ChatGPT, Bard, AutoGPT, Bing Chat – the list goes on. Chatbot is the word on everybody’s lips around the world. It has already demonstrated it has the ability to be a technological game-changer, not least with ChatGPT setting a record as the fastest app to reach 100 million active users in just two months, surpassing social phenomena like Instagram and TikTok’s stats. From generating poems and dissertations to debugging codes and answering life’s biggest questions, it has infinite potential.
It’s almost impossible to avoid stories or conversations about chatbots and their predicted ability to change the world, from chatbots to video generation. In this piece, I dive into the main question on everyone’s mind: will it be regulated? What are the main values? Are chatbots coming for everyone’s jobs?
The chatbot wars have begun
This battle between technology leaders, such as Microsoft and Google, took flight many years ago – but it’s not about the cloud wars anymore, it’s the chatbot wars. The difference is that the large language model (LLM) developments at Microsoft are such a significant step change, compared to Google’s Bard, which is another step in Google’s AI developments. It feels like the firing gun has only just been fired.
Generative AI is going to change the world in a myriad of known and yet-to-be-discovered ways. Of course, it wouldn’t be the technology industry if there wasn’t some overhype right now, but a lot of it is justified, unlike many buzzword technologies that came before it. The developments over the recent months and even weeks are the culmination of years of investment and research. This is not just a flash in the pan.
Immense innate value
The main value of chatbots and other LLMs is the uncanny human-like interface. These programmes have been fine-tuned for extensive language generation tasks that include language translation, building websites, games and question-answering, all designed to give the same output as a human.
ChatGPT is one of the first to produce such in-depth answers as quickly, accurately, and human-like as it does. This has already opened a whole new opportunity for the business world. From automation to communication to research, businesses that are open to a new way of streamlining operations can use chatbots to tackle various pain points for internal use and to create a better customer experience.
Treated ethically and with the correct regulatory boundaries, it will have a hugely democratising effect on domain expertise across society.
No, it won’t take over everyone’s jobs
The knee-jerk reaction to ChatGPT and other chatbots has been that they are coming for everyone’s jobs. But they are not. Just as AI in general hasn’t taken over everyone’s jobs, neither will this.
LLMs are instead changing how we work and should be seen as the next generation of AI. It will also unlock new tools and products that may have been previously impossible to build. From marketing and customer service to education and financial services, it will bolster existing capabilities across sectors and significantly improve the end-user experience.
Amid the fear-mongering about chatbots’ takeover, people often miss the degree to which machines still require human workers in order to function. 20 years ago, there were very few developers and computer scientists. Now there are hundreds of millions. Chatbots have the potential to have a similar global impact over the coming decades. New businesses will be created leveraging this technology, creating entirely new industries as a result, but the need for humans will still prevail.
Chatbots are not safe from regulation
Of course, chatbots will need to be regulated. Like all technology, regulation will be key to building trust and understanding in business and for society. Regulating chatbots is critical because this kind of AI can show indifference toward individual personal rights like privacy, and bolster systematic biases regarding race, gender, ethnicity, age, and others. There’s also a risk of chatbots being so sentient that it scares users, like the latest conversation between Kevin Roose and Bing. Finding a balance and the right boundaries will be key, but there are still some unknowns about where risk and liability may reside when using the tool.
Regulation in AI is quite difficult due to the nature of the technology; regulators are five to ten years behind today’s innovative technology. Much is uncertain, too, around the development of these systems. Given how rapidly the technology is progressing today, by the time the regulation is set in place, the AI landscape will likely shift considerably.
But it’s not just up to the regulators. Businesses building this technology have a responsibility and moral obligation to ensure that it is fair, ethical and used for good. Otherwise, they risk becoming pariahs and losing customers.
Generative AI technologies like ChatGPT and Bard open up exciting automation possibilities in knowledge management and conversational engagement. It has taken the world by storm with its ability to generate textual answers that can be indistinguishable from human responses. Today, everybody can engage in chatbots and beyond, and with the right regulation and talent, it’s exciting to see how it will power business in the future.
