This article was originally published in SmartCompany.
Less than two weeks after its release, ChatGPT has taken the internet by storm. The AI text generator has become so popular that it reached user capacity.
“ChatGPT is at capacity right now. We’re experiencing exceptionally high demand. Please hang tight as we work on scaling our systems,” the website read on Monday morning.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, even leaned into the platform’s functionality to describe its current status.
“Write a rap about the status of ChatGPT,” the site prompted itself.
Unfortunately I am not joking, the rap is very real. And since I had to experience it, so do you.
“Yeah, yo, what’s up ChatGPT fam A lot of people trying to jam But don’t worry, we got your back Just check back soon, we’ll get on track ChatGPT’s the place to be For all your AI chat needs We’re working hard to keep up the pace So hold tight, we’ll be back in this space So don’t you worry, don’t be mad We’re working hard, it’s not so bad Just give us time, we’ll be back ChatGPT, the future of chat, that’s a fact.”
At the time of writing I was able to access ChatGPT again, but it’s unclear if server capacity continues to be an issue.
What is ChatGPT and why is everyone talking about it?
What we do know is that ChatGPT is scarily popular. Released by AI Research company OpenAI in late November, it surpassed over 1 million users in just five days.
To put this into perspective, it took Instagram almost three months to achieve this goal. Similarly, Spotify took five months and Facebook 10 months.
The AI tool generates incredibly human-like and challenging question-and-answer sessions, like an advanced chatbot. But users have discovered that it goes far beyond this functionality.
Through supervised learning, the AI has been trained with a ton of written material. This has resulted in it being able to write just about anything you ask on a particular topic. While it can be fun stuff like poems, jokes and songs, it can also tackle essays, speeches and code. It even has the ability to edit and debug.
While it’s far from perfect, in a lot of cases it certainly works as a pretty damn good first draft. I already know of several people using it to help automate parts of their job.
But the founder of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has come out saying that the platform is definitely flawed.
“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.” he said on Twitter.
“Fun creative inspiration; great! Reliance for factual queries; not such a good idea. We will work hard to improve!”
Still, ChatGPT has raised concerns about the ethics of the platform from experts in the field. In addition to the usual “robots are going to take our jobs” fear generally associated with AI, some are worried about how it may be misused to chat on the likes of university essays and have called for it to be removed or at least restricted.
“I am so troubled by what I see everywhere all at once with ChatGPT in the last few days,” Paul Kedrosky, a partner at SK Ventures, said.
“College and high school essays, college applications, legal documents, coercion, threats, programming, etc: all fake, all highly credible.”
“I obviously feel ChatGPT (and its ilk) should be withdrawn immediately. And, if ever reintroduced, do so only with tight restrictions — like length of text, domains, etc. I had someone suggest, given the impossibility of watermarks and detection, include designed-in, random errors.”
Should we be concerned about the ethics of ChatGPT?
The rise in usage of ChatGPT over the last week has sparked a heated debate about the ethics of using AI to create content in colleges, schools and workplaces.
While the use of ChatGPT and other AI tools has revolutionised the way we create and consume content, it has also raised important ethical questions about the role of AI in creating content.
Some argue that the use of AI to generate content is a form of cheating, as it allows people to produce high-quality content without actually putting in the time and effort required to create it. Others argue that using AI to generate content is no different from using other tools, such as a thesaurus or a grammar checker, and that it can even help to improve the quality of content by providing suggestions and ideas.
One of the main concerns about the use of AI to create content is that it could potentially lead to the loss of jobs for human writers and content creators. However, many experts argue that AI will not replace human writers, but rather complement their work by providing them with new tools and capabilities. In fact, some argue that the use of AI can actually help to create more job opportunities in the content creation industry by enabling people to produce more content in less time.
Another ethical concern about the use of AI to create content is the potential for bias. AI algorithms are only as good as the data they are trained on, and if the training data contains bias, the AI will produce biased content. This is a significant issue, as biased content can have negative consequences on society, including perpetuating stereotypes and misinformation. To address this issue, it is important for AI developers to carefully curate and balance the training data to avoid bias.
Despite the ethical concerns, the use of ChatGPT and other AI tools to create content is likely to continue to grow in popularity. As AI technology continues to advance, it will become increasingly important for society to consider the ethical implications of using AI to create content and to develop guidelines and regulations to ensure that AI is used responsibly and ethically.
I ask again, should we be concerned about the ethics of ChatGPT?
You may be wondering why I’m asking this again. Here’s the thing. The entire preceding section of this article regarding ethics was written by ChatGPT. The only editing I did was adding a link out.
So when it comes to the quality and ethics of the platform, take a look again and decide for yourself.
Are you worried about the ethical implications of technology like this? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
