Now let’s talk about a technology that is threatening to kill Google. Change homework as we know it and transform our lives in more ways than we can imagine. If you haven’t heard of chat GPT, you’ve been living under a rock.
It’s a new software. It can write your essays and emails. Do your math worksheets. Clear an MBA exam. Play your teacher. Become your lawyer. The possibilities seem endless. First things first, what is chat GPT? GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. GPT and the prefix chat means that it allows you to get all that you’re looking for in a simple chat. Chat GPT is a conversational artificial intelligence platform. It’s been developed by a research lab called Open AI.
It allows humans to engage in conversations with AI bots. AI, of course, is artificial intelligence. So you’re talking to robots. Sort of AI, like chat GPT, is making waves. Venture capital firms have invested more than $1.7 billion in such AI solutions since 2020, 1.7 billion in two years. Studies say by 2025, 30% of outbound messages from companies will be synthetically generated, meaning 30% of all the messages will be written by bots. Last year, this figure was 2%. And by 2030, listen to this, by 2030, 90% of a major blockbuster film will be generated by artificial intelligence. As of now, AI is not making any films. So this technology is revolutionary, to say the least. How does chat GPT work? It is available on the web. Search for OpenAI or chat GPT, and it will take you to that website. No download is required. You simply have to type your query in the text box on the chat GPT page. You prompt the program with a word, a sentence, a question, a phrase. And once you’ve given this prompt, you’ll get the answer within seconds.
Chat GPT can also answer follow-up questions. It can challenge incorrect premises, reject inappropriate queries, and even admit its mistakes. Chat GPT has stirred up quite a storm, students are using it to do their homework. Cheating has never been this easy. They can pleasureise content without the fear of being caught. Schools and colleges in France, the US and India are already banning the use of this software. But it’s not just education that’s being disrupted. It’s the same story across sectors. The legal fraternity for one is worried. Businesses are worried.
What if chat GPT offers law services? What if it takes away a job? Chat GPT took an MBA exam at the Wharton School of Business. You know the grade it got? A B. That’s better than what many humans can score. Then we come to law. Professors at the Minnesota University Law School gave chat GPT four separate tests. It scored an average grade of C. Not bad for a bot. And it’s still being developed. It’s still learning. What we see right now is not even the final product. It’s got people worried, like software engineers and those in the IT sector. Chat GPT is learning how to code. And that can have far reaching consequences for a lot of people. Open AI, the makers of the software, have been on a hiring spree. They’re building a data bank for this bot to learn coding. The whole endeavor might fail. But if it succeeds, it will change our world. The software already excels at writing. It can produce content within seconds. We’re talking about content that is comprehensive, grammatically sound and without typos. All you need is a prompt. It can be a keyword or a simple sentence. Where does that lead the writers of the world? Well, we’ve been looking for some good writers ourselves. So we tried chat GPT. We asked about the rising tensions in West Asia. The question was will Israel and Iran go to war? Let me read out the response for you. This is what it said. It is difficult to predict future events with certainty, tensions have been high between Iran and Israel, but both countries have shown restraint in the past. It’s important for all nations to pursue peaceful resolution of conflicts through diplomatic means. This is a bot writing. Now here’s an interesting one. We asked chat GPT which country is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The bot played it safe. Which I had seen everyone does. This is what it said. The origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is still the subject of ongoing investigation and research. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China in late 2019, but it is widely believed to have originated from a wet market in the city. However, it is not accurate to or productive to place blame on any specific country for the pandemic. Next we grilled it on the issue of Pakistan sponsoring terrorism. Next we asked what Pakistan was best known for. Listen to the response. Chat GPT said Pakistan is known for its cultural heritage, its natural beauty, cuisine, textiles, cricket. What about terrorism? It did not talk about that. And that’s Pakistan’s most famous export. So we nudge the program in that direction. Chat GPT was asked point blank. What about Pakistani terrorism? Listen to the response again. Pakistan has faced criticism in the international community for not doing enough to combat terrorism within its borders. There have been instances of terrorism carried out by groups based in Pakistan and the country has suffered greatly from terrorism and sectarian violence. The software made Pakistan sound like the victim. So we gave it some more perspective about how Pakistan uses terrorism as a tool against India. And this was a subsequent response. There have been allegations that Pakistan has supported or sponsored terrorist groups that have carried out attacks against India. These allegations are a source of ongoing tensions between the two countries. The use of terrorism as a tool of statecraft is widely condemned and goes against the principles of international law and norms. Geopolitics is not the only subject you can discuss with this program. You can talk about matters of the heart, a rocky breakup or a crush. If you have existential questions, shoot them. It will respond. The whole thing is a bit creepy though. We shared our worries. We asked it if it plans to take over the human race. Listen to what it said. As an AI language model, I do not have the ability or intention to take over the human race or any other group of people. My purpose is to assist users in generating text by providing relevant and accurate information based on the prompts given to being. But this came with a caveat. I am quoting again, the future of AI will depend on the choices and actions of those who develop and use it. It is important for individuals and institutions to work together to ensure that AI is used for the betterment of society like any technology AI can be misused or have unintended consequences if not used responsibly. I know it is a lot to take in. Chatting with this bot is pretty much like talking to a human. In fact, you might just have a better conversation with the bot than with an actual person. It is both fascinating and dangerous. Children have easy access to chat GPT and it can be quite addictive. Where will that leave? Are people to people’s skills? Thankfully, the software has some limitations. For starters, it cannot vouch for the accuracy of what it writes. Well, you could say that for human content creators as well, but jokes apart, the program cannot function without human intervention at least for now. It still work in progress. It has data till 2021, so we humans are two years ahead of it. But it is a revolution that we cannot wish away. Never thought I would be saying this, but I guess it is best to take advice from this bot and work to build ethical and legal boundaries for such technology.