It is now more than a year and a half since the publication of GPT-3. The interest that the model aroused in June 2021 was little compared to that of ChatGPT, its docile and polite version recently published by OpenAI. The most sensationalist headlines are already talking about the end of Google and mass layoffs. These are just fantasies, but this AI does seem to herald changes for many jobs.

Even Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wondered, just a few days ago in the New York Times, what the future of work would be in a world where artificial intelligence begins to emulate human skills that were previously forbidden to it. We will always hear voices saying, “this time it’s different” and, indeed, there is always going to be something different from the last time. But the question is not whether it will take your job (surely not) but how it will affect, for example:

• Teachers
• Students
• Programmers
• Journalists
• Doctors
• Cooks

What is ChatGPT?

Developed by Open AI in 2022, ChatGPT is one of the AI systems that can respond to any request you make and do many other things if you ask it to.

Launched in November 2022, it has been making headlines in recent months because it is a chatbot that has left more than one person speechless with the accuracy of its responses.

This chatbot is a language model that has been prepared using supervised learning and reinforcement techniques. It is an artificial intelligence trained to respond and maintain a conversation as it is capable of understanding what any person asks it and to do so in a coherent way.

This application is a revolution in terms of providing information and answering questions in a similar way to what would happen in a normal conversation because it has been educated through AI and machine learning. 

Education and the use of Artificial Intelligence

Education is one of the first sectors to look at this technology, as it did when Wikipedia became popular. In schools and universities, teachers have long been considering the value of doing homework. Even with the help of software that detects plagiarism or lack of originality in lazy people, teachers have to think carefully about what they are assessing in their students.

Moreover, ChatGPT is quite inaccurate and can get it much more wrong than a copy-paste from Wikipedia. The problem is that it hides it very well. Its texts are completely unpublished, plagiarism-proof and written in perfect Spanish (although this might give a clue to many teachers).

But the most important thing is that teachers will still have to ask themselves what learning is: is having a conversational assistant like ChatGPT going to boost or stunt students’ intellect? How will they assess comprehension skills? These are questions that also affect any subject, career, or subject; ChatGPT is capable of really complex tasks. For example, programming.

GPT-3: the code snipping wizard

GPT-3 already included among its amazing capabilities the possibility of writing functional code in several computer languages, starting from a description. Not only that, but also to describe and annotate it, or to correct bugs (errors) that crept in between its lines. This is why, before even a month has passed, many programmers, such as those trained at Fundación Telefónica’s Escuela 42, are already working side by side with OpenAI’s conversational assistant.

This led the reputable developer community Stack Overflow to quickly ban answers to questions generated with ChatGPT. AI makes mistakes, even in seemingly robotic tasks. But that doesn’t mean that programmers finally have the companion they’ve been waiting for. We just need to know how far it can help us and how far it can’t, to get the best out of it.

AI as a tool for journalists

As soon as ChatGPT was published, many journalists rushed to write alarmist headlines about the end of their profession or to let the application write part of an article for them. The results are often curious, but do not offer much in the way of quality. It should be noted that ChatGPT does not have any information after November 2021, and that it makes some major errors in its writing.

Nevertheless, we asked the assistant how it can be useful for a journalist and he replied that “as a starting point” or to present information concisely, but that “it is only a tool and cannot completely replace the work of a human journalist. Journalists are still responsible for verifying the veracity of information and for making ethical and editorial decisions on how to present it to the public.

ChatGPT technology and its role in medicine

The technology on which ChatGPT is based is designed to, among other things, analyse text accurately. This has put it in the spotlight of researchers, who believe that AI assistants could be relevant for the early detection of ailments such as Alzheimer’s disease. The AI assistant could also have a role in the consulting room in summarising reports or medical records, helping to reduce the time spent reading.

On the other hand, ChatGPT carries certain risks, especially if used uncritically by patients seeking self-diagnosis or psychological support that a machine is not capable of providing. In this sense, healthcare professionals will face competition: the same competition they already face from Google when it comes to patient information, only now with even less reliability.

But really – and hence its game-changer quality – ChatGPT will have an impact on the way we carry out any profession that requires verbal or written communication. Also, in any job where knowledge or creativity is needed to improve. That is, in any profession, from a swimming pool installer to a cook.

For this reason, at Fundación we are committed to providing the best free training so that, if you are interested, you can prepare yourself for free and improve your digital skills in all areas of digital transformation.