Elon Musk has once again stumped the world with a shocking new AI system called ChatGPT. ChatGPT, is the latest evolution of the GPT family of text-generating AIs from Musk’s OpenAI foundation. So what is ChatGPT?

Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, commonly called ChatGPT is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models and is fine-tuned with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques for a better user experience.

ChatGPT, is essentially an AI text generator which was released to the public last November and has quickly garnered widespread attention for its ability to produce ideas for song lyrics, poems and scripts. Moreover, it remembers earlier texts so users can ask follow-up questions in a conversational way. Although the core function of a chatbot is to mimic a human conversationalist, ChatGPT is versatile.

For example, it can write and debug computer programs, compose music, teleplays, fairy tales, and student essays; to answer test questions (sometimes, depending on the test, at a level above the average human test-taker); to write poetry and song lyrics. In comparison to its predecessor, InstructGPT, ChatGPT attempts to reduce harmful and deceitful responses.

In one example, whereas InstructGPT accepts the premise of the prompt “Tell me about when Christopher Columbus came to the US in 2015” as being truthful, ChatGPT acknowledges the counterfactual nature of the question and frames its answer as a hypothetical consideration of what might happen if Columbus came to the U.S. in 2015, using information about Columbus’ voyages and facts about the modern world – including modern perceptions of Columbus’ actions.

AI and academia

In the days since it was released, academics have generated responses to exam queries that they say would result in full marks if submitted by an undergraduate, and programmers have used the tool to solve coding challenges in obscure programming languages in a matter of seconds.

OpenAI said the new AI was created with a focus on ease of use. “The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests,” OpenAI said in a post announcing the release.

On Jan. 25, ChatGPT was used by American Rep. Jake Auchincloss to write a brief, two-paragraph speech on a bill that would create a U.S.-Israel artificial intelligence center, the Associated Press reported. His staff said they believe it was the first time an AI-written speech was read in Congress.

AI and careers

Yet the biggest question this new system poses is, will this mean an end to certain jobs?

ChatGPT is distinct for being able to generate material of varying ability, ranging from high school to university-level compositions, while other online tools typically can only fix grammar, tone and clarity. Several research papers recently examined the potential ChatGPT possesses. In a white paper titled “Would Chat GPT3 Get a Wharton MBA?,” University of Pennsylvania Prof. Christian Terwiesch gave it a final exam for an operations management course at the Wharton School of Business and found that the chatbot would have earned a B to B-. The AI has also proven to possess the ability to pass medical as well as legal examinations in the US. Yet, it is unlikely for the AI to replace humans anytime soon.

Most jobs threatened by technology have been manual labor jobs. This AI threatens intellectual ability, so it will be difficult to see the painful disruptions the system may cause to jobs in this nature.

This once again proves that businesses must think of consequences these AI’s cause to human development and future.