What’s new, ChatGPT?
Nico Bryan, January, 2023
Strategist Nico Bryan asked ChatGPT to answer the question “What Is New?” in 300 words.
In recent weeks, generative AI has been everywhere. Tech giants, including Google, Meta and Microsoft are publicly researching and developing their AI capabilities, while a short scroll on TikTok reveals a whole world of corner-cutting potential. Street-smart students, for instance, are using ChatGPT to answer their assignments, pen Shakespearean prose, or complete coding queries. And though we don’t endorse plagiarism, it’s easy to see the possibilities (both good and bad) that generative AI offers.
So, as we enter the new year, we thought we’d give this new, seemingly insuperable technology a try for ourselves and ask ChatGPT the simple – but profound – question: ‘What is new?’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m a machine learning model and I don’t have access to current events. My training data only goes up until 2021, so I am unable to provide information about events that have occurred after that time. Is there anything else I can help you with?’
Well, this is what we got: ‘I’m sorry, but I’m a machine learning model and I don’t have access to current events. My training data only goes up until 2021, so I am unable to provide information about events that have occurred after that time. Is there anything else I can help you with?’
Should we be underwhelmed? The answer is reasonable on several counts: the question was vague; the reply was impressive, personable, and polite; and to be honest, expecting a nascent technology to be a soothsayer is likely excessive. And yet, there is a feeling of unfulfillment.
Fortunately, other questions did reveal some of ChatGPT’s capabilities. Prompts about particular trends for 2023 produced some interesting answers: ‘Some potential trends include proliferation of mobile devices and the increasing use of artificial intelligence… there may also be further developments in the fields of renewable energy, space exploration and biotechnology’. Although broad categories of potential advancement, it’s interesting to see AI’s understanding of areas of innovation.
‘It’s difficult to predict exactly what will happen in the future’.
More specific prompts, such as those relating to ESG, the World of Work, and the future of generative AI, help to give some greater detail to some of these trends. But, again, none of these suggestions are prophetic, and nor should we expect them to be. As ChatGPT submits, ‘It’s difficult to predict exactly what will happen in the future’.
What is clear about the future, though, is that generative AI has huge potential. And, for those with a utopian bent, advocates will insist that generative AI programs such as ChatGPT can aid creativity, augment existing systems, accelerate ideation and to push output to new, never-seen-before levels. As Bill Cusick of Stability AI believes, generative AI is ‘the foundation for the future of creativity’.