ChatGPT is an artificial-intelligence chatbot developed by San Francisco-based AI research company OpenA

Within weeks of its launch, OpenAI‘s ChatGPT triggered a new global race in artificial intelligence. The chatbot is part of a fresh wave of so-called generative AI—sophisticated systems that produce content from text to images—that is set to be one of the most disruptive forces in a decade to Big Tech, industries and the future of work.

Microsoft Corp. has added the technology to its products, including search engine Bing, while competitors Google and Baidu are pushing to launch similar tools. Despite its sudden burst in popularity, the technology currently has serious limitations and potential risks that include spewing misinformation and infringing on intellectual property.

ChatGPT is trained on a vast compilation of articles, websites and social-media posts scraped from the internet as well as real-time conversations—primarily in English—with human contractors hired by OpenAI. It learns to mimic the grammar and structure of the writing and reflects frequently-used phrases.

The chatbot isn’t always accurate: its sources aren’t fact-checked, and it relies on human feedback to improve its accuracy.

OpenAI developed ChatGPT as part of a strategy to build AI software that will help the company turn a profit. In January, Microsoft, its strategic partner, unveiled a fresh multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI and said it plans to infuse ChatGPT into its Bing search app and other products.

Is AI going to replace jobs?

As with every wave of automation technologies, the latest will likely have a significant impact on jobs and the future of work. Whereas blue-collar workers bore the brunt of earlier waves, generative AI will likely have a greater effect on white-collar professions. A 2019 study from the Brookings Institution found that AI would most affect jobs such as marketing specialists, financial advisers and computer programmers.

Those effects will be mixed. Economists who study automation have found that three things tend to happen: some workers improve their productivity, some jobs are automated or consolidated, and new jobs that didn’t previously exist are also created.

The final scorecard is difficult to predict. In company-level studies of automation, researchers have found that some companies that adopt automation may increase their productivity and ultimately hire more workers over time. But those workers can experience wage deflation and fewer career growth opportunities.

Newly created jobs often go one of two ways: they either require more skill, or a lot less, than the work that was automated. Self-driving cars, for example, create new demand for highly skilled engineers but also for low-skilled safety drivers, who sit in the driver’s seat to babysit the vehicle.