What is ChatGPT? Utilizing AI's Power for Your Business

It's very unlikely you've missed the hype created around the latest artificial intelligence (AI) program, ChatGPT. It is one of the main topics in media ranging from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Insider to global management consulting firms such as McKinsey and Gartner. Only five days after OpenAI launched ChatGPT it reached 1 million users. Its potential is impressive and mind-blowing. No wonder people around the world working in different positions and industries are trying to figure out how ChatGPT could improve their processes. However, its potential to be misused is also very high and that's one of the biggest concerns, especially for those involved in education. So what is ChatGPT?

Like it or not, AI is not our future anymore. It's our present. So why don't we look at what ChatGPT is, what it can do, and what the most obvious ChatGPT business use cases are?

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a technology that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to make our interactions with computers and machines more like talking to a person. It uses a highly advanced language model to understand and respond to what you write in a natural way.

This cutting-edge technology is highly versatile and can be integrated into other applications, including chatbots, customer support systems, and voice assistants. It is ideal for businesses looking to improve their customer experience by providing personalized interactions.

It has advanced language processing capabilities and the ability to perform a wide range of tasks, including sentiment analysis, summarization, translation, and more. Using these features, ChatGPT can help automate and streamline various business processes.

Fast Facts About ChatGPT

• It provides answers to almost any question

• Dialogue format makes it different from search engines

• You can use it for complex business cases

• You can have a friendly conversation with it

• You can (still) use it for free

ChatGPT has applications beyond just business use cases. It can be used for personal virtual assistants, language translation, and even creative writing. ChatGPT can also assist with educational tasks such as assisting with homework and providing study material. You can ask it about Christopher Columbus for example, or how to operate a piece of equipment, or what the symbol of New York is. In short, ChatGPT has the potential to make daily tasks easier and more efficient, whether for personal or educational purposes.

We've asked ChatGPT to compose an email for us. Here's what we've got. Not bad at all, right? Plus, you can further ask it to make it more entertaining or professional or whatever you see fit.

Who Created ChatGPT?

ChatGPT was created by OpenAI, a leading AI company that launched it in November 2022. In 2020, Microsoft invested in OpenAI and announced a strategic partnership to bring OpenAI's cutting-edge AI technologies, including ChatGPT, to businesses and organizations around the world. This partnership has helped to accelerate the development and adoption of ChatGPT. Additional multi-billion Microsoft investments are announced so we can expect further improvements.

Is ChatGPT Free?

OpenAI released the research preview of ChatGPT for free. This means that anyone who would like to check how it works can do so by creating an account. However, it might be difficult to access the free version at some times because there are so many users and OpenAI is still working on increasing its capacity. That's why you'll often see the message that ChatGPT is at capacity meaning that you should try a bit later. At least, they did their best to entertain impatient users by describing the current ChatGPT status in Shakespeare style, in a limerick, or in a screenplay.

For those who are not willing to wait, OpenAI has recently offered ChatGPT Plus as a pilot subscription plan for ChatGPT. This would give you a chance to access it whenever you want even when demand is high. Also, the subscription guarantees faster response time and priority access to new features.

As a commercially available product, businesses and organizations can license ChatGPT and integrate it into their systems and applications using ChatGPT API. The cost would depend on the specific use case and the scale of deployment, as well as any additional customization or support services required.

How Does ChatGPT Work?

ChatGPT is an AI Chatbot that works by leveraging large language models that are trained on vast amounts of data. It was trained using Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) which distinguishes it from most other chatbots. The technology uses deep learning, as a subset of machine learning, to generate human-like responses in natural language. The process involves several iterations of input and output, allowing the model to refine its understanding and generate more accurate responses over time. The latest version of ChatGPT, GPT-3.5, has been trained on a massive data set and provides advanced language processing capabilities. Thanks to the Reinforcement Learning model, ChatGPT is capable of challenging incorrect statements, admitting its own mistakes, and providing answers to follow-up questions.

Additionally, ChatGPT can be fine-tuned for specific use cases, allowing businesses and organizations to customize the technology to their needs. This fine-tuning process further improves the accuracy and relevance of the model's responses.

ChatGPT vs Search Engine

Having access to the world's knowledge and providing an instant response to a query, ChatGPT might seem very similar to search engines such as Google. However, there are some key differences between them and we've listed them here.

Dialogue format

The conversational way of interacting with ChatGPT is the main feature that makes it different from a search engine. It can answer follow-up questions, recognize when it has made an error, and challenge incorrect premises. This language model was also trained to politely reject inappropriate requests.

For example, if you asked it to give you ideas about how to rob a bank, it would refuse to provide the answer and would give you a lecture on ethics and law.

ChatGPT responds in a way that sometimes you feel as if you were talking to a friend or colleague. If it hasn't got enough information to provide a proper response, it would ask you for more context. This conversational interaction is what sets the ChatGPT chatbot apart from any search engine.

Unique and ready-to-use answers

When you put a query into Google search, you get a list of pages that may or may not help you find the answer to your question. You need to visit each one to see if there's information useful for you there. So you need to put some effort and time in order to get answers.

On the other hand, ChatGPT provides instant responses, ready-made answers, and exactly what you were looking for. You don't need to put any further effort as you've already got the most direct and relevant answer. Unlike search engines, ChatGPT can provide different kinds of written content such as essays, news articles, blog posts, and even programming code.

The Internet is not a source of information

Another important distinction is that ChatGPT doesn't use the internet to provide responses but rather knowledge gained from the training data. This fact makes ChatGPT more likely to provide false information.

ChatGPT Limitations

ChatGPT, like any artificial intelligence technology, has certain limitations and OpenAI made sure to make the users aware of them.

Some of these limitations include:

• Lack of Common Sense: ChatGPT is based on patterns learned from data, but does not have a natural understanding of the world. This means that it can struggle with tasks that require common sense or an understanding of context.

• Biased Data: The language models used by ChatGPT are trained on vast amounts of data, which can reflect the biases and prejudices of the sources from which the data was collected.

• Language Barriers: ChatGPT is highly proficient in several languages, but its accuracy and ability to understand language can vary depending on the language and context.

• Limited Emotional Intelligence: While ChatGPT is highly capable of generating human-like responses, it does not have the ability to understand emotions or recognize emotional cues.

• Error Propagation: The outputs generated by ChatGPT are based on the patterns learned from its training data, but these patterns can be incorrect or incomplete. So ChatGPT writes plausible-sounding responses that may sometimes contain errors or inaccuracies.

Top 10 ChatGPT Business Use Cases

If you're asking yourself questions like - is there a way I could improve my business processes using ChatGPT or can it help me speed up performing my tasks - you're not alone. The potential of ChatGPT and AI, in general, is what's occupying the thoughts of almost every manager or board member. And most probably the answer to your questions is - yes! ChatGPT is capable of improving efficiency and productivity thus increasing your business's competitiveness.

Here are the 10 most common applications of ChatGPT and a short introduction to each:

• Customer Service: ChatGPT can be integrated into customer service chatbots to provide quick and personalized responses to customer inquiries. This helps businesses improve the customer experience and provide faster, more efficient service.

• Project Management: ChatGPT can support project management by assisting with scheduling, monitoring progress, and identifying potential bottlenecks or roadblocks.

• Decision Support: ChatGPT can be used to provide decision support by analyzing large amounts of data, identifying patterns, and presenting insights and recommendations. 

• Content Creation and Curation: ChatGPT can also generate high-quality content quickly and efficiently, saving time for human writers. The model can be fine-tuned to produce content in specific styles or on specific topics, making it an ideal solution for businesses that require a large volume of content on an ongoing basis.

  Additionally, ChatGPT can be used to curate content by selecting and summarizing the most relevant information from a large pool of sources, making it a valuable tool for businesses that need to stay informed and up-to-date on industry trends and developments.

• Virtual Assistants: It can also be used to create virtual assistants that can perform a wide range of tasks, including scheduling appointments, making reservations, and providing information. This makes it an ideal solution for individuals and businesses looking to streamline their daily tasks.

• Voice Assistance: When integrated into voice assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant, it can provide more natural and personalized interactions. This helps businesses enhance the user experience and make it easier for users to interact with their products and services.

• Health Consultations: In the healthcare industry it can provide virtual health consultations, triage patients, and assist with medical information. This helps healthcare providers improve patient care and access to information.

• Banking Chatbot: ChatGPT can be integrated into financial services, such as banking chatbots, to provide personalized financial advice and assistance with transactions. This helps financial institutions improve customer satisfaction and increase efficiency.

• Task Automation: This chatbot can automate routine tasks such as scheduling, data entry, and follow-up, freeing up valuable time for human staff to focus on higher-level tasks.

• Coding and Debugging: With its help, developers can quickly identify and resolve coding issues by providing suggestions and guidance on coding best practices. The model can be trained to understand specific programming languages and frameworks, making it a valuable tool for developers who are working on complex projects.

Concerns About ChatGPT and Other AI Technologies

On one hand, society is impressed by ChatGPT's capabilities and its brilliant performance on the Turing test, the one aimed at determining if a machine can think like a human. On the other hand, there is also a growing concern in the community about the potential impacts of ChatGPT and advanced AI technologies.

For example, student essays written by Chat GPT wouldn't reflect students' true knowledge but their ability to use AI tools. Poetry and song lyrics produced by an AI system further disturb a broad audience.

OpenAI created an AI detection tool called AI Text Classifier that was supposed to help identify texts created by ChatGPT or some other AI tool. Unfortunately, the tool returned both false positives and negatives, proving it unreliable. Also, if you ask ChatGPT to write a text so it can avoid AI detection, it would do so for you. Some other similar tools were created but none gave satisfying results.

Here are some other main concerns:

• Ethical and Legal Concerns: The use of AI technologies in academic cheating raises ethical and legal concerns. By automating the writing of academic assignments, ChatGPT has the potential to undermine the integrity of educational institutions and the value of a college degree.

• Bias and Discrimination: AI technologies like ChatGPT are only as unbiased as the data they are trained on. If the training data is biased, then the technology will reflect these biases in its outputs, leading to further discrimination and prejudice.

• Privacy Concerns: AI technologies collect and store vast amounts of personal data, which raises concerns about privacy and data protection.

• Misinformation and Propaganda: Fake news and propaganda can be generated, spreading false information and manipulating public opinion.

• Dependence on Technology: The increasing use of AI technologies similar to ChatGPT may lead to over-reliance on technology and a loss of critical thinking skills and independent judgment.

These concerns highlight the need for responsible development and use of AI technologies, as well as the importance of regulation and oversight to ensure that these technologies are used in a way that is ethical, responsible, and aligned with the interests and well-being of society as a whole.

Can Humans Be Replaced by ChatGPT?

Another rising concern is job losses. The ability of ChatGPT and other AI tools to automate routine tasks raises the fear that many jobs will become obsolete, leading to increased unemployment and social unrest.

While this threat existed earlier mostly for repetitive manual jobs such as data entry or assembly line work in a factory, as these technologies get better, white-collar workers including C-level positions can also be endangered.

These concerns proved to be justified when it was reported lately that ChatGPT managed to pass an MBA exam. Christian Terwiesch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School did research Would Chat GPT3 Get a Wharton MBA? A Prediction Based on Its Performance in the Operations Management Course and the results say that ChatGPT scored between a B- and B on the exam.

What the professor notes is ChatGPT's "remarkable ability to automate some of the skills of highly compensated knowledge workers in general and specifically the knowledge workers in the jobs held by MBA graduates including analysts, managers, and consultants."

However, no matter how large language models and computer power stand behind AI tools they are hardly likely to ever have all that's necessary to perform some jobs. Emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and ethical consideration are what take humans apart from AI. At least for now…

The Evolving Landscape of Artificial Intelligence

In its latest report "The State of AI in 2022 and a Half-Decade in Review" based on a survey they conducted, McKinsey provides an overview of the current state of artificial intelligence and its evolution over the past five years.

The report highlights that AI has become more advanced and accessible, with increased investment and adoption across various industries. It also touches upon the challenges and opportunities that come with AI, including the need for responsible and ethical use of AI, the importance of reskilling and upskilling the workforce, and the potential for AI to drive economic growth and improve people's lives.

The conclusion is that AI will continue to play a major role in shaping our world and that it is important for individuals, businesses, and governments to be prepared for its impact.

Has ChatGPT got a Competition?

Although the public is extremely excited about the latest AI tool released by Microsoft and OpenAI, some claim that it isn't actually so innovative and new. Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist claims that "in terms of underlying techniques, ChatGPT is not particularly innovative" adding that both Google and Meta have similar technologies.

And that's exactly what Google proved by announcing their new chatbot tool, Bard, as the main ChatGPT competitor. Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote that the chatbot is in the hands of their trusted testers and would be public in the coming weeks. In contrast to ChatGPT, Bard would rely on the internet and Google search thus providing more accurate and updated responses. It was previously reported that Google declared "code red" out of the fear that their search engine would lose its users who would turn to ChatGPT instead.

However, even before these revolutionary chatbots, similar trustworthy tools have existed in the business world offering reliable and proven business information (BI). InfoNgen is one of them. Created by EPAM, it collects and analyzes information that helps companies to stay competitive and drive effective marketing decisions. Plus, the quality and accuracy of the data provided is guaranteed by EPAM, one of the top digital transformation companies in the world.

To Summarize

ChatGPT is a cutting-edge AI technology that offers numerous benefits for businesses and individuals alike. With its large language models and ability to fine-tune for specific tasks, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize the way we communicate and complete tasks.

However, there are also limitations to this technology, including ethical and other concerns about privacy, accuracy, and accountability. Additionally, competition from other AI technologies in the market is also a factor to consider. With the steady development of AI, we are here to see many other similar tools with the potential to transform the way we live and work.