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As the capabilities of natural language processing technology continue to advance, there is a growing hype around the potential of chatbots and conversational AI systems. One such system, ChatGPT, claims to be able to engage in natural, human-like conversation and even provide useful information and advice. However, there are valid concerns about the limitations of ChatGPT and other conversational AI systems, and their ability to truly replicate human intelligence and interaction.
No, I didn’t write that. It was actually written by ChatGPT itself, a conversational AI software program, after I asked it to create “an opening paragraph to an article sceptical about the abilities of ChatGPT in the style of Kenan Malik”. I might quibble about the stolid prose but it’s an impressive attempt. And it is not difficult to see why there has been such excitement, indeed hype, about the latest version of the chatbot since it was released a week ago.
Fed huge amounts of human-created text, ChatGPT looks for statistical regularities in this data, learns what words and phrases are associated with others, and so is able to predict what words should come next in any given sentence, and how sentences fit together. The result is a machine that can persuasively mimic human language.
This capacity for mimicry allows ChatGPT to write essays and poetry, think up jokes, formulate code, and answer questions whether to a child or an expert. And to do it so well that many over the past week have been both celebrating and panicking. “Essays are dead,” wrote the cognitive scientist Tim Kietzmann, a view amplified by many academics. Others claim that it will finish off Google as a search engine. And the program itself thinks it may be able to replace humans in jobs from insurance agent to court reporter.
And yet the chatbot that can write grade A essays will also tell you that if one woman can produce one baby in nine months, nine women can produce one baby in one month; that one kilo of beef weighs more than a kilo of compressed air; and that crushed glass is a useful health supplement.
