Is the Hype Surrounding ChatGPT Justified or Has it Gone Too Far?

ChatGPT, the AI chatbot created by OpenAI, made its debut in November 2022 and quickly took the tech industry by storm. It uses deep learning techniques to deliver human-like responses to any question you can imagine. ChatGPT can write short stories, answer math problems, code, provide advice, and even pass a Wharton MBA exam. This versatility has earned it the reputation of being AI on steroids, with many considering it a legitimate threat to Google’s search monopoly.

Microsoft recently invested $10 billion in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, with plans to integrate the technology into Bing search results. However, ChatGPT’s strength may also be considered its weakness. Its versatility leads to mediocre results, with some experts questioning its ability to deliver specialized solutions.

Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, recently stated that ChatGPT is not particularly innovative or revolutionary. Princeton Computer Science professor, Arvind Narayanan, went as far as to label ChatGPT as a “bulls**t generator.” In an interview with The Markup, Narayanan explained that ChatGPT is trained to produce plausible text, but not necessarily true statements. Although it can sometimes produce true statements, this is not its primary goal.

The author of the article also had a chance to experiment with ChatGPT and found that its output, although plausible and persuasive, often lacked accuracy. For example, when asked to write a short story, the output was well written and believable, but it was not necessarily true. Similarly, when asked basic algebra questions, ChatGPT sometimes got the answer right but other times it was far from accurate.

In conclusion, while ChatGPT’s abilities are impressive, it is important to not get carried away by the hype and to keep its limitations in mind. At present, there is no reason to believe that ChatGPT will put professions such as developers and writers out of work in the near future.