Since its launch on November 30th, 2022, you can’t venture very far on the internet or social media apps without seeing something about ChatGPT.
The artificial intelligence-powered chatbot from OpenAI uses a series of natural language processing (NLP) ****** that enable it to understand user text and generate human-like responses, simulating an open-ended conversation.
From web developers on Twitter to mainstream news outlets, over 100 million people currently use ChatGPT to answer questions, solve coding problems, write college essays, and more.
It’s proved to be a very powerful tool, with users receiving accurate responses to their requests most of the time.
One user got ChatGPT to write a piano piece in the style of Mozart, and another got it to generate a dairy-free recipe for mac and cheese.
There are hundreds of use cases for AI chatbots like ChatGPT that span many industries, such as using it to revamp your resume, write original jokes, solve complicated math problems, and even receive relationship advice.
Yet, that doesn’t mean there are no disadvantages of ChatGPT, as its language model does have some noticeable flaws.
Besides that, there are many nefarious things users can do with the chatbot, such as using it to create malware or proliferate hate speech.
That’s why we’re here to present both sides of the coin by pointing out the big pros and cons of ChatGPT, so stay tuned to learn more.
Unpacking ChatGPT’s Features
ChatGPT is currently open-source software from OpenAI, meaning that anyone can download and start using it for free.
What does GPT stand for?
It’s an acronym for generative pre-trained transformer, a neural network of machine learning ****** that uses deep learning to understand & generate human-like text.
GPT is one of OpenAI’s creations, and it’s currently in the early stage of its fourth generation, as GPT-4 just dropped on March 14th, 2023.
ChatGPT was based on GPT-2, the second generation of the technology. While it features a massive amount of training data, its data sets are a tad outdated at the moment.
Still, the chatbot’s ability to generate human-like outputs in real-time is undoubtedly impressive, and the tool is effortless to pick up and start using. You can speak to ChatGPT as you would any friend or coworker, as it can comprehend common human language patterns.
As far as functionality goes, you can use ChatGPT for just about anything.
For instance, if your digital marketing strategy involves a boatload of content creation, a cost-effective way to knock it out is to let ChatGPT generate it all for you. Or, if you’re simply in need of a starting point, you can use it to cure writer’s block by writing the intro for you.
As many software engineers on Twitter found out, ChatGPT is an excellent code debugging companion. Not only does it discover bugs and fix them, but it also provides detailed explanations of what it did to fix the issue – making it a fantastic educational tool for programmers.
The Big Pros
Now that you know a bit more about what ChatGPT is and how it works, let’s dive into the pros and cons of ChatGPT.
There are many advantages of ChatGPT, from increasing customer engagement to automatically generating e-commerce product descriptions for boosted productivity.
The program can converse with users on various topics, and it has massive potential for improving customer service and virtual assistant services.
Superior customer service automation
Speaking of customer service, ChatGPT is available 24/7 and can handle a large load of customer queries at a time, making it the ultimate customer service chatbot.
No longer will your customers have to wait hours or days in a queue for responses to their questions, as ChatGPT is fully capable of solving simple issues by itself. That will improve your response time metrics and overall customer experience, benefiting your company.
Your customers will also appreciate conversing with a chatbot that understands them so well, as it’s nearly identical to chatting with a live customer service agent.
As a result, you can let ChatGPT handle all your simple & repetitive customer service calls, which will free up your live team of customer service agents so they can handle more complex issues that require human intervention.
That will add to your bottom line through increased efficiency and saved labor costs, which is definitely a plus. ChatGPT can also help small businesses and startups provide more robust customer service, even if they don’t have many live agents or much of a budget.
As such, AI can help smaller companies level the playing field when competing with their enterprise-level counterparts, both with customer support and other business areas.
Automate tedious manual processes
Another way you can use ChatGPT to boost your productivity is to rely on it to knock out repetitive menial tasks.
Data entry & categorization are two examples of tasks ChatGPT can help automate, freeing up a lot of time for your team.
Instead of spending hours entering numbers into spreadsheets, your team members will have more time for important things like strategic planning, following up with client needs, and brainstorming new ways to innovate.
Not only that, but you can integrate ChatGPT into many existing applications, such as CRM & data analytics tools. From there, you can use the chatbot’s superior data processing abilities to aid with future forecasting, spot trends in client data, and provide insights on employee performance.
Coding-wise, ChatGPT’s ability to instantly generate accurate user documentation is a huge timesaver for programmers. Once you paste all your system’s information into ChatGPT, you can ask it FAQs from users, and you can use the answers it provides in your own documentation.
Not only that, but the AI chatbot has the potential to transform non-programmers into developers through its ability to create code from natural language prompts.
Now users don’t need to know a programming language to develop an app, as they can simply ask ChatGPT to write the required code for them. Its code-writing abilities can also save seasoned programmers a ton of time and effort when developing new applications & software.
Content generation
Digital marketing & SEO campaigns require quite a bit of content creation, which doesn’t come cheap.
That’s why digital marketing agencies often have large in-house teams dedicated to creating content comprising writers, editors, graphic designers, and content strategists.
ChatGPT is capable of generating entire blog posts, rephrasing & simplifying paragraphs, summarizing topics, and even creating image prompts for other programs like DALL-E. One college student shared on Twitter that he got ChatGPT to write an essay that received an A- from their professor.
With the content generation capabilities of ChatGPT, companies can drastically reduce the costs associated with developing, creating, & releasing content.
Writing a brief blog post can be as simple as typing a short request into ChatGPT, which will generate human-like text that’s free of plagiarism. However, the technology still isn’t capable of producing original insights or understanding human emotions, so there are some limitations. .
The Big Cons
Now that you’re familiar with the biggest advantages of using AI chatbots at your company, it’s time to examine the cons of using ChatGPT.
The platform has a genuine dark side, and it would be irresponsible of us not to mention it. Particularly, ChatGPT’s machine learning algorithms still need some tweaking and development. We’ve already mentioned that its language model is based on an older generation of GPT, but it doesn’t end there.
Besides the inaccuracies and hallucinations exhibited by the chatbot, there are also many nefarious uses for ChatGPT that raise some ethical & moral red flags.
Outdated data sets
When OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in November 2022, the AI’s training data only reached the year 2021, and so far, nothing has changed yet.
That means whenever you interact with ChatGPT, the chatbot will have no knowledge or awareness of anything that occurred after 2021. As a result, you won’t be able to get information on any recent events or discoveries until the data sets get updated.
Factual inaccuracies & limited understanding
While ChatGPT’s language model is robust and can understand most basic human language patterns, it isn’t perfect and can sometimes get confused. In particular, it still has difficulty understanding context and complex queries.
That can lead to ChatGPT generating irrelevant user results, which can be frustrating. Also, since ChatGPT is still learning, it has some biases and even the tendency to lie and make up facts. For example, this writer received a different answer whenever they asked the chatbot, “What was the first cartoon?”
The only thing the different answers had in common was that they were all incorrect.
Nefarious uses
Lastly, ChatGPT can be used for not-so-great purposes. While it’s capable of writing code and creating software, it can also create malware.
It also lacks emotional intelligence and a sense of morals, so it can generate distasteful content when prompted. It has also produced racist and sexist content due to some users abusing the program, which is a real concern.
Final Thoughts: Pros and Cons of ChatGPT
There are many pros and cons of ChatGPT, and it’s clear that the chatbot still has many kinks to iron out.
Yet, there’s no denying that it shows massive potential for helping companies save money, automate tasks, improve customer experiences, and more.
At the same time, there’s a growing need to keep some of its capabilities in check, such as creating malware and writing phishing emails. As long as OpenAI continues to tweak the program and as long as the AI continues to learn from interacting with users, the future should be bright for ChatGPT.
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