Is ChatGPT our entry into the future?

• What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, is a chatbot developed by OpenAI. ChatGPT is built on top of OpenAI's GPT-3.5 family of large language models and fine-tuned with supervised and reinforcement learning techniques.?

ChatGPT automatically generates text based on written prompts in a fashion that’s much more advanced and creative than the chatbots of Silicon Valley’s past. It can even carry out a conversation that feels pretty close to the one you’d have with a human being. ChatGPT was met in December 2022 with generally positive reviews; The New York Times labeled it "the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public". Samantha Lock of The Guardian noted that it was able to generate "impressively detailed" and "human-like" text. Five days after OpenAI released ChatGPT, the chat research tool “crossed 1 million users!”

• Examples of fairly complex prompts:

These were some really smart answers by the AI:

• About Language Models:

ChatGPT was trained on an enormous amount of text data. It learned to recognize patterns that enable it to produce its own text mimicking various writing styles. OpenAI doesn’t reveal the precise data used for training ChatGPT, but the company says it generally crawled the web, used archived books, and Wikipedia. ChatGPT offers “more creative” responses compared to similar language models developed by big tech companies. A competitor, Meta’s AI language tool, dubbed RoBERTa, seems more capable at categorizing and labeling text, and Google isn’t too far behind as well; it is building similar natural language models such as LaMDA, which could find its way into new products.

• Google vs. ChatGPT:

Often ChatGPT's answers far surpass what Google will suggest, so it's easy to imagine GPT-3 is a rival.

If ChatGPT’s popularity continues to grow along with other chat-based tools that answer questions, Google may have to update its core search technology to focus more prominently center on chat. There is a growing segment of the population that prefers getting information via questions and answers as opposed to a typical search query. Currently, since the accuracy and reliability of ChatGPT are questionable, Google still has a significant advantage over ChatGPT. The way it works currently is that people use ChatGPT and then go to Google to verify the results.?

Brian Nowak, a bank’s lead analyst on Alphabet, wrote that language models could take market share “and disrupt Google’s position as the entry point for people on the Internet.” However, Nowak said the firm is still confident in Google’s position because the company is continuing to improve search, and creating behavioral change is a huge hurdle -- many internet users use Google as a habit. Because ChatGPT is a language model, it can understand and respond to natural language queries, allowing users to ask questions and receive answers in a more intuitive and human-like way. This can make the search experience more engaging and interactive and may be especially useful for users with specific or complex information needs.

On the other hand, there are also potential limitations to using ChatGPT as a search engine. Because it is a large language model and not a traditional search engine, ChatGPT may not have access to the same breadth and depth of information as other search engines. This means that it may not be able to provide as comprehensive or up-to-date results and may not be as effective for certain types of searches, such as those that require a large amount of data or real-time information. Another factor to consider before using the results of ChatGPT is that it was trained in 2021, so before you search for anything, tell yourself that the world ChatGPT knows is the world of 2021, not anything after that. But it’s clear that it has the potential to be a major player in the world of natural language processing.

• How ChatGPT can help you:

You can ask it countless questions and often will get a helpful answer. But here's the catch: ChatGPT doesn't exactly know anything. It's an AI trained to recognize patterns in vast swaths of text harvested from the internet, then further trained with human assistance to deliver more useful, better dialog. The answers you get may sound plausible and even authoritative, but they might well be entirely wrong, as OpenAI warns.

ChatGPT can retrace steps humans have taken, and it can generate actual programming code. You just have to ensure it's not bungling programming concepts or using software that doesn't work. The StackOverflow ban on ChatGPT-generated software is there for a reason.

StackOverflow said that “Because GPT is good enough to convince users of the site that the answer holds merit, signals the community typically use to determine the legitimacy of their peers’ contributions frequently fail to detect severe issues with GPT-generated answers. As a result, objectively wrong information makes its way onto the site. In its current state, GPT risks breaking readers’ trust that our site provides answers written by subject-matter experts. As a precaution, don't use the information generated by ChatGPT to make critical health or financial decisions without thorough verification. While ChatGPT is indeed a game-changing AI product, it is still mostly a work in progress.” Sites that are known for their trust and reliability will hesitate before allowing users to use the uncited and unverified ChatGPT results on their platforms because such answers can tarnish the brand they’ve created throughout the years.?

To make it easier, Alex Cohen, a senior director of products at Carbon Health, used ChatGPT to make a health-improving plan with a daily calorie target, exercise suggestions, a weeklong list of meals, and even a shopping list for all the necessary ingredients.

• What it can do:

1. ChatGPT is highly scalable, which makes it well-suited for use in large-scale applications.
2. It can help teachers to prepare their content for the day, and students to get essays written for them, to solve maths problems step by step, to explain complex topics in layman's terms (and, of course, to cheat)
3. It can help programmers to write, debug and explain their code
4. It can be used in customer service and market research
5. It can be used in planning
6. Parents can use it to generate bedtime stories, grocery lists
7. It can be used for interview prepping
8. It can create a customized resume and cover letter
9. It can write its own jokes
10. It can give advice whenever needed
11. It can write songs

• Some cases where it gave BS answers super-confidently:

In the first line of the second paragraph, it says, “It is not possible to heat an object to a temperature above absolute zero.” Well, this answer just questions the whole evolution of science.

My Takeaway:

It would be best if you think twice before trusting ChatGPT. As with Google and other sources of information like Wikipedia, it's best to verify information from original sources before relying on it. ChatGPT is no substitute for a physician and dietitian who can cater a plan to your specific needs and physiology. I will have my reservations on this AI as ChatGPT is an incomplete version and there is a lot of work that needs to be done. It is as we say in Hindi, “Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost”.