Unless you have been living under a rock or on some remote island without any form of communication or internet, chances are you have most likely heard of ChatGPT. So what exactly is this sensation that has taken the world by storm in the last couple of months?
What Is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a cutting-edge artificial intelligence chatbot launched by OpenAI back in November 2022. Built on top of GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3).
ChatGPT is an advanced natural language model that interacts with users in a conversational way by generating human-like text. It responds to questions, challenges inaccurate premises, and declines requests that are deemed inappropriate.
In just 5 days of its release date, ChatGPT gained one million users. In comparison, it took Facebook 10 months and Instagram 2.5 months to reach the same number of users; a testament to how hugely popular and sensational the AI tool has become.
ChatGPT can be used in a variety of ways including answering questions, writing essays, explaining complex topics, and drafting emails.
You can also use it to generate code in a variety of programming languages such as Python, Java, Ruby, and Javascript. If you don’t understand what a piece of code does, you can ask for clarification and it will gladly walk you through it with detailed explanations.
In a nutshell, chatGPT is a powerful and versatile AI tool that can be used to help you become more efficient and productive in your work.
How Does ChatGPT Work?
ChatGPT uses a language model which is a type of machine-learning model that is trained on huge amounts of data sets from various fields including health, engineering, programming and so much more. Based on the knowledge gained from massive sets of data, it can recognize, summarize, predict, and provide information in text output.
ChatGPT provides different language models for different purposes. There is the GPT-3 model that is trained to understand and generate natural language.
Another language model is Codex which is specifically trained to understand and generate code in a variety of languages such as Java, Python, HTML, CSS, SQL and so much more.
In simpler words, ChatGPT is an AI model that is trained on large amounts of datasets, and based on the inputs and feedback, it responds accordingly.
Is ChatGPT a Reliable AI Tool?
Granted, ChatGPT is an amazing and impressive AI tool, which has a remarkable ability to generate fluent and persuasive human-sounding text in response to the topic being queried. However, it is not without its shortcomings.
One of the limitations of ChatGPT is its language model bias. The AI tool may not always be as objective and neutral as users might expect. In his own words, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman admitted in his Twitter post that ChatGPT has its shortcomings around bias and that they are working to improve on it.
On the chat interface, ChatGPT cites some of its limitations including occasionally generating inaccurate information and providing biased or harmful content. Some users have in fact reported cases where it has provided output that can be interpreted as sexist, racist, or otherwise offensive.
Despite its shortcomings, ChatGPT is largely a helpful AI tool in helping users boost their efficiency and remain productive, and we can only hope that OpenAI will continue fine-tuning the tool to provide more accurate and unbiased information in the not so far future.
How to Use ChatGPT?
Getting started with ChatGPT is as easy as it gets. To get off the ground, head over to ChatGPT’s blog and click ‘Try ChatGPT‘.
This takes you to the Sign Up / Login screen as shown. Click ‘Sign Up‘ and provide your details to create an account. Once you have created an account, and logged in using your details you will be redirected to the main page as shown. You will find a walkthrough showing you the capabilities and limitations of ChatGPT.
At the bottom of the screen, you will find a search text field that you can use to pose a question.
For example, I asked ChatGPT where Linux is used and this is the output I got.
The AI tool generates text output almost as if were a real person on the other end.
In the same manner, I asked it to generate a sample code in Python for getting even numbers from a list of numbers. And it did exactly that line by line and gave the expected output. You can ask for the code snippet and test it out on your preferred IDE or code editor.
Benefits of Using ChatGPT
ChatGPT offers innumerable benefits, key among them being:
- Improved Productivity – As demonstrated earlier, ChatGPT is a valuable research and writing tool that can help with information gathering and data analysis. It saves time which can be used in other tasks leading to increased productivity.
- Task Automation – ChatGPT can easily automate tasks such as content creation, and research work and even play a role in customer support and language translation leading to increased efficiency.
- Content Creation – ChatGPT can generate content and provide insights on a wide array of topics and disciplines. This can be beneficial in advertising and learning.
- Code Creation and Debugging – Using its natural language processing, ChatGPT can effectively write accurate code snippets in almost any programming language. This allows developers and programmers to sit back and simply provide instructions to the AI tool. In addition, it can debug code.
- Improved Customer Engagement – ChatGPT can easily be integrated into customer service systems to provide timely and accurate responses. This improves the overall customer experience and reduces customer service costs.
Conclusion
Given the impressive advancements in AI and chatbot technology, ChatGPT will be a potent tool for businesses and beyond. GPT-4 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4), is a safer, smarter, and faster language model created by OpenAI and is set to take over from ChatGPT.
It’s the fourth language model in the GPT series and accepts both images and text input. It was unveiled on March 14, 2023, and is available in a limited edition on ChatGPt plus. It just keeps getting better and one can only imagine the lengths that AI can go to in revolutionizing the way we perform everyday tasks.
