ChatGPT is a chatbot that uses artificial intelligence, allowing you to talk to it in a very human way. It’s been making the news around the world for some of the remarkable possibilities it seems to be creating. But what exactly is it, and why is it making such waves?
ChatGPT is trained on real human language. It can answer questions, and even compose documents, like emails, essays and computer code. The exciting thing is the way it allows you to have a natural-feeling conversation with it to generate different responses – perhaps adding more detail, or asking it to use less technical language.
It was created by research company OpenAI, which is funded and managed by some of the most influential names in tech. And while it’s still in its research and feedback-collection phase, it’s currently free to use (with limitations).
It’s different to a search engine because it’s designed with conversation in mind. While it can answer questions, it doesn’t search the internet for information. Everything is learned from training data (it has no knowledge past 2021). So, while many people have started using ChatGPT to write essays and articles, the facts may not be accurate. In fact, tech media website CNET recently had to issue multiple major corrections after it created 78 articles using the chatbot.
Because it’s trained on huge amounts of text published online by humans, it’s had trouble telling fact from fiction, and has also been found to reproduce some unwanted biases – for instance against women and people of color.
It’s not changing the world just yet. But it’s already clear that there is huge potential for both individuals and businesses alike.
Have you tried ChatGPT yet? What are your feelings about using AI in your business? We’d love to hear your thoughts. (P.S. A human wrote this article!)