There has been a lot in the press recently about ChatGPT. What is it and how may it impact our lives?
ChatGPT is a new artificial intelligence technology (also known as AI) that allows you to have human-like conversations and much more with something called a “chatbot”. The language tool can answer questions and assist you with tasks like composing emails, essays, writing poetry and researching whatever subject you can think of.
ChatGPT was released late in 2022 by a company called OpenAI, which was founded by Elon Musk, yes him of the Tesla car company.
The technology chats in a conversational way, answering questions from the user. The online chatbot has been trained on lots of information and data from the internet – it can have a human-like conversation answering questions, admitting mistakes, and rejecting any inappropriate questions.
Not Perfect – Yet!
OpenAI admits that there are limits to what it can do. Sometimes the answers are incorrect or don’t make sense and it can also make the wrong assumption about what the user asked of it.
Bad Press
As with all new technology of this type, ChatGPT is getting mixed reviews from people. Some think students might use it to cheat, whereas others think they should use the tool in the classroom to help children learn. In some countries, including the US, some educational institutions have banned ChatGPT so students and teachers cannot access it.
In the UK, the exam regulator for England Ofqual and the Department of Education are keeping an eye on whether the chatbot is being used to cheat.
All too easy? Let’s put it to the test …
Microsoft has their own version of a chatbot which they call Co-pilot. They recently allowed access via the Bing Search tools in their web browser in Windows. I thought I’d put it to the test. To keep it simple I asked it to summarise the classic children’s nursery rhyme Incy Wincy Spider:
Incy Wincy spider climbed up the waterspout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sunshine and dried up all the rain
And Incy Wincy spider climbed up the spout again.
After a few seconds of thinking, this was the chatbot’s response:
This is a nursery rhyme that describes the adventures of a spider named Incy Wincy. It uses repetition and rhyme to create a catchy and fun song for children. The rhyme also teaches about the effects of rain and sunshine on spiders and their webs. The spider is persistent and brave, as it keeps climbing up the spout despite the obstacles.
If you would like more information on this subject or require help with any I.T. challenges, I am always happy to help.
info@stevendunwell.com
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