The emergence and virality of ChatGPT has put into sharp focus the future of work and the place of workers, the viability of thought and education, and the complex relationship between man and machine.
ChatGPT defines itself as “a language model developed by OpenAI. It is a variant of the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) model, which uses deep learning to generate human-like text.”
ChatGPT can be fine-tuned for various language tasks, such as language translation, question answering and text summarisation. It can also be used to generate creative writing and assist with customer service interactions.
The chatbot has recently passed exams at a law school in the United States and Microsoft has announced it is going to inject billions of dollars into OpenAI, the software’s maker. So worried was Google about the potential of the technology to upend its business that it was reported to have issued a code red internally. David Karpf, an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University has opined that ChatGPT’s magic will go away when its creators or other companies start looking to make a profit out of it.
ChatGPT is fairly easy to use. You just need to search for https://chat.openai.com/, and sign up using an email address. Once you’re logged in, there is an interface where you type in questions, which the chatbot answers.
While technology enthusiasts are over the moon about the seemingly endless possibilities that ChatGPT offers, there are those who are sounding the alarm.
“I don’t think ChatGPT is as transformative as it appears. It looks amazing because it has more of natural language and the confidence of a white man. The information itself is not any more exceptional. Eventually we’ll figure it out the way we figured the difference between owning a camera/smartphone and being a professional photographer,” tweeted communication and technology consultant Dennis Kioko.
I don't think ChatGPT is as transformative as it appears. It looks amazing because it has more of natural language and the confidence of a white man.
The information itself is not any more exceptional
— Dennis Kioko – Weak link millenial (@denniskioko) January 15, 2023
Sam Altman the co-founder and CEO of OpenAI tweeted a disclaimer saying, “ChatGPT is incredibly limited, but good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness. It’s a mistake to be relying on it for anything important right now. it’s a preview of progress; we have lots of work to do on robustness and truthfulness. fun creative inspiration; great! reliance for factual queries; not such a good idea. we will work hard to improve!”
ChatGPT is incredibly limited, but good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness.
it's a mistake to be relying on it for anything important right now. it’s a preview of progress; we have lots of work to do on robustness and truthfulness.
— Sam Altman (@sama) December 11, 2022
Driverless cars have for long been touted as the future while smart phones, smart speakers, smart fridges, smart TVs and the ever increasingly smart assistants like Siri giving a glimpse of the Internet of things, which is slowly becoming part and parcel of daily life.
The Internet of Things (IoT) describes the network of physical objects— “things”—that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the Internet. These devices range from ordinary household objects to sophisticated industrial tools.
“One of the main impacts of ChatGPT is its ability to generate human-like text. This has led to the development of more advanced chatbots and virtual assistants that can understand and respond to natural language queries more accurately. ChatGPT has also been used for text generation tasks such as story and poetry writing, creating new and exciting possibilities for creative writing and content generation.” This is the response ChatGPT gives on what it considers to be its impact.
The use of technology to ease storytelling has been the reality ever since the invention of the printing press 600 years ago.
But with advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, are we now on the cusp of a different realm where technology tells the story?
In Kenyan newsrooms for example, broadcast journalists used video cassette tapes to capture footage and the scarcity of the tapes would often force them to re-use tapes, sometimes to the point where the tape would get too thin to work.
The tapes are now history and have been replaced by memory cards, the clunky editing software by faster and more efficient versions and it is possible to transmit live with a simple gadget that is carried in a backpack.
The changes in the newsroom mirror the changes that happened in the workplace in the 1980s with the proliferation of computers. Initially, there was widespread panic as to the potential of huge job losses but eventually, computers and humans have coexisted and thrived. More recently, mobile phones have revolutionized communication in Africa in the last two decades and resulted in the emergence of new fields like fintech and transformational products like M-PESA.
But at the heart of using technology to tell the story or to do work has been the human with all their genius and flaws holding the reins. Handing over the control to a machine which is the essence of AI is a whole different ball game.
AI has the potential to upend society as currently constituted and ChatGPT is already causing waves in different sectors like technology, education and media.
On seeing a bright future for the application, Microsoft plans to invest $10 billion in a bid to increase its market share in web search through Bing, a space that is currently dominated by Google.
ChatGPT has caused a storm in the education sector because of its ability to produce coherent essays on virtually any topic in just seconds. Students have taken to using it to do their homework and teachers are at a loss as to how to deal with the phenomenon.
Cities like New York have taken drastic measures of banning the software. “Due to concerns about negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content, access to ChatGPT is restricted on New York City Public Schools’ networks and devices,” said education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle.
Princeton University senior and computer science major Edward Tian, has built an App called ChatZero, which helps detect whether a text was written by a human being or ChatGPT.
Tian’s App examines two variables in any piece of writing: A text’s “perplexity,” which measures its randomness and its “burstiness,” which measures variance or inconsistency within a text. Human-generated text is more random and has more inconsistency.
According to the New York Times, US universities are starting to overhaul classrooms in response to ChatGPT, prompting a potentially huge shift in teaching. Some professors are redesigning their courses, even choosing handwritten assignments over typed ones. Other professors are redesigning entire courses, making changes that include more oral exams, group work and handwritten assessments in lieu of typed ones.
Kenyan university lecturer and social commentator Dr. Wandia Njoya has no kind words for the chatbot. “Personally, I don’t care. The only way to beat this thing is not to have assignments and exams. And to remove certification from education and let people choose how to learn. It’s a conversation nobody wants to have. So the referee waves play on. AI is parasitic. It perpetuates bad ideas and bureaucracy but adds no intrinsic value to human life. So AI can reproduce a look-alike of you. So AI can produce a term paper. Are those things of value to humanity? Most of the time? No.”
Outside the classroom and the seemingly mundane issues of homework, ChatGPT raises issues about how to tackle fake news, which is already prevalent on the Internet.
Writing in the Sunday Nation, Certified Cloud and Cyber Security consultant, Sam Wambugu said “the tool seems knowledgeable in areas with good training data from which to learn and while it is not yet smart enough to replace humans entirely it can be creative and its answers downright authoritative.”
If AI saves people from having to write, could it also save them from having ideas? Ultimately could AI eventually curtail critical thinking?
Aside from the metaphysical questions, increased onboarding of AI into human life will require various issues like safety, privacy, ethics and cybersecurity to be taken into account by corporations and governments.
There is no doubt that the tech revolution is unstoppable so the best one can do is future-proof themselves.
