In recent months artificial intelligence use has exploded
We follow quite a few technology substacks and began hearing whispers about ChatGTP mid-last year. It seemed like a novelty at first and then more and more of my less tech-saavy friends started asking me about it. “Hey what is this ChatGTP? Are my kids going to start having their papers written by AI?”. It seemingly wound its way into every conversation I’ve been having.
What is ChatGTP?
ChatGTP is a user accessible interface that allows you to interact with OpenAI’s natural language artificial intelligence platform. You can ask it simple questions, for example, “what is the top rated restaurant in my area?” It will respond with the top 10, and you can ask for a short summary on each, as well as contact information to make reservations. In its current iteration there is no ability for the platform to connect to take actions on external platforms. For example, it cannot contact a restaurant for you to make reservations, but its coming. While these uses may seem more like a novelty, where ChatGTP shines is in generating content. It can write articles that are optimized for SEO with little more than a sentence prompt.
Why the Explosion in Popularity?
It feels like magic. Prompt it to write you a 5 paragraph article on the reason we should recycle and 15 seconds later its displayed full with references and headings. People in our country are addicted to the fast and easy approach. Rather than hammering away at a keyboard for multiple hours the article was written (and edited by you) in less than 15 minutes.
What does it mean for the Internet?
The internet is slowly going to become overrun with AI generated content. It already took quite a bit of effort to determine the validity of a source, but with the proliferation of AI, its going to become nearly impossible to differentiate between naturally written articles and what is generated by AI.
What about search engines?
AI generated content presents a big problem for Google and other search driven platforms. Using a platform such as ChatGTP as a search engine has its advantages. The first and foremost being no ads. Google’s search engine is becoming more and more overrun with advertisements and various ranking formats (especially on mobile devices) that it makes something AI driven much more usable. Google recently released its ChatGTP competitor “Bard” that draws information from publicly available info on the internet.
Our Conclusion
AI is here to stay — we believe that it will begin to significantly shift our experience of the internet and the world around us.
