Altman, who now serves as the AI company’s chief executive, is a starry-eyed visionary straight out of central casting. Last year he said in a newspaper interview that the “miracle” needed to create a “super powerful AI” has already occurred, referring to his own company’s output. In comparing GPT-3’s training process to that of raising children, he claims there is “no upper bound” to how far the technology can go.
The US company’s goal is to create “artificial general intelligence”, software that can learn and react just as a human does. “Talking” to ChatGPT shows that there’s still a way to go, but the gap between computers and humans is much closer than it was just a few years ago.
When The Telegraph asks the software itself what makes it unique, it cites the quality of its training – like any well-behaved student – and says: “This sets me apart from many other chatbots, which are often limited in their abilities and only able to provide answers to a narrow set of predefined questions.”
AI chatbots have been a routine feature of British life for a few years already. Logging onto many companies’ websites today triggers a popup window saying “Hi, I can answer your questions!” Telephoning restaurant chain Cafe Rouge, for example, puts you through to an audio chatbot that can recognise common questions and plays pre-recorded responses.
In both of these examples, it is clear that you are interacting with a robot. Current chatbot services vary in popularity; one UK bank even advertises that only humans answer its online customer queries.
While ChatGPT is not infallible, Oxford’s Wooldridge compares its output to well-written undergraduate work.
For example, when asked “what is artificial general intelligence” the chatbot responds: “It refers to a type of artificial intelligence that is capable of understanding or learning any intellectual task that a human being can. In other words, AGI is a type of AI that is able to perform any cognitive function that a human being can, rather than being limited to a specific set of tasks.”
This level of output poses a threat to those at the lower end of the employment market. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), around 1.5m jobs nationwide can be automated away, with those at greatest risk including restaurant waiters.
Those least likely to see machines taking over their jobs include legal professionals, doctors and university lecturers. Such occupations are classed as highly skilled, with the ONS saying: “It is not so much that robots are taking over, but that routine and repetitive tasks can be carried out more quickly and efficiently by an algorithm written by a human, or a machine designed for one specific function.”
Similarly, PwC says around a third of jobs could be under threat from AI in twenty years from now. Yet not all is doom and gloom.
The chairman of Parliament’s business committee, Darren Jones, hails ChatGPT as the “start of a new trend” in sophisticated AI tech. He says: “It will with time become common practice to use tools such as these at work.
“In practice, outside of customer service chatbots, we will probably end up with human workers’ output being augmented by AI which, if done right, is no bad thing.”
Greg Clark MP, chairman of Parliament’s digital, culture, media and sport committee, adds: “It’s certainly my view that AI has great potential to make life better.”
Expressing the hope that a British startup might reach the same level as OpenAI through carefully designed light-touch regulation, Clark says: “Getting this right, I think, is very important because it would be an opportunity for us to lead the world in having the right approach.”
When asked if it is a threat to humanity, ChatGPT insists it is merely “a program that has been designed to simulate intelligent conversation” and does not have “the ability to act or make decisions on my own”.
“I do not have any other capabilities or motivations,” the chatbot adds. Given the level of proficiency that it shows, that isn’t altogether reassuring.
