a new age of communication. But what is ChatGPT and how can it change our lives?

Ask ChatGPT a question and it quickly summarizes the answer into grammatically correct paragraphs and punctuation. It also writes code. Within two weeks of its launch on November 30, millions of users tried out the big language modeling artificial intelligence app. In fact, it has attracted so much attention, the system periodically exceeds its user capacity.

If you ask ChatGPT what it is and how it works, it will tell you: “As a large language model trained by OpenAI, I generate responses to text-based queries based on amounts of data I don’t have the ability to access external sources of information or interact with the internet, so all the information I provide is derived from text data that I have been trained on. I’ve been trained.”

Remarkably as ChatGPT seems, the system does not “think” and is incapable of generating original ideas. It works by closely mimicking human voiceEncapsulation has the potential to make writing tasks faster and easier in a way never seen before.

Tinglong Dai, professor of operations management, said: “This particular tool is incredibly great at figuring out what users want and putting relevant stuff in a really logical and clear way, to that some people might be fooled into thinking it has sentience.” at the Carey Johns Hopkins School of Business and is an expert in AI. “There is no other AI that stands out like ChatGPT. It has really opened the door to the latest developments in major language paradigms with something that most people didn’t realize was possible before.”

We are already familiar with some form of AI. Roomba can map your house and vacuum your floors. DALL-E will generate an image from the description text. Siri or Alexa can accomplish countless tasks with a simple voice command. What makes ChatGPT so appealing is its seamless use of human language. While its essays are impressive, Dai says the system is far from perfect.

“It is also very deceptive in the sense that it cannot tell if what it writes is correct or not,” he explains. “In fact, based solely on my own extensive testing, I find that it makes a lot of actual mistakes, but it does so in a confident, authoritative, people’s way.”

Dai also noted that ChatGPT’s responses seem to become increasingly repetitive and even “defensive” when asked the same question over and over. ChatGPT’s answer also varies depending on the language used to ask the question, because its answer will reflect the language of the source document ChatGPT drew from in order to construct the answer.

Risk or reward

Like many of the tools we use, ChatGPT holds a lot of promise and scary potential. Will it replace work or make it harder for consumers to distinguish fact from fiction?

“This tool could pose a serious challenge to democracy, because it means that the cost of creating misinformation will become extremely low, to the point where people are close,” Dai said. such as being unable to detect AI-generated content.” “Assuming that you could even make the AI ​​more realistic by inserting typos and other errors and biases to make it seem more authentic and personable. I think that’s the part. scariest.”

At the same time, Dai said, there will be a greater possibility of authentic writing and real thinking, which currently only humans can provide.

“Writing is not just writing; Good writing reflects good thinking,” Dai said. “By taking shortcuts, I worry that people might lose that really valuable thinking skill.”

Bringing AI into the classroom

Carey Business School is the only major US business school that requires full-time MBA students to study AI.

“We wanted them to familiarize themselves with AI theory and what underlies all AI tools on the market,” said Dai, the course designer. “We want our graduates to know that they are not going to be replaced or fall victim to the false promises of AI. Instead, we want students to think critically and learn how to use it. AI to enhance their competitive edge and what sets them apart—humans and AI Agents too.”

So how can we be sure we know the source of what we’re reading? Dai says disclosure is important and developers need to provide tools for detection, so they know if they’re reading something written by a human.

“If you could combine a product like ChatGPT with real-time information or even with data that isn’t immediately available on the internet, you can imagine billions of people wanting to use it,” Dai said. “I really think this could at least be something as big as social networks or as big as the smartphone market. Industries need to figure out how to work together with AI in the future. They should. towards being augmented by AI, not superseded by AI.”