ChatGPT is changing everything. But it still has its limits

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Image: Getty Images / NurPhoto

Since its release at the end of November, ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. The chatbot’s advanced AI capabilities allow it to do tasks completely on its own, such as composing essays, emails and poems, writing and debugging code, and even passing exams. Now that a chatbot can do what humans do so well in seconds, what does that mean for our future?

If you’ve had the chance to chat with the AI ​​chatbot, you’ve probably been impressed by how much it can understand and its ability to respond in a conversational way. However, the chatbot is capable of much more and its technical capabilities are tested every day.

Also: What is ChatGPT and why is it important? Here’s everything you need to know

ChatGPT is already changing expectations and practices in education, as well as professional fields involving skills such as coding. While some are ringing the alarm bells and others are catching up with the advances, tech analysts are still weighing how the tool will change things.

For example, a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania used ChatGPT to take an MBA exam where he passed with a score of B to B-, leaving the professor impressed with his explanations and operations management.

Minnesota University law school professors gave ChatGPT four separate law school final exams and then blind-graded the exams, mixing them with actual student exams. The bot passed with an average grade of C+, according to a white paper. While this score is on the lower end of what students get, it’s impressive for a bot.

“We expect such language templates to become important tools for practicing lawyers in the future; we also expect them to be very useful for students who use them (whether legally or illegally) in law exams,” said the Minnesota University Law professors School in the white paper on the experiment.

As ChatGPT’s capabilities continue to be tested, one of the biggest concerns people have about ChatGPT is how it will affect the education system. Will his technical proficiency make learning certain skills obsolete for humans? Will people learn less in school due to the temptation to use ChatGPT to do the work for them?

Schools across the country are already taking steps to try and curb such cheating and slowdowns in the classroom. The New York City Department of Education, for example, has blocked students and teachers from accessing ChatGPT on its networks.

The problem has also reached higher education, with professors including rules for using ChatGPT in their curricula. How professors handle AI is up to each individual, with some banning it outright and others taking a fairly open-ended approach.

A Wharton associate professor, Ethan Mollick, shared on LinkedIn his program policy for ChatGPT, which allows it to be integrated into student work. “We don’t have many answers yet [about AI]but we should welcome the discussion. And teach how to use the tools responsibly,” said Mollick.

Just another tool in your toolbox?

Embracing AI generative technologies could actually help enrich student education, according to Sid Nag, cloud technologies and services analyst at Gartner.

“It’s like saying, ‘Will using a calculator hinder the quality of people’s ability to add one and one plus two?’ No.”

One factor to remember when it comes to artificial intelligence is that many of the tasks it is capable of performing are tedious and time consuming. In many cases, doing these activities doesn’t add much value to the overall goal.

Also: How to start using ChatGPT

For example, if you’re doing a major research project, writing an introduction to the paper or writing some code is a very small part of the project, with extensive analysis and interpretation of that code at the forefront.

Over time, the technologies behind ChatGPT will “dramatically” automate many of the mundane tasks of writing and coding Rajeesh Kandaswamy, AI innovation analyst at Gartner, tells ZDNET.

“But there are many creative and unique scriptures and codes involving imagination, synthesis and other intricacies that will not be easily resolved by these AI tools any time soon,” Kandaswamy points out.

Beyond the education system, people often worry about AI generative tools taking over human jobs. However, as advanced as these models are, they still require a human to produce the correct output. AI chatbots are very good at delivering words or code, but less good at knowing if it’s good or even accurate. Without the human guidance of a person knowledgeable on the subject at hand, these tools are much less useful.

“Just because you have a toolbox doesn’t mean you know how to fix a broken appliance, right?” Nags says.

A new category of work

In fact, the more these models grow, the more they will need assistance, creating a need for new jobs and even more studies. If some menial jobs are eliminated, there’s a chance those roles will simply move into others created to assist AI.

ChatGPT and its underlying capability will have a big impact on some of these abilities, says Kandaswamy. “But these capabilities can also lead to new products and services either directly through what these technologies do or based on what they do.”

Also: ChatGPT can write code. Now researchers say it’s also good at fixing bugs

Finally, before we see any major transformation in our daily lives, the technology has to be reliable and proven not to make mistakes, and right now we are not at that point yet.

“ChatGPT is prone to errors and generates incorrect output (hallucinations). That doesn’t make it useless, but it does make it unreliable, for now,” Kandaswamy continues. “We will need support mechanisms, tests and other quality controls to use it at a scale where quality and accuracy matter.”

The future of AI sources like ChatGPT is promising and has the potential to significantly change the way we do things. Right now, we may be in the same place we were decades ago when the internet was first introduced: lots of potential but still a long way to go. And while tools like ChatGPT are opening up new possibilities, they’re far from perfect.

“Yes, this is groundbreaking and I won’t be surprised if it surpasses the impact of the Internet on business and society. Only time will tell. We’re just getting started,” says Kandaswamy.

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