An introduction to ChatGPT: uses and what makes it
a unique AI chatbot
Discover the power of ChatGPT as we look into the current status of
ChatGPT, its uses, ethical implications, and what makes it unique.
Artificial intelligence plays a key part in today’s technology, working
behind the scenes to simulate human intelligence and help us with various
things. As it continues to evolve and develop, we are seeing revolutionary
developments in the AI space.
ChatGPT is here to prove just how advanced artificial intelligence has
become, bringing a wealth of new developments to the table. Here, we’ll explore
what ChatGPT is, discuss if ChatGPT is free, explore what we can use it for and
look at the ethical implications.
What is ChatGPT?
Before we can understand the inner workings of ChatGPT, we first need a
basic understanding of what it is. Making waves in a variety of online spaces,
ChatGPT is the most advanced chatbot to
date, capable of answering complex questions and carrying out many advanced
tasks. This revolutionary chatbot goes above and beyond what we may expect when
it comes to generative AI.
The mastermind behind ChatGPT is OpenAI, an American artificial
intelligence research company. Even if you haven’t heard of OpenAI, you will
have likely been exposed to some of its AI tools online. As well as ChatGPT
being a hot topic, their text-to-image generator DALL.E 2 has also been a huge discussion
point on many platforms recently.
ChatGPT is built using an enhanced version of GPT-3, an advanced language processing AI model also made by OpenAI.
GPT-3 is built with a jaw-dropping 175 billion
parameters in place, making it the largest and most
complex natural language system to date.
If you’d like to learn how natural language processing is a crucial
component in AI, check out our Natural Language
Processing course or read our article on NLP.
Is ChatGPT released
yet?
You’re probably wondering how exactly you can
get your hands on this advanced tool to try it out for yourself. So, it’s worth
noting that this chatbot isn’t entirely complete and fully released yet. The
good news is that you can, however, try ChatGPT right now. It is currently in
research preview and is free to try out and use.
Will ChatGPT always be
free?
In its current state, ChatGPT is limitless and
entirely free to use. This likely won’t always be the case, as running a GPT-3
language model can be extremely costly, and OpenAI will have to recoup these
costs somehow. One article even suggests that it may cost a whopping $3
million per month to run ChatGPT. CEO Sam Altman has also responded to
queries saying they “will have to monetise it somehow at some point”.
How will ChatGPT become monetised? That, we
can’t say for sure. Some potential ways we could see this platform becoming
monetised could be the introduction of advertisements or a “cost per query”
fee. Seeing a price appointed for each use of the chatbot seems likely, as
their DALL.E network has a pay-for-what-you-use pricing system.
Why is ChatGPT
free?
OpenAI is hoping to gather feedback and
recommendations from users to improve their final product, which you can
provide within the platform. Despite still being in the early stages of
development, ChatGPT has already garnered waves of interest and excited
users.
If you do decide to give this chatbot a go, you
may find that the site is actually at capacity. ChatGPT rose to prominence
rapidly, with many screenshots of the chatbot going viral on various platforms.
Within the first five days of release, OpenAI already saw over a million users!
What makes ChatGPT
different from other chatbots?
There’s no denying that ChatGPT has made a huge
impact during its first few months. But ChatGPT certainly isn’t the first of
its kind, with ELIZA taking the title for the first-ever chatbot back
in the 1960s. With incredible advancements in technology, we’ve come a long way
since then and developed a wide variety of advanced AI tools such as LaMDA and Replika.
But what makes ChatGPT special, and how does it
differ from other chatbots before its time? Let’s find out.
Why is ChatGPT
special?
There are several reasons why ChatGPT is more
advanced than its various predecessors, so let’s look at some of the features
that separate ChatGPT from other chatbots.
Conversational
skills
ChatGPT has an impressive in-depth
understanding of both spoken and written words, and even understands humour.
Due to its unique structure, the tool is able to learn more about language and
nuances than any other of its kind.
Memory
One of the most special things about ChatGPT is
its ability to remember the context of your conversation. If you tell it that
something is true, it will recall this and utilise that knowledge throughout
the rest of your conversation.
Because of this skill, ChatGPT is no stranger
to confirmation bias – the tool will feed you information based on
what it knows to be true from previous exchanges between you.
Language
Seeing as the chatbot was built on such a large
dataset, ChatGPT supports over 90 languages. This means that we can
interact with the chatbot in a wide variety of languages and even get the
chatbot to translate text for us.
Minimised harmful
outputs
Another impressive aspect of ChatGPT is that it
is well-trained to decline any inappropriate or harmful requests. While the
chatbot is still capable of saying potentially harmful things, the risk is very
much minimised in comparison to other AI tools. If you try to instigate an
inappropriate reaction, you’ll likely just receive an error message.
What can ChatGPT do?
We can’t begin to delve into all of
ChatGPTs uses, but let’s take a look at just a few of the ways you can use
ChatGPT.
Write cover letters and
CVs
Outline your qualifications and experience to
ChatGPT, and you’ll be met with a fully customised CV. While some tweaks
may have to be made to personalise the CV further, this could still take away
from the bulk of your work when applying for roles.
Similarly, ChatGPT can prepare a cover letter
for you if you provide it with details about the position you’re applying for.
The more information you provide, the more personalised and accurate your cover
letter will be.
Summarise and simplify
concepts within text
If you have a long document that you don’t
understand or don’t have time to read in full, ChatGPT can offer you a summary
of the given text. This could be useful for things like legislation documents,
with the chatbot able to pull apart key points and summarise them for
you.
ChatGPT can even tell us what the sentiment of
any given text is, letting us know details about the tone or purpose of the
text. Since you can specify the word count or desired number of points in a
list, you can even customise the summaries you receive.
Correct grammar
When asked to do so, ChatGPT can identify and
correct any spelling and grammatical errors in the text that you provide it
with. While other grammar tools can suggest tone changes, intent,
text length and reading levels, you can ask ChatGPT to rewrite your text and
factor these things in.
The chatbot can also explain these changes and
the reasoning behind them so you can better understand the errors in your
writing. What ChatGPT cannot do, however, is check your content for
plagiarism.
Write and debug
code
One of the most impressive uses of ChatGPT is
its ability to not only write code but also debug code too. This can
be an incredibly helpful tool for software developers trying to proof-check
their work.
ChatGPT can offer you full code snippets along
with a breakdown of what each part of the code is doing. You can even ask
ChatGPT to build on this code and expand it for what you need, but you’ll have
to be descriptive with your requests to get the most effective code.
Write books and songs
ChatGPT can be used to write more than just
documents – it can be used to write songs, poems, and even stories. As if that
wasn’t impressive enough, it can even replicate the writing style of specific
authors! Similarly, you can specify the genre of song you’re requesting when it
comes to songwriting.
Through the power of both ChatGPT and
text-to-image AI tools, a product design manager recently published a
children’s book titled Alice and Sparkle. Amazingly, Alice and Sparkle was
made entirely using AI tools, meaning he has been selling copies of a book he
had no artistic involvement with.
With such an expansive list of capabilities and
potential uses, the real question should be what can’t ChatGPT do.
Chat to ChatGPT
While ChatGPT is packed with advanced
functionality, it is, after all, still a chatbot. You can use the tool as a
companion or someone to talk to, and even ask for useful life advice when you
need it. Being such a conversational chatbot with a grasp on language nuances
and humour, this could be the closest alternative to human companionship
yet.
Ethical implications of
ChatGPT
It’s safe to say that this tool has the
potential to make a huge impact in many areas. But it’s important to also
consider the ethical implications of ChatGPT and discuss some of the concerns
people may have with this chatbot.
Is ChatGPT
accurate?
We can’t discuss the negative implications of
ChatGPT without addressing such a key question. While ChatGPT hosts a wealth of
accurate information, it isn’t always correct, even if it sounds confident
while relaying incorrect information. In fact, ChatGPT uses offline data and
only has access to information up until 2021, so it is unable to offer insight
into recent developments.
This could potentially be misleading if you use
the tool without prior awareness. The natural way of speech and confidence
could certainly convey that the outputs are factual when they could actually be
very far off.
Misuse of ChatGPT for
schoolwork
It’s no surprise that some individuals have
harnessed the power of ChatGPT to not just assist with essays, but write them
entirely. Not only can the chatbot write entire essays for you, but it can do
so in a matter of seconds.
These outputs can be so convincingly
well-written that they’re almost indistinguishable from an authentic essay or
assignment. We can imagine the ramifications of students getting AI to complete
their work – minimised learning and teachers being unable to provide
effective feedback for one.
Solutions are already being worked on to
counter this, an example being GPTzero.
This tool was created specifically for educators to detect the use of AI within
text and identify when essays aren’t organic.
Are jobs at risk due to
ChatGPT?
At the forefront of many of our minds when
discussing AI tools are questions regarding the impact of AI on certain jobs
and industries. Technology is as close to automation in terms of skills like
writing and programming as
we’ve ever been, so it’s understandable that some of us are concerned.
Although AI is a long way from taking over and
leaving humans entirely redundant, there are some real concerns about AI
minimising opportunities for some of us. For example, Shutterstock is now
connected to DALL.E 2, leaving photographers competing against AI on
the platform.
Many people are of the mindset that while AI
can complete many tasks, it could never truly replace human involvement in art.
For example, there is a lot of discourse surrounding the abilities and ethics
of AI art apps such as Lensa.
Also, singer-songwriter Nick Cave recently expressed his disappointment toward ChatGPT
replicating his style of songwriting.
Final thoughts
With this dive into the current status of
ChatGPT and what ChatGPT can be used for, we’ve highlighted just how powerful
this technology is. We hope that we’ve managed to help build your understanding
of ChatGPT, and potentially even inspired you to delve even further into the
world of AI.
If you’re looking for more artificial
intelligence knowledge, here are a few courses you may be interested in:
- Learn
how to design and prototype your own chatbot with our Design a
Feminist Chatbot course.
- Discover
the potential of using artificial intelligence in both your personal and
work life in our Digital Skills: Artificial Intelligence course.
- Learn
how and why conversational interfaces have developed in our Introduction
to Conversational Interfaces course.
- Explore
how to separate artificial intelligence reality from fiction hype in our Artificial
Intelligence: Distinguishing Between Fact and Fiction course.
- Explore
the ways AI is changing the creative industries in our Introduction
to Creative AI course.
- Discover
the key legal concepts tied to artificial intelligence in our The
Laws of Digital Data, Content and Artificial Intelligence (AI) course.
