by - An updated version of OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, was launched on 30 November.
- Talk of the new technology has extended beyond the business world, impressing and exasperating users.
- While the technology’s long-term influence remains to be seen, people are finding creative ways to use it.
It’s safe to say that ChatGPT is causing havoc.
The AI chatbot from OpenAI has only been around for two months and has already amassed more than one million users.
Launched on November 30, the chatbot has impressed – and annoyed – many different people. Talk of the new technology has extended far beyond the business world and has even managed to provoke the scorn of award-winning songwriter Nick Cave.
ChatGPT has already been compared to the launch of the iPhone and the crypto boom, but while the technology’s long-term influence remains to be seen, people are already finding creative ways to use it.
From job seekers, to rival tech companies and academics, here are some of the people feeling the heat from ChatGPT.
‘Code Red’ for search engines
OpenAI’s chatbot and Microsoft’s reported plans to invest $10 billion in it, after an earlier investment of $1 billion, seem to have irked Google.
In December, Google management issued a “code red” during the launch of ChatGPT, according to The New York Times. The outlet reported that the conversational chatbot sparked concerns about the future of Google’s search engine.
Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a Bing feature that incorporates the technology behind ChatGPT. The feature, which aims to provide users with answers to some queries rather than just displaying relevant links, could appear by the end of March, The Information reported.
AI experts, search experts and current and former Google employees told Insider’s Tom Dotan that ChatGPT is unlikely to be a replacement for Google search at the moment due to concerns about inaccurate answers.
Academic anxiety
ChatGPT can also write pretty good essays and pass some exams, abilities that have put some academics on edge.
While some teachers are more positive about the development, seeing the technology as a time-saving tool or an extension of more common AI programs like Grammarly, others are less keen.
Two philosophy professors told Insider that they’ve already caught students trying to pass off AI-generated content as their own. They say they are concerned that the bot’s output will be harder to catch and that AI plagiarism is difficult to prove within current academic rules.
A job seeker’s best friend
Cover letters are almost universally hated by job seekers. ChatGPT can only provide a way around that painstaking task.
I asked ChatGPT to write my cover letters and sent them to hiring managers to see what they thought. I gave the bot some real job descriptions and some short sentences about my fictional experience to generate the letters.
The hiring managers were mostly impressed, and both said they would most likely follow up with a screening interview for at least one of the letters. They said the letters lacked personality and suggested job seekers should use the chatbot as more of a starting point.
Uninspired creatives
Award-winning songwriter and musician Nick Cave was not impressed with ChatGPT. He called a ChatGPT song written in his style “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human” and dismissed it as “bullshit” in his newsletter.
Cave said he lacked enthusiasm for the new technology, calling the AI-generated song “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.”
The musician is not the only creative who takes issue with the new technology. Ammaar Reshi, a design manager at a fintech company, found himself in the middle of a heated debate about AI and the creative industries after he used ChatGPT, along with the AI art program Midjourney, to write and illustrate a children’s book.
Artists took to Twitter to accuse him of stealing their work while readers took aim at the quality of the story. “The writing is stiff and has no voice whatsoever,” wrote one Amazon reviewer.
