You have to be living under a rock or on an island somewhere without the Internet if you have yet to hear about ChatGPT. Ever since the end of 2022, OpenAI’s revolutionary tool has been on everyone’s minds, as its existence is bound to change the way many industries operate.
For years now, we’ve heard people talk about the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it could negatively and positively affect our lives. However, up until now, these talks seemed more in the realm of distant possibility rather than an imminent reality. Now, with the emergence of tools like ChatGPT, the idea that AI will change the way we do marketing, school, design, and other areas of work and life seems like a reality we have to accept and learn to deal with.
In this article, we will be discussing the development of tools like ChatGPT, how they operate, what they can help you do, and what alternatives to the software exist. By the end of this article, you will hopefully have a greater understanding of AI and how to take advantage of its capabilities, and also be aware of potential issues it creates.
What is ChatGPT?
OpenAI developed ChatGPT, which is essentially a chatbot based on the GTP-3.5 model. It can communicate in the form of normal dialogue, and it responds to all kinds of inquiries in a way that feels incredibly close to what a human would say. A technology called the “large language model” (LLM) predicts the next word in a sequence of words and reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF). This way of training uses the user’s feedback to help the platform learn new things and generate even better replies.
More About the ChatGPT Training Model
For the GPT-3.5 to be trained, the developers used a ton of information from the Internet, including Reddit and Twitter threads, along with vast amounts of code data. By doing so, they managed to teach ChatGPT how to generate human-like responses and participate in a dialogue.
Additionally, human feedback was used for ChatGPT training. The Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) technique trains the tool with the help of human feedback so that AI can better understand what kind of replies it’s expected to provide whenever a user asks a question. This kind of training is truly revolutionary as it doesn’t just teach LLM to predict the next word, but makes it come up with replies that feel human-like.
What separates ChatGPT from other platforms is the fact that it has been trained to understand the intentions humans have when asking a question and, in turn, provides helpful and truthful answers. Because of that, ChatGPT doesn’t only provide standard responses but may even refuse to answer a question or challenge it. Over time, ChatGPT can even understand what kind of answers you prefer and start accommodating its responses to your personal preferences.
What Makes ChatGPT Special?
Now that you have basic knowledge about ChatGPT, let’s talk a bit more about what makes it so unique. It’s clear that it is the most advanced version compared to its predecessors, but there are a few functions that truly make it stand out.
The Ability to Remember
Unlike most AI, ChatGPT can remember the context of the conversation you’re having with it. This is one of its most notable features, as it makes it able to utilize the knowledge it just gained throughout the rest of the dialogue, thus making it much more accurate and useful. This feature also makes ChatGPT prone to confirmation bias – meaning it will give you information based on the knowledge that it has on what you like or don’t like.
When you ask about a date and its meaning, it doesn’t give you just one answer based on where you’re located. Instead, chatGPT lists all of the knowledge it has and allows you to choose which information is relevant to you.
Multiple Language Support
ChatGPT was built with the help of a massive amount of code and data, which makes it available in over 90 languages – talk about impressive! This allows the tools to be used worldwide, and it can even work as a translator.
It Can Hold a Conversation
One notable feature of ChatGPT is its ability to hold a conversation that feels incredibly human-like. It can understand both formal language and slang terms and even understands humor, and can “say” the occasional joke. Thanks to its unique learning method and structure, ChatGPT can comprehend nuance and language in a way that no other version has been able to before now.
Few Harmful Outputs
Unlike most chat software, the one made by OpenAI is well-trained to spot harmful or inappropriate requests. While there’s still a chance for the ChatGPT to say something offensive, the risk is minimized compared to other AI tools. In most cases, if you try to ask something inappropriate, it will just answer with an error message.
What Can ChatGPT Do?
It’s hard to list all that ChatGPT can do, but here are a few use cases that might pique your interest.
Answer General Questions
ChatGPT can work as a better version of Google search. For example, if you’re wondering what the capital of Belgium is or when World War I ended, you can ask the tool and it will give you a simple answer at first and a more in-depth one if you prompt it to be more specific. Because of the extensive database that was used in its creation, ChatGPT has in-depth knowledge in a variety of subjects, including physics, chemistry, biology, geography, history, and language, which makes it a great helper when doing school work or researching topics.
Create Resumes and Cover Letters
If you tell ChatGPT all your qualifications, experience, and education, it will be able to create a custom-made CV for you. While you can make some alterations to make it even more personal and suited to the position you’re applying for, it’s still a great help as it takes a lot of work off your plate.
Along with that, if you need a cover letter for a particular position, you can provide the tool with all the information you have and it will prepare one for you. The more information you can give to ChatGPT, the more personalized and suitable the cover letter will be.
Fix Your Grammar
If you ask ChatGPT, it can find the issues with spelling and grammatical errors in a text you provide it with. Similar to software like Grammarly, ChatGPT can correct the tone, intent, and reading level of your writing based on what you want it to sound like. The chatbot goes a step further and can even explain the reasons behind the changes it makes in your text so that you can understand the errors in your writing. However, the one thing that ChatGPT cannot do is check for plagiarism.
In the example above, I simply ask chatGPT to check the first paragraph of this article for grammatical errors, and it immediately provides an answer.
Summarize and Simplify Long Text
If you’re struggling to understand a long text or just lack the time to read it, ChatGPT can do the job for you and provide you with a quick summary! This is incredibly useful for things such as legislation documents, student books, and even old-school literature that are tougher to read through. All you have to do is copy and paste the text, ask ChatGPT to summarize the text, and it will summarize it and provide you with a few key points. As if this tool couldn’t get more impressive, it can also analyze the sentiment, purpose, and tone of voice of any given text.
For example, here, I just copied a link to a long article, and the AI made a quick summary to give me a sense of the main points.
What’s more incredible is that the tool can tell us the sentiment of any given text, along with details about its purpose and the tone of voice used. Based on how much you can or want to read, you can give the software instructions on how to summarize so that it fits your needs.
Code and Debug
ChatGPT can write code and debug any code that was already written and needs fixing. This feature makes it a must-use tool for all software developers and people learning how to write code.
The AI can give you full snippets of code, along with a breakdown and description of what each section of the code is doing. You can even ask it to expand the code and build on it based on what you need. The key is to be as descriptive as possible so that you get the most effective possible answer.
Do Creative Work
Something to note: ChatGPT cannot come up with a completely new or unique concept; it merely summarizes information about things that have already been done before. It won’t write the new Harry Potter novel on its own or produce a masterpiece of a song. It can copy the tone of voice and style of specific authors and can help you generate ideas if you’re stuck. ChatGPT can also visually aid you if you plan on creating video or photo content. Thanks to it and the power of text-to-image AI tools, you can design clothes based on specific ideas that you generate, and you can come up with interesting concepts.
Does This Mean ChatGPT is a Better Search Tool Than Google?
If you plan on asking Google questions like, “What’s the capital of Sweden?” or “Who designed the MET?” then it’s likely that you will find satisfactory answers. That’s because it provides you with the answer right away. However, what makes ChatGPT stand out is its ability to provide more in-depth answers if you follow up your initial inquiry with a “Tell me more.” Instead of simply showing you links to various websites (like Google does), the AI answers your follow-up questions with more detail. In that sense, GPT-3 poses a real threat to Google’s dominance as a search engine.
One thing to be aware of is ChatGPT’s limits and the fact that it’s prone to confirmation bias – meaning it can sometimes give you false or misleading answers based on the knowledge it already has. Much like we all know not to trust Wikipedia blindly, the same applies to relying on ChatGPT. While it may give correct answers the majority of the time, it’s still best to verify and double-check, especially if you’re using the information for an important project.
With that said, researching the answers that ChatGPT provides is somewhat challenging as it never quotes or links sources – instead, it just gives you raw text that you need to read and consider carefully. Likely, the text ChatGPT provides you with is directly sourced from various Google materials, but you likely won’t find the source because of the way the text is worded.
Google currently has its language models and already uses AI in the search function. Rumor has it that the appearance of ChatGPT on the market caused a “code red” emergency for Google and its co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Even though ChatGPT presents a threat, it still doesn’t replace the use of Google. Besides tending to be biased and not always providing correct answers, the AI tool also has the limitation of having “off-limit” topics.
What’s Off Limits for ChatGPT?
OpenAI designed its tool so that it weeds out requests it deems “inappropriate.” This is due to the company’s mission to make sure AI benefits humanity instead of capitalizing on people’s worst features.
Finding out what’s off-limits for the tool is quite easy – you only need to ask it, and it will provide an answer immediately. Off-limits inquiries are those that are offensive, discriminatory, or inappropriate, including sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, or in any other way hateful. Additionally, it cannot engage in any illegal activity.
One thing that ChatGPT can do, even though it’s malicious, is to write phishing emails used to trick people; however, that goes against OpenAI’s beliefs, and it’s likely to be a feature they work to remove, but it will be challenging to do so.
What Are the Limitations of ChatGPT?
From everything you’ve read so far, you likely believe that ChatGPT is an incredible tool that can do anything and everything. That notion is likely to cause you both excitement and, maybe, a bit of concern. But don’t worry! The reality is that, much like any other software, this one also has its limitations and downsides.
The creators of ChatGPT and OpenAI do mention that AI can sometimes give misleading or wrong answers and may lead you to believe it’s much better than it is. Sometimes, it will warn you about potential shortcomings – for example, if you ask a question it can’t find the answer to, it will simply apologize and not provide further output.
As you can see, the AI knows its limitations and tries to give you the best possible responses
Moreover, it can provide answers that might look accurate but may be factually incorrect. If you ask the right questions with the right intent, the AI is most likely to give you the correct answer. However, if it’s unable to interpret your tone of voice, or if you throw it a curveball, it’s likely to spit out nonsense.
In recent months, the journal Science banned the use of ChatGPT text, claiming that an AI tool cannot be an author. According to them, using text from the tool will constitute scientific misconduct and will be treated similarly to plagiarism of existing works. StackOverflow, one of the most popular software development sites, also banned ChatGPT answers to programming questions, stating that the rate of correct answers it provides is currently too low.
We have to note that ChatGPT can answer complex inquiries, which is an incredible achievement, as computers are typically literal and can simply follow interface requirements and exact syntax. The large language learning models used to create ChatGPT give it a more human-like style of interaction and make its answers more useful; however, we still have to consider the fact that it’s a pre-programmed algorithm giving you these answers and not an actual human.
Before You Go
The reality of AI is both intimidating and exciting. It’s incredible to believe we live in times where a computer can virtually give you answers to tens of thousands of questions while sounding completely human at the same time. If and when used correctly, AI provides you with endless possibilities to become more creative, more effective at your work, and an overall deeper thinker.
We urge you not to forget about the downside of relying on artificial intelligence too much. As a reminder, these tools give you what has already been created by someone else. They’re not able to think, dream, innovate, and create on their own; they can only interpret the already existing database. People must continue to value the work that only the human mind can do. People should encourage creativity, outside-the-box thinking, and expression at all levels of education and the workplace, as it seems that that is the only way to preserve the value of what humanity can bring to the table.
As AI continues to grow to be a bigger topic, we at Camberlion are set to cover it in all its aspects – both the good and bad. If you want to keep learning, sharing, and growing, subscribe to our blog and follow us on social media.