ChatGPT and the Underscored Need for Fact-Based Research

Many of us that have sampled the capability of ChatGPT are experiencing an emotional cocktail with some combination of intrigue, excitement, and foreboding dread.?

The free online artificial intelligence-based chat bot from the OpenAI group (with investment and collaboration from Microsoft) has churned up real life use cases and no shortage of conspiracy theories about how it might disrupt the status quo in journalism, education, or other areas of the business landscape.?And while it’s hard not to be impressed or even mind-blown by its humanness, this technology ultimately shines a spotlight on a glaring need that surfaces in most corners of our business and personal lives: source facts + informed perspective.

This intellectual one-two punch is crucial for us humans and is an area where AI-based algorithms are currently falling short. If you were to ask ChatGPT a specific question, it does a phenomenal job giving you a specific answer. Like a search engine with a mouth, it will (usually) cite the source facts and wrap conversational language around them. If you ask it a more generic question however, you will get a generic answer. That answer will be quite well-written if a little wooden, but it will be generic, nonetheless.

To illustrate this phenomenon, the original intention here was to juxtapose ChatGPT responses with recent fact-based research and analysis to see if any obvious discrepancies bubbled to the surface.?Sadly, at the time of this writing ChatGPT seems to be tripping over itself as much of the digitized world is taking it out for a test drive. Either the good people at OpenAI and Microsoft have deliberately restricted access to the tool, or the tens of millions of concurrent sessions have choked its output (wrap your brain around the total computing horsepower being asked of this tool across the globe). Whatever the reason, we seem to be in a holding pattern with ChatGPT displaying this now-familiar screen:

Over-capacity aside, let’s attempt to run a test anyway. We can ask “smart services” like Google, Amazon Alexa, and Apple’s Siri to get their responses (although ChatGPT’s may be more complexly written). Instead of asking a specific question or a generic question, let’s shoot for a middle ground that would require our combination of facts and perspective. Perhaps a little bit on the nose, but let’s go with:

What impact does chat technology have in the business world?

<<Amazon Alexa Response>> “From Networkdepot.com: Live chat applications enable businesses to provide their customers and clients with a high level of personalized communication that improves their overall interactive experience.”

<<ChatGPT Response>> TBD, but likely some well-written prose speaking broadly about how companies can improve things like customer retention and issue resolution using these technologies.?The response would also likely include self-references to ChatGPT and how disruptive and controversial its introduction has been.

<<Aberdeen / Fact-Based Research Response>> To answer this question, we’ll seek out the counsel of a top analyst and thought leader in the field of Customer Experience and Contact Center, Aberdeen’s own Omer Minkara .?Below is an excerpt and some research data from one of Omer’s reports:

The ROI of Chat-Enabled Commerce

Commerce activities have transformed drastically over the past decade. The widespread adoption and usage of the internet has pushed consumers to purchase products / services and request support online. While firms around the world have been trying to keep up with this change, the digitalization of commerce activities has continued with increasing speed and diversity. With the ever-growing consumer utilization of mobile devices (e.g., smart phones, tablets, and wearables), buyers have started using these devices to interact with businesses — a trend observed across almost all consumer-related industries (e.g., retail, CPG, hospitality, transportation, banking, and telecommunications)

(Chart from later in the report)

So, in a few sentences and one chart (and there’s quite a bit more where this came from), we see specific context, relevant data, and quantifiable business outcomes that go a long way toward answering the original question. The only thing missing here is good, old-fashioned human perspective and opinion, which is deliberately absent from the majority of Aberdeen’s research. Luckily, we have a snippet of that as well. While “chat-enabled commerce” is broader than just chat bots — the research here observed companies using live chat, text messaging, social messaging applications (e.g., WhatsApp, WeChat) and chat bots — we also asked Omer to weigh in on ChatGPT specifically, response below:

“As today’s shiny new object, ChatGPT will likely fade in popularity in the business world as it becomes apparent how limited the tool is when it comes to real-world use cases. The mass layoffs or overtaking of new jobs that many are concerned about are unlikely to become a reality any time soon. In broader terms, that's because it's still not smart enough to demonstrate critical thinking and analysis and is restricted to more basic machine learning. Over time, it will learn new skills, but things such as empathy and emotional decision making are outside of its practical capabilities and hence it will augment humans in serving customers versus entirely replace them.”

??????????????-Omer Minkara, VP & Principal Analyst, Customer Experience & Contact Center

The last line of his quote is the key here. Empathy can sometimes be scarce and emotional decision making certainly has its downside, but they are also critical components to how humans interact with each other and how we process data into our informed perspective. In the right scenarios, ChatGPT is assisting, rather than replacing as Omer suggests. When it attempts to replace it speaks in generic terms or simply regurgitates other pre-existing human perspective, which brings us back to the original point:

AI-based tools like ChatGPT underscore the need for fact-based research and informed perspective.??

Aberdeen Strategy & Research , #chatgpt #artificialintelligence