Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you won’t have missed the rise of ChatGPT and other AI tools. In this blog post, we’ll summarise what ChatGPT actually is, how it works, and whether you could or should use it in your business.
OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT, describes it as an ‘artificial intelligence chatbot’. It is, essentially, a piece of AI software that responds to prompts by providing answers in a conversational way. It continually learns how to refine and improve its output based on users’ responses and instructions.
Using ChatGPT feels as though you are conversing with a person, not a machine. It’s taken the online world by storm because it is the most advanced piece of consumer AI software we’ve seen, and it is already making us rethink the way we do business.
ChatGPT is what’s known as an open language model. The name is made up of ‘chat’ because users enter into what feels like a conversation, and ‘GPT’, which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer; the technical name for the language learning model that it uses.
The AI tool takes the words you type and searches the internet for words that ‘match’ to formulate an answer. ChatGPT doesn’t ‘think’ for itself; it is more like a highly advanced search engine that can present selected information in a human-sounding way.
ChatGPT is already being used in more ways than you can imagine. Businesses are using it to:
…and so much more. It can even be used to create images, poems, academic writings and Excel formulae.
However, proceed with caution: If ChatGPT sounds too good to be true, maybe it is…
Yes, at least for now.
Unfortunately, there are some major drawbacks to using ChatGPT or AI tools for your business, including some that could really get you into hot water.
One of the most significant pitfalls of ChatGPT is that the information it provides is often inaccurate, incorrect or fabricated. This can create all sorts of problems for businesses, including misleading customers, losing credibility and appearing unprofessional.
ChatGPT doesn’t provide sources or references for its answers, so you can’t fact-check. If you ask it to show its sources, it will give you a list – however, upon further investigation, the sources can be incorrect or even entirely made up.
There have been numerous reports of copyright infringements through using ChatGPT or other AI tools. As ChatGPT pulls its information from the internet, anything it creates can (and does) already exist elsewhere on the internet – and you don’t know if it is subject to copyright laws. This has proven particularly troublesome for graphics and artwork created by AI that has used artists’ work without permission.
As ChatGPT is a language model drawing upon content that already exists, it can only do what it’s programmed to do (i.e., it can’t ‘think’ for itself). At the time of writing, ChatGPT can only access internet content that was published in 2021 or earlier. To put that into context, it doesn’t know that Russia invaded Ukraine, that the HRH Queen Elizabeth passed away or that Elon Musk now owns Twitter.
Although there is so much speculation about AI content production, it has a little way to go before we can rely on it to create accurate, up-to-date content for our businesses.
However, things are moving and developing so quickly; who knows what the next few months or years hold for ChatGPT and AI? Watch this space…
If you want help with content strategy, creation or management, we’d be happy to help. Get in touch or call us on 01260218975.
