ChatGPT: Does it Pose More Opportunities or Threats to Businesses?

The generative AI tool ChatGPT has gained exponential interest and concern in equal measure since it launched in November 2022. Reaching 1 million users in just five days, ChatGPT is expected to bring its pioneer OpenAI $200 million by the end of the year. Before businesses jump on the ChatGPT bandwagon, it’s important to understand the opportunities and risks the tool presents, as well as its ethical considerations and limitations.  

In this exclusive interview, futurist and thought leader Gerd Leonhard shares his thoughts on ChatGPT and gives sound advice to business leaders on how to leverage and manage this emerging iteration of AI.  

What is ChatGPT and what are its limitations? 

It’s a language learning model, an AI software that looks for patterns and clues on how to answer a question by looking at millions of statements that are related to the question. Of course, language models and AI have been around for 20 years with deep learning and machine learning. But the fact is that OpenAI decided to release ChatGPT to the public, creating a moon landing moment. ChatGPT is Sputnik, and the people on the moon are Bing and Google trying to integrate it. So, it’s a big deal for many reasons. I think it has great potential but also grave concerns like every big technology. However, ChatGPT isn't going to be like the Metaverse, cryptocurrency, or blockchain. It’s a real game-changing moment and something we should be looking at across the board. 

Will ChatGPT replace existing search engines? 

Search engines have been integrating ChatGPT gradually. For example, You.com and Bing, and Google soon — in the sense of having an optional chat bar. But we have to be careful of the relevance of those answers and fact check – which ChatGPT can’t do in a meaningful way currently. AI is a tool that we have to remain skeptical of. To paraphrase Kevin Kelly, “humans are for questions, machines are for answers.” I think that is so true. In this case, we should not be overestimating the truth and the validity of the answer.  

I think the key problem is that it’s so tempting. ChatGPT may turn into a huge laziness machine if we are not careful. With OpenAI’s recent partnership with Microsoft, we can expect fast development but it’s not going to replace search engines. Something to keep in mind is that humans make decisions by looking at a decision tree, images, and feelings.  

AI knows nothing about real life, it only knows data life. So, we should remain careful as to how much we rely on AI.  

Do you think jobs will be lost to ChatGPT?

Technology needs to be used in a wise way. Look at call centers for example, I think 90% of those jobs will be automated but there will still be a need for supervisors. But yes, it will have an impact on routine jobs.  

If you learn like a robot, you'll never have a job or you end up working for the robots.

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