What is Chat GPT and how can I use it?

Written by Lynsey Campbell

What is Chat GPT?

No doubt you’ll have heard about Chat GPT through the endless threads of internet chatter. Stories of its ability to provide multiple detailed answers about almost anything and everything you could possibly muster, or perhaps you’ve heard how it’s “revolutionising” workplaces, “changing the game”, even “replacing jobs” completely. Is it really all that it’s cracked up to be?

In a nutshell, Chat GPT is a natural language processing tool powered by AI, brought to us by OpenAI. This just means it’s smart chatbot software that’s designed to mimic human interaction. Think of Chat GPT as that brainy friend you text when you’re 5 wrong answers into your local pub quiz. It can provide highly detailed responses and explanations, and offer creative input.

Is that friend always reliable? Let’s explore.

What are the benefits of Chat GPT?

It’s no surprise that Chat GPT has received the huge amount of hype that it has, with what seems to be the entire internet behind it. Here are some things to note…

The Pros

Time-Efficiency & Learning
Looking for an answer to a burning question? Need to simplify a complex concept or easily break down a technical problem? Have a sum that you can’t quite figure out? Maybe you’re trying to phrase something a little differently, or you’re trying to find the right word to reach that word count – Look no further. Chat GPT excels in quick automation, meaning that it runs multiple tasks at once, retrieving the data you need quickly and efficiently.

Yes or No
Chat GPT is an ideal solution when it comes to decision-making, providing valuable insights, pros and cons, weighing up of your options, and offering alternative solutions. By leveraging its extensive training data, as well as external sources, it can retrieve factual data, statistics and relevant contextual information.

Creativity
Creating content? Is that deadline looming ever closer and closer? By generating new ideas and suggesting improvements, Chat GPT can be beneficial if you’re looking for some quick support for your brainstorming session.

For creatives, it’s very easy to hit a wall, and it can often be a struggle to develop fresh content on a regular basis, so having an additional (virtual) member on your team certainly has its perks.

What are the drawbacks of Chat GPT?

Whilst there are many benefits that support the use of Chat GPT (which we couldn’t list here) there are of course, with all good things, many negatives.

The Cons

Uncertainty and Bias
As Chat GPT is a language model, it lacks genuine comprehension or knowledge of the world. It relies solely on patterns and statistics from its training data. Simply put, it can generate plausible-sounding responses without understanding the context of the conversation.

Due to its sources being the vast amount of text information from its training data, which may be outdated or contain inaccuracies, Chat GPT can be potentially sensitive to biases. If these biases aren’t addressed during its data training it may inadvertently aid in perpetuating negative stereotypes or views.

Thus, the information provided isn’t necessarily always 100% viable. It would always be advised to reinforce your query with fact-checked sources.

Lack of creative problem-solving
While Chat GPT can generate creative responses, it does not possess true understanding or creativity. As a language-processing tool, it relies heavily on patterns in the data it has been exposed to and may struggle with unfamiliar or abstract problem-solving tasks.

User input quality
The quality of responses generated by Chat GPT is influenced by the quality of user inputs.

If users provide vague, unclear, or poorly formulated queries, the responses provided may also be just that.

So, what now?

The list goes on. For businesses, professionals, educators, and students, Chat GPT can be a very useful tool. The key word being ‘tool’. It’s great to highlight how useful it can be but it’s crucial to acknowledge that it can falter.

As with every new piece of technology comes the inevitable conclusion-jumping that it’s “the future” and that it’ll “replace jobs”, creating a mutual feeling of dystopian chaos amongst web-goers where AI controls everything we know. While yes, it’s definitely the future, but it’s also important to remember that it’s still early days. Right now it’s best to utilise this software in a way that can benefit you and become an extension of your workplace.

Humans thrive on personal, physical, and emotional interaction, and being overly dependent on artificial intelligence can result in a lack of empathy and real connection.

Only time will tell how this technology will change the workplace.