Whether you heard about it from a classmate, the news or one of the latest episodes of “South Park,” you’ve probably heard of Chat GPT.
If you haven’t heard of Chat GPT, their website describes it as “a conversational AI model developed by OpenAI, a research organization founded in 2015 with the goal of promoting and developing friendly AI that benefits humanity.”
Taking the world by storm, Chat GPT has grown in popularity due to its ability to create different kinds of writing such as essays, scripts and stories. It even has the ability to write HTML code.
The possibilities aren’t endless, but they are extensive when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI).
With growing popularity comes growing controversy.
If you decide to use Chat GPT for anything other than for fun, there are some factors you should weigh in.
For starters, using Chat GPT in an academic setting will constitute as cheating and academic dishonesty. Is it really worth risking your grade and the consequences of plagiarism to save yourself an hour or two? No, it isn’t.
With that being said, it’s not even a hundred percent accurate.
Chat GPT states, “It’s important to note that ChatGPT is not a fully-fledged AI system and can sometimes generate biased or offensive responses, especially if it has been trained on biased data. It is recommended to use the model with caution and to implement appropriate filtering and moderation strategies to ensure the quality of its outputs.”
It’s incredibly difficult and maybe impossible to replicate the work of a real person using AI.
Especially since essays and papers in college need sources and most of the time, materials and concepts went over in class. It would be a lot more work to make it seem like a real paper rather than a generalized and glorified Wikipedia page.
Academic dishonesty and accuracy aren’t the only issues that come along with Chat GPT.
On a global level, Chat GPT raises the chances of hurting people over the Internet.
Funmi Looi Somoye for PC Guide wrote a piece on the real-world dangers of Chat GPT.
“Chat GPT has the potential to be used by attackers to trick and target you and your computer,” Looi Somoye said. “For example, fraudsters could use Chat GPT to quickly create spam and phishing emails. Due to the vast amount of data, the model is trained on, it has now become easier than ever to create scarily convincing emails even in the style of the company they’re trying to pose as.”
The risks don’t stop at phony emails. Chat GPT is already being used by hackers.
Axios reported, “Researchers at Check Point Research said Friday they’ve spotted malicious hackers using ChatGPT to develop basic hacking tools.”
Lastly, Chat GPT being used can ultimately steal jobs away from real-life people. Software engineers, writers, artists and more are at risk of being beaten out by AI.
The New York Post reported, “So promising are the tool’s capabilities that Microsoft — amid laying off 10,000 people — has announced a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment” in the revolutionary technology, which is growing smarter by the day.”
It would be amazing if we lived in a world where we could have these types of things and have them only be used for good, but we don’t. With great power comes great responsibility. The 19-year-olds who still live with their parents probably shouldn’t have access to that great power and we should probably keep it under control.
This technology truly is amazing, but when it is used for the wrong reasons, it poses a threat to our world.
