ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence-generated text generator that may not accurately reflect the world’s facts. For instance, a user on Reddit wanted to know the exact heel height of a discontinued weightlifting shoe and assumed that not even ChatGPT could answer the question. We know the information is hard to find, but relying on the text generated by ChatGPT is an unwise idea as it cannot be fact-checked. To put it into perspective, I asked the AI who Beth Skwarecki is and it got my job title and source of writing correct. But it kept trying to credit me with a Master of Public Health degree, which I’ve never earned. AI can hallucinate facts, and it could mistakenly take true facts and implications as correct.
Then, there is an AI-powered search engine, like Bing Chat. It uses real search results to generate information, while ChatGPT’s generator only generates texts that seem plausible. Recently, car enthusiast Chris Paukert got an email where someone tried to quote him, but when he noticed that a marketer used ChatGPT for “finding” the quote, he asked himself, why would someone rely on the robot for facts?
Thus, if you plan to use ChatGPT as an alternative to search engines, bear in mind that the AI cannot guarantee that its generated texts will be fact-checked and contain relevant facts. If you have to rely on AI, use Bing Chat where you can check the source of the AI-generated information. But at the end of the day, it is advised to keep the facts checked and be wary of the AI-generated information.
