ChatGPT - Sci-fi turned Reality
The many movies that were built around the plot of the rise of robots seemed unreal a few years back. However, now, emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has opened up a whole new world of possibilities. The conception of ‘Generative AI’ has unleashed the potential of human invention. ‘Generative AI’ is an umbrella term for types of AI that create new text, images, video, audio, code or synthetic data rather than simply analyzing the existing data.
In November 2022, history was created when OpenAI, a company dedicated to studying artificial intelligence, founded by Elon Musk among others, launched its chatbot called ‘ChatGPT’. It took the whole world by surprise. This innovation instantaneously drew more than a million users after its launch. The concept of AI isn’t very new, but the accessibility offered by ChatGPT has blown away netizens. Taking the AI industry by storm, ChatGPT can allegedly replace ‘Google’. But what exactly is this revolution?
The game-changer technology ChatGPT by OpenAI can give you the answer to just about anything. This AI-based program could write you a song, do homework on your behalf, solve your calculus problem, or can even generate a code according to your specifications. The system is so foolproof that it is impossible to persuade the chatbot into saying offensive things, according to a journalist for technology news site Mashable who tried to provoke ChatGPT but failed in his attempts. (However, OpenAI has publicly warned that ChatGPT may give ‘plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers’). This very promising tool has convinced the world that it is here to make an evolution. This chatbot is a pre-trained generative chat and it makes use of Natural Language Processing (NLP). However, the creators of ChatGPT have a far more lucrative goal in mind than simply helping grad students with their assignments.
The bigger picture is to enter the market of ‘Internet Search’ - the multi-billion dollar sector. Rightly so, it has been termed as ‘Google Killer’ - the firm that has ruled this sector. In 2020, Google's parent company Alphabet generated $104 billion (£86 billion) in revenue from search alone. It would be a great accomplishment for ChatGPT to capture even a small portion of that market. Therefore, it is no accident that Microsoft, the owner of the search engine Bing, has announced a multi-billion dollar agreement with OpenAI.
Furthermore, Google recently announced the debut of ‘Bard’, an Artificial chatbot that would be a corrival in the said sector. Also, with all the rumors concerning Microsoft and ChatGPT, it is believed that Google had pushed the announcement forward. ‘Bard AI Chatbot’ is an experimental conversational AI service. It is capable of offering original, excellent responses to encourage innovation and curiosity. This technology is built on Google's LaMDA language learning algorithm. This ‘artificial’ invention is so human-like that one programmer working on the same believed it was sentient. However, Google has always denied the claim. The tech giant also recently disclosed a $300 million investment in Anthropic, a company creating a ChatGPT rival.
In other news, this ingenious chatbot brought about some upheaval in the society. ‘ChatGPT, other AI models to disrupt Indian IT firms’ states JP Morgan analyst. For Indian IT companies, generative AI models like ChatGPT may temporarily impede market share gains and reduce demand. Moreover, there are innumerous reports about its potential threat to a wide range of jobs. The implications of the very smart tool can make the entire model of education go haywire if students can get their coursework done and university applications written instantly via ChatGPT or its rivals.
In a report published in 2013, two economists from Oxford University named Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated that automation or "computerization" will threaten 47% of US jobs. With the advent of the rising chatbot industry, Frey states that ChatGPT is an equivalent of Uber that disrupted the taxi industry. He further adds that AI could also lead to lowering of wages which has a direct impact on the standard of living of individuals.
That being said, we can imply that this state-of-the-art-technology is still in its infancy. ChatGPT can only access content that is readily available online as sources. It offers its responses as facts despite the fact that the internet is rife with false information.
Nevertheless, the increasing rivalry in the emerging field of chatbots ensures best services for the users. Each competitor comes up with a finer version only with the sole aim of acquiring the biggest chunk of market share. However, scrutinizing the pros and cons of this novel automation should be a pressing priority. If we, as a society, use this coming of age technology judiciously, it can mark the biggest development in human history.