Artificial intelligence is already pervasive in every day life. Ask Siri, and she has the answer. Bother Alexa, and she knows the time, temperature and trends of the stock market. Type an email, and Google’s predictive text can often finish the sentence. Misspell a word, and autocorrect has a solution.
But what happens when regurgitation and foresight from a computer instead evolves, and becomes generative, cognizant and original? What are the benefits, and most of all, what are the detriments?
This is one of the many questions stemming from the development and deployment of Chat GPT — which defines itself as an online AI language model, whose purpose is to provide helpful and informative responses to one’s inquiries.
It has no feelings. It has no emotions. And yet, through the right series of questions by a user, it can create soulful, “original” content based on facts and firmly-based opinions.
In a recent visit with the Cadiz Rotary Club, InfraWare CEO and Terre Haute, Indiana, native Nick Mahurin described the new technology as an “enhanced full-time research assistant” with unlimited potential.
Mahurin said he finds it “extraordinary” the degree of productivity Chat GPT will allow knowledge workers — like lawyers, journalists, medical technicians, and more — to possess, simply at the stroke of a few keys.
It has a serious chance, at minimum, of removing redundant and mundane digital tasks like the drafting of common documents, the use of search engine optimization and the filing of general press kits and releases.
But with all technology comes the other side of the sword, and with Chat GPT comes an unprecedented edge of copyright law, a right to privacy, plagiarism, source citation, accuracy and continuity. Mahurin noted both the court system and legislature have yet needed to take up these notions, but a writer’s strike in Hollywood — coupled with the continued assault of professional journalism — creates natural worry.
The Internet replaced printed encyclopedias and newspapers. The calculator improved computation. Telephones no longer need switchboard operators.
Chat GPT can make life easier, but Mahurin — like many industry analysts — believe specific job reductions are on the way.
Mahurin closed by saying the best way to prepare for artificial intelligence, and its daily use, is to “ask better, high-impact questions.”
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