As the sudden explosion of public interest in ChatGPT continues to excite millions, we ask: Is this the tipping point for machine-driven conversation (and more)? Is ChatGPT the Netscape of our time?
In Fortune’s The inside story of ChatGPT: How OpenAI founder Sam Altman built the world’s hottest technology with billions from Microsoft, author Jeremy Kahn helpfully explains OpenAI’s history, structure, financing, and much more — at 6K words, the article covers a lot of territory. Kahn cuts straight to The Big Moment scenario in his opening paragraph [emphasis mine]:
“A few times in a generation, a product comes along that catapults a technology from the fluorescent gloom of engineering department basements, the fetid teenage bedrooms of nerds, and the lonely man caves of hobbyists — into something that your great-aunt Edna knows how to use. There were web browsers as early as 1990. But it wasn’t until Netscape Navigator came along in 1994 that most people discovered the internet. There were MP3 players before the iPod debuted in 2001, but they didn’t spark the digital music revolution. There were smartphones before Apple dropped the iPhone in 2007 too — but before the iPhone, there wasn’t an app for that.” Read More
Tag Archives: ChatBots
AI Detector Pro is latest tool to detect ChatGPT-written content
A newly available online tool can purportedly detect AI-written content from ChatGPT and similar systems. Called AI Detector Pro, it works by identifying commonly-used styling and wording used by OpenAI’s GPT-based algorithms.
… Similarly, Stanford researchers announced DetectGPT to identify content created by large language models like ChatGPT. Read More
ChatGPT passes exams from law and business schools
ChatGPT is smart enough to pass prestigious graduate-level exams – though not with particularly high marks.
The powerful new AI chatbot tool recently passed law exams in four courses at the University of Minnesota and another exam at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, according to professors at the schools.
To test how well ChatGPT could generate answers on exams for the four courses, professors at the University of Minnesota Law School recently graded the tests blindly. After completing 95 multiple choice questions and 12 essay questions, the bot performed on average at the level of a C+ student, achieving a low but passing grade in all four courses.
ChatGPT fared better during a business management course exam at Wharton, where it earned a B to B- grade. In a paper detailing the performance, Christian Terwiesch, a Wharton business professor, said ChatGPT did “an amazing job” at answering basic operations management and process-analysis questions but struggled with more advanced prompts and made “surprising mistakes” with basic math. Read More
Decoding the Hype About AI
A conversation with Arvind Narayanan
If you have been reading all the hype about the latest artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, you might be excused for thinking that the end of the world is nigh.
The clever AI chat program has captured the imagination of the public for its ability to generate poems and essays instantaneously, its ability to mimic different writing styles, and its ability to pass some law and business school exams.
Teachers are worried students will use it to cheat in class (New York City public schools have already banned it). Writers are worried it will take their jobs (BuzzFeed and CNET have already started using AI to create content). The Atlantic declared that it could “destabilize white-collar work.” Venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky called it a “pocket nuclear bomb” and chastised its makers for launching it on an unprepared society.
Even the CEO of the company that makes ChatGPT, Sam Altman, has been telling the media that the worst-case scenario for AI could mean “lights out for all of us.” Read More
A Skeptical Take on the A.I. Revolution
The year 2022 was jam-packed with advances in artificial intelligence, from the release of image generators like DALL-E 2 and text generators like Cicero to a flurry of developments in the self-driving car industry. And then, on November 30, OpenAI released ChatGPT, arguably the smartest, funniest, most humanlike chatbot to date.
In the weeks since, ChatGPT has become an internet sensation. If you’ve spent any time on social media recently, you’ve probably seen screenshots of it describing Karl Marx’s theory of surplus value in the style of a Taylor Swift song or explaining how to remove a sandwich from a VCR in the style of the King James Bible. There are hundreds of examples like that.
But amid all the hype, I wanted to give voice to skepticism: What is ChatGPT actually doing? Is this system really as “intelligent” as it can sometimes appear? And what are the implications of unleashing this kind of technology at scale? Read More
Teaching In The Age Of AI Means Getting Creative
Alarm bells seemed to sound in teachers’ lounges across America late last year with the debut of ChatGPT — an AI chatbot that was both easy to use and capable of producing dialogue-like responses, including longer-form writing and essays. Some writers and educators went so far as to even forecast the death of student papers. However, not everyone was convinced it was time to panic. Plenty of naysayers pointed to the bot’s unreliable results, factual inaccuracies and dull tone, and insisted that the technology wouldn’t replace real writing.
Indeed, ChatGPT and similar AI systems are being used in realms beyond education, but classrooms seem to be where fears about the bot’s misuse — and ideas to adapt alongside evolving technology — are playing out first. The realities of ChatGPT are forcing professors to take a long look at today’s teaching methods and what they actually offer to students. Current types of assessment, including the basic essays ChatGPT can mimic, may become obsolete. But instead of branding the AI as a gimmick or threat, some educators say this chatbot could end up recalibrating the way they teach, what they teach and why they teach it. Read More
AI Passes U.S. Medical Licensing Exam
— Two papers show that large language models, including ChatGPT, can pass the USMLE
Two artificial intelligence (AI) programs — including ChatGPT — have passed the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE), according to two recent papers.
The papers highlighted different approaches to using large language models to take the USMLE, which is comprised of three exams: Step 1, Step 2 CK, and Step 3. Read More
Paper 1
Paper 2
I’m a Noted Music Critic. Can A.I. Do My Job?
ChatGPT has professionals in a range of industries justifiably nervous. Should music writers — those concert-addicted, record-hoarding gatekeepers of good taste — be worried too?
When TIDAL asked me to write an essay about whether Artificial Intelligence could fulfill the role of the music critic, my first thought was “Can I get A.I. to do the piece for me?” I turned of course to ChatGPT, the program that has stirred up a lot of, well, chat recently. (It’s currently available to the public free of charge, the idea being that users’ interactions with the chatbot will help its developers at the company OpenAI improve it.) I made the instructions as simple and straightforward as possible:
Write an essay in the style of music critic Simon Reynolds that expresses skeptical views about A.I. taking over the role of the music critic.
Within seconds, the program served up 200 words of disconcertingly clear and well-organized argument. The effect was at once mind-blowing and underwhelming. Although millions of my own sentences can be found on the internet, the program proved unable to duplicate any stylistic mannerisms. The argument itself struck me as averagely intelligent, making entry-level points about how A.I.-generated prose is necessarily deficient in empathy and nuance, and how it would lack the unique and personal perspective of a human critic. (I had to give the chatbot points for self-awareness, at least.) Similar formulations on the same topic, substituting the names of music journalists with highly individual prose voices, produced equally neutral and characterless results. Read More
Google Calls In Help From Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. Fight
A rival chatbot has shaken Google out of its routine, with the founders who left three years ago re-engaging and more than 20 A.I. projects in the works.
Last month, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, held several meetings with company executives. The topic: a rival’s new chatbot, a clever A.I. product that looked as if it could be the first notable threat in decades to Google’s $149 billion search business.
Mr. Page and Mr. Brin, who had not spent much time at Google since they left their daily roles with the company in 2019, reviewed Google’s artificial intelligence product strategy, according to two people with knowledge of the meetings who were not allowed to discuss them. They approved plans and pitched ideas to put more chatbot features into Google’s search engine. And they offered advice to company leaders, who have put A.I. front and center in their plans.
The re-engagement of Google’s founders, at the invitation of the company’s current chief executive, Sundar Pichai, emphasized the urgency felt among many Google executives about artificial intelligence and that chatbot, ChatGPT. Read More
Google’s Blog
#big7, #chatbots
AI Claude Passes Law and Economics Exam
The Claude AI from Anthropic earned a marginal pass on a recent GMU law and economics exam! Read More
… Claude was created using a technique Anthropic developed called “constitutional AI.” As the company explains in a recent Twitter thread, “constitutional AI” aims to provide a “principle-based” approach to aligning AI systems with human intentions, letting AI similar to ChatGPT respond to questions using a simple set of principles as a guide.
To engineer Claude, Anthropic started with a list of around ten principles that, taken together, formed a sort of “constitution” (hence the name “constitutional AI”). The principles haven’t been made public, but Anthropic says they’re grounded in the concepts of beneficence (maximizing positive impact), nonmaleficence (avoiding giving harmful advice) and autonomy (respecting freedom of choice). Read More
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