ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot powered by OpenAI, has caused quite a stir since its release four months ago. From print media to radio, television, news websites and social media, ChatGPT has received an unprecedented amount of attention for a product launch – without any costs for the company. While the chatbot has been celebrated for its minimalistic and friendly interface, it soon revealed its pitfalls and security concerns. Tech experts from across the globe, such as Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk, have called for a six months pause on the development of AI. In response, the Italian National Data Protection authority has blocked access to the device, prompting OpenAI to take action to address the legal issues or face a hefty fine.
Despite its seeming likeliness to a human brain, ChatGPT does not work the same. Jeff Hawkins, an American computer scientist, has explained in his book A Thousand Brains that the AI architecture has nothing to do with the brain. Instead, it processes vast amounts of data at a faster rate without the capacity for seeing, hearing, or making generalizations from the data. As Alan Turing anticipated seventy years ago in his article Computing Machinery and Intelligence, AI is still unable to perform such functions.
Rachid Guerraoui, head of EPFL’s Distributed Computing Laboratory, and his colleague El Mahdi El Mhamdi, have both raised concerns about the inherent risks of ChatGPT. Guerraoui worries about individuals blindly trusting the chatbot’s information, as well as anyone using the device as a crutch to flee responsibility. El Mhamdi critiques the lack of legal framework and is astounded by people’s admiration of the chatbot. He recalls the Cambridge Analytica data-gathering scandal and the dangerous effects of recommendation algorithms.
OpenAI’s genius does not lie in the science behind ChatGPT, but in its clever marketing and delegation to technology enthusiasts. The underlying idea of ChatGPT is a useful tool, but the implications of its use are potentially dangerous. OpenAI has made the world take notice and with it a sense of responsibility to do so – with caution.
