AI has really hit the main stream media lately with the release of ChatGPT, however AI has been part of our digital lives for a very long time. Before I get too far into this tale, it is important to know what I mean when I am talking about AI.
There are two main types of AI (Artificial Intelligence); General AI and Narrow AI.
General AI is the stuff of science-fiction; androids, Skynet and the like.
Narrow AI is what we are most used to today. Computer programs that have got very good at doing one particular job. Narrow AI is also referred to as Machine Learning. These are things like chatbots, image recognition tools, among others.
ChatGPT is one of those tools that is classed in the Narrow AI category. It is very good at answering questions like a person.
Narrow AI (or machine learning), learn by being fed thousands and thousands of examples of what they are supposed to recognise and told what they are. Have you ever had to click on pictures of sidewalks or traffic lights when being asked if you were a robot? You are teaching the AI used in auto-pilot software to recognise those things. ChatGPT was fed essays, blog posts, social media posts, news articles and many more to learn how people write.
So what does all this mean for you and how you work? Currently ChatGPT is available free for anyone and is very simple to use. You can simply ask it a question, and it will generate a response. Many of Australia’s school systems and universities have already come out either in support of or against ChatGPT’s use in schools and unis. Why? Because ChatGPT can write an essay for you, or answer questions in an assignment for you and it will look and sound like it was written by a person, rather than obviously a computer program. The responses are also dynamically generated, so ten people could ask it the same question and get ten different (but correct) responses, so plagiarism is much harder to detect.
The same reasoning applies in the workplace. You would not want ChatGPT to write your weekly sales report, or write up a quote for you. However, you can get ChatGPT to give you a start in writing proposals, cover letters, or any other writing that you have to do for your organisation. It can help you understand a topic, or provide a breakdown of the steps needed to perform a task. All of these things can help you in your daily tasks and make your work more efficient.
At it’s core, this is what AI is supposed to be; a tool to make our lives easier.
If you want to check out ChatGPT, you can create a free account by going to https://chatgpt.openai.com and then ask it anything you like.
(By the way, many articles and blog posts on ChatGPT have given a Shyamalan-esque twist at the end, letting you know that “this article was written by ChatGPT”! Nope, not this one 😊).