Thinking about using AI to help with your cover letter? Read this first

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Let’s agree: Writing a cover letter is pretty much the worst thing ever. For this and other writing tasks we may want to avoid, people are increasingly turning to AI-assisted tools like ChatGPT. Today we’re spotlighting one of the big AI pitfalls you need to watch out for if you go that road with your writing.

THE ‘HALLUCINATIONS’ OF BOTS

• In their quest to sound human, AI bots often write things that simply aren’t true. Researchers call this looseness with the truth “hallucinations,” a characterization in line with our tendency to think of AI systems as people.
• But they’re not, says Brown University Professor Suresh Venkatasubramanian , who co-authored the White House’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights . The reality is AI systems have “no knowledge of truth” and are simply trained to “produce a plausible sounding answer” to your questions, he says, comparing it to a child’s storytelling. “You only have to say, ‘And then what happened?’ and [they] just continue producing more stories.”
• But a childlike yarn can be a problem when users turn to AI systems for things like resumes, cover letters, work research or health inquiries. The problem could widen as companies do more with AI, like using it to summarize job candidates’ qualifications to decide who gets an interview.

AI HAS ALREADY EMBARRASSED ITS HUMAN MASTERS

• Just this week, newspaper chain Gannett had to hit pause on its AI tool after it spit out some glaringly awkward dispatches about high school sports. The articles were fixed, but not until after first-edition readers had to make sense of phrases like “a close encounter of the athletic kind.” (Getting AI to write the news is one of the big pushes with the burgeoning tech, which you can read more about in this previous edition of PM Plug-In .)
• There are several other examples , including a New York lawyer who filed a legal brief citing six cases his chatbot research assistant appears to have completely made up .
• The problem is often how plausible the incorrect information is. AI systems imply a “pure confidence” in their answers, even when they’ve botched a simple fact, says Professor Jevin West , co-founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.

‘THE NATURE OF THE BEAST’

• Some experts are skeptical that the problem can be fixed, notably because of how complex it is to train an AI system and the gargantuan data sets involved. They say tinkering with one area of the system could have unintended consequences, like going back in time to try to fix something in the future.
• "Trying to identify the ways in which things can go awry is very hard, because there's so many small things that can go wrong," Venkatasubramanian says, adding, "That's just the nature of the beast, if something is that sensitive and that complicated."
• Even if factual inaccuracies could be fixed, it could make AI systems less useful for creative types, like those asking ChatGPT to help write poetry or song lyrics.

BIG PIC

• The bottom line is that AI tools can be helpful but for now “shouldn’t be used in places where people are going to be materially impacted,” Venkatasubramanian says.
• Tech leaders pushing the envelope on AI agree their systems should be used with caution. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, recently said he’d trust his bot’s research answers “the least of anybody on Earth.”
• Experts say you need to put up your own human guardrails if you make use of AI tools for things like work or school. That means not asking a chatbot a question you don’t already know the answer to.
• Companies like OpenAI and Google, whose AI tool is called “Bard,” try to be up-front about the fact that their systems may spit out wrong responses, and they say they’re working on solutions. Altman says it’ll probably take about two years to “get the hallucination problem to a much, much better place,” noting ChatGPT needs to “balance between creativity and perfect accuracy” and learn which a user wants.?
• Part of the problem is that AI’s large language models are only as good as the language they’re being fed to train on. That diet is sometimes limited as battlelines over issues like copyright are still being drawn. Many of the leading US newsrooms have recently injected code on their websites to block OpenAI's web crawler , a move meant to deny the company free access to their immense collections of stories for ChatGPT to ingest for free (CNN is one of those companies, along with The New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg and Disney).
• And despite calls for cautious use of AI, companies are still trying to expand its use. On Monday, OpenAI announced "ChatGPT Enterprise," a version of its hyped AI tool specifically for businesses. OpenAI says businesses that buy the new tool will get help with "every aspect" of work life and make their teams "more creative and productive."

Do you use AI tools for work or to advance your career? How reliable do you find them? Have they made mistakes that came back to haunt you? Share your stories in the comments.

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(We assure you this newsletter, like all CNN content, was written and assembled by humans! CNN does not use generative AI for on-air or online content.)

Here are some other stories we're following today:

Idalia moves off the Carolina coast after drenching the Southeast. State and federal officials are now beginning to assess the damage in Florida's hard-hit Big Bend region, after Idalia roared ashore yesterday as the strongest storm the area has seen in 125 years. Pres. Biden has already approved several major disaster declarations that Gov. Ron DeSantis requested for 25 counties. The storm knocked out power for hundreds of thousands, leaving many sweltering today in summertime heat. Idalia swamped some coastal Florida towns with record-high storm surge, flooding thousands of homes. Click here for ways you can help those affected by the hurricane.

One out of 8 Americans live within a mile of where a mass shooting has happened over the past decade, new CNN analysis finds. Every year since 2014, an average of four million more Americans were exposed to a nearby mass shooting, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. Read the full CNN interactive story , where you can punch in your address to see how close this type of gun violence has happened near you.

A DC jury sentences Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs to 17 years for seditious conspiracy. That’s the second-longest term given to a Jan. 6 rioter. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who also took part in storming the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 18 years in May.

Former President Donald Trump formally pleaded not guilty in Georgia's election subversion case today. Trump denies conspiring to overturn the state's 2020 election results. The sweeping case lays out a slew of charges against Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators, most of whom are expected to be arraigned next week.

If you have a federal student loan, it’ll start accruing interest again tomorrow after a three-year freeze during the Covid-19 pandemic. Tens of millions of borrowers will have to start making payments on those loans again in October. This comes months after the Supreme Court struck down Pres. Biden's student loan forgiveness program. Read this for everything federal student loan borrowers need to know right now.

An "abnormal" year for gas and oil will leave Labor Day travelers facing near-record prices at the pumps . The national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.83 today, according to AAA -- one penny shy of the record for the holiday weekend set in 2012. Gas prices usually drop as summer's end approaches, but today's average was 25 cents higher than Memorial Day. A brutal heat wave has shuttered oil refineries this summer, OPEC has throttled production since the spring to drive up prices, and Hurricane Idalia threatened oil production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico while also boosting demand from evacuees fleeing the storm's path. The silver lining? Gas prices remain significantly lower than last year's peak, when fears over Russia's invasion of Ukraine spiked the national average to $5.02 a gallon.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage in the US is now 7.18% , according to the latest Freddie Mac data released today. It's a miniscule dip from last week's average of 7.23%, but it does break a five-week streak of increases. Affording a house in the US is the hardest it's been in decades , and rising mortgage rates are among the major factors.

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