Is ChatGPT making you an AI Slave?

Around 13 million people are on a path of ending their livelihoods and getting enslaved in the alluring web of AI. No, I am not bluffing!

From being firm on the fact that the earth is flat to taking that first exciting step on the moon, human beings have come far in terms of development. Forwarding on this never-ending path to urbanisation, humans came across an entity so advanced in nature that it piqued their curiosity. This entity is called Artificial Intelligence (AI), and it has been making lives easy with every passing day.

Don’t have the answer to a particular query? No worries, AI bots have got you covered. Have difficulty managing the traffic? Again, saviour AI is at your service in the form of Autonomous Vehicle Annotation. Artificial Intelligence has been at our beck and call, providing every service we require of it. In this horde of advancement, humans, unconsciously, is on the pavement to become completely dependent upon a non-living, super-intelligent sentient. 

You guessed right; we are talking about your new best friend, ChatGPT.

If you don’t live under a rock, then you must have heard about ChatGPT, either being cooed on social media or being dished at by your professors. The difference between these two sources is vast, which is discussed further in the article. 

So, let’s see what ChatGPT is and what the reasons are that this particular platform can be the cause of humans falling from being the prime species on earth. 

What is ChatGPT really?

ChatGPT was called “mind-blowing” by viewers and experts alike for having the capacity to interact as a human. The funda behind the creation of this AI Bot was making a smart tool accessible for all to get tasks done easily with sheer facts and human insights. But, as often is the case, this platform ended up becoming the reason people are now on the verge of losing their creativity, vigour, and even their jobs.

Don’t believe me? You will soon end up nodding your head as you go further in this article seeing how ChatGPT is bound to bring ruin to the human race. Before I explain why and how you might already be addicted to ChatGPT, let’s see what exactly this AI is.

Created by OpenAI, a former non-profit organisation, ChatGPT is a successor of GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer). It has been trained to hold human-like conversations with users, come up with follow-up answers, and give factual solutions. In short, become a confidant and guide to all humanity. 

Basically, ChatGPT is an advanced language processing tool that works on what OpenAI calls Deep Learning. Deep learning is the research technique used by OpenAI for most of its AI products, where the system utilises a large amount of data to train itself in what it's designed to do. 
 
ChatGPT takes data from human feedback. And by feedback, the developers refer to all the data human beings have made available online, from articles on the websites to comments netizens have posted online. Thus, the information availed by ChatGPT has a good chance of being incorrect, absurd, and even racist.

While researching for this article, I searched “ChatGPT” in a search engine and landed on OpenAI’s website. There, as described by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a sibling of InstructGPT. InstructGPT is a kind of program that follows instruction and provides answers it seems accurate for it. 

Thus, the first prototype released as ChatGPT was a sort of research tool as it had many errors in terms of facts, human phrasing ability, and even its ability to interact in a firm manner.

Although its successor ChatGPT4 is said to be only a 40% improvement from the ChatGPT November version, that, too, is not fixed. That’s right, in short, the new version is no better than its predecessor.

ChatGPT made huge splashes as soon as it got launched on 30th November, 2022. Introduced to the world by other OpenAI products, Dall E2 and Whisper AI, ChatGPT gained over a million users in just one month of its launch. Now, it enjoys active visits of 100 million users by the end of January 2023, making ChatGPT the fastest-growing consumer application in history. Even TikTok and Instagram, the most widely visited entertainment social platforms, took nine months and 2 and 1/2 years to cross this boundary.

As ChatGPT was free for users to try and avail of its benefits for themselves, many people started using (or should I say misusing) it for their many uses.

Meet the Creator of ChatGPT: OpenAI

Initially, a nonprofit organisation, OpenAI, was founded in 2015 by well-known names, such as the founder of SpaceX and Twitter’s CEO Elon Musk, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and CEO Sam Altman. Established with the motive of developing artificial intelligence solutions to provide better aid for all, OpenAI gained popularity because of its many revolutionary products. 

But as 2020 came, the company turned into a “capped-profit organisation”, a hybrid between for-profit and non-profit. As explained by CEO Sam Altman, this hybrid development would enable OpenAI to find the required capital to feed all projects, both in the development and discussion stage. In return, the investors would get 100 times their investments as a return, not more than that. 

Ex-board member Elon Musk raised the query of OpenAI’s transformation from a non-profit to a $30 billion market cap for-profit firm.

OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft.

Not what I intended at all.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023

However, Elon Musk resigned from the OpenAI board in 2018 and is now found questioning their decisions via his favourite ranting platform, Twitter. Bitter much, Musk?

I’m still confused as to how a non-profit to which I donated ~$100M somehow became a $30B market cap for-profit. If this is legal, why doesn’t everyone do it?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 15, 2023

Another step towards profit took place as OpenAI launched ChatGPT 4, with a monthly subscription fee of $20. This version is available for US citizens at present. It comes with additional features, faster service and more stability. The developers of ChatGPT 4 estimate this successor to have 40% more accuracy in terms of data and facts.

The Dangers of AI

“At least with dictators, we know that they are going to die. But with AI, there is no death. You have a mortal dictator from which we can never escape. Virtual superintelligence will happen in my lifetime, 100% sure.” These are the dooming words of Elon Musk, one of the founders of OpenAI, regarding Q&A on ChatGPT & AI. Musk confesses to playing a huge role in accelerating the phenomenon we might face as the supposed dangers with Artificial Intelligence. 

For a long time, human beings have been at the top of the food chain in terms of intelligence, power, and abilities. But, this superiority is at risk of being snatched right before our eyes as AI becomes more competent and self-sufficient as we go. In desperate measures of finding the best solutions, are we really putting an axe on our own feet?

Let’s see in detail what dangers we might face or are already facing when it comes to AI having a significant role in our world.

Dependency

As an example, let’s assume you bought a new flat on the fourth floor of a building. While going out to work, you start taking the lift every day. There is also the option of health-maintaining stairs, but we need to save time and energy, after all. This way, you would get dependent on the lift and avoid taking stairs at all costs. 

What I mean by this out-of-context example is that as human beings, it’s in our nature to always find the easiest and fastest method to get a task done. There are only a few who will actually choose to walk up and down those four flights of stairs, even one time a day, to maintain good health. This thinking of finding easier solutions for everything is one of the main reasons for such high development of AI in our world. 

Take AI tools as a case in point. Ever since the launching of tools like Grammarly, Plagiarism Checker, and other content-oriented AI tools, people have been dependent on them. After all, apps like Grammarly, Wordtune and ProWritingAid see 30 million, 600 thousand and 200 thousand active users, respectively, on a daily basis. This number is on the rise as the market for content seems to be expanding as we speak. Content is king!

I mean, what happened to the good ol’ method of thinking things out and asking real friends for advice?

Jeopardy of Creativity

If you are using ChatGPT to complete your emails or to finish that annoyingly long trail of homework assignments, then you are in danger of joining the dumb and dumber department. 

Feeling hurt or even offended? It’s better to feel that way now than be completely dependent on an AI that can lead you to believe false, unsolicited or factually wrong information. This possibility has been accepted by the developers of ChatGPT and Bing, like AI Bots. Another negative aspect is the reduction of exercise your brain is getting every day. By asking your neighbourhood Spiderman ChatGPT to do all the work, you are on the verge of losing all creativity which makes you unique from others. 

This risk especially befalls our young generation studying in schools or colleges. Asking ChatGPT to write a well-structured essay on “Impacts of Pollution on our Environment” would only require a few minutes of your time, but it sure will reduce your assignment's credibility. Due to this reason, many universities and educational institutions in India and other countries have banned the usage of AI platforms like ChatGPT. 

Bangalore’s RV University in India was the first one to do so since January 1st, 2023. They also announced the punishment of being caught using the platform with expulsion for the student. I suggest checking whether your institution also exercises such policies or not.

After all, risking your future for a platform that is not always reliable is not worth it. AI platforms can be non-sensical, factually incorrect to the point of being absurd and quite a bit hilarious. Check out these instances shared by some users regarding their experiences with Microsoft’s Bing and ChatGPT:

Bing subreddit has quite a few examples of new Bing chat going out of control.

Open ended chat in search might prove to be a bad idea at this time!

Captured here as a reminder that there was a time when a major search engine showed this in its results. pic.twitter.com/LiE2HJCV2z

— Vlad (@vladquant) February 13, 2023

No More Jobs for Writers

This danger falls a bit closer to my heart. The one community which has started suffering from the profound success of ChatGPT are the content and copywriters. If you have used ChatGPT even one time, you would know that by giving a set of instructions, you can get a long essay within seconds. Plus, ChatGPT also gives its users the freedom to select the tone of the content. Friendly, Witty, Professional, Firm, and many more are selective tones available to choose in its prompt.

Although there is a chance of the generated material being factually incorrect or repetitive, businesses around the world are willing to ignore this in regard to the reduced costs of hiring a writer. There is already huge slumps of layoff going on around the world from big names like Google, Disney, and Meta. 

More than 10% of the workforce has been cut from big corporations' structures to reduce costs, among which AI costs are also included.

So, all the other writers and aspirant writers, be aware as ChatGPT is soon going to snatch all your jobs, leaving you unemployed and unwanted in this vast world. 

Cruelty Far from Limits

While programming ChatGPT and its many aspects, the developers at OpenAI hired cheap labour from Kenya to remove all sorts of content that might make the program unsuitable for use. Why Kenya, you wonder? Because this has been the practice of big companies to exploit labourers looking for finding bread at any cost in underdeveloped countries. Remember how Zara did the same?

The filtration included data involving racism, sexism, violence, and other such negative parameters. At the meagre price of $2 an hour, Kenyan labourers had to filter negative data, both texts and images, in order to train ChatGPT. In an interview with TIME, a few labourers disclosed the trauma they had to face in an effort to make ChatGPT fit to be launched worldwide. 

Alternatives of ChatGPT

No matter its dangers, the success of ChatGPT raised the competition in the market to such an extent that other big fishes caught the scent of huge profits in the AI sea. Here are a few competitors and challengers that ChatGPT is likely to have a confrontation with within the market:
 

Chat.GPT Competitors

Google has been dominating the market wherever it has landed, and it seems to be doing the same in AI chatbots. Google launched BARD, an AI-powered chatbot, research Large Language Model (LLM), on 21st March 2023. At present, BARD is available to the UK and USA only, with plans to expand to other countries as well. BARD specialises in producing solutions along with removing biases and misinformation.

Microsoft has Bing, which has been in use on many platforms for a while now. And after Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI, ChatGPT and Bing are kind of siblings. Data from ChatGPT have been used on Bing as described by Microsoft.

More AI Challengers

Elon Musk is looking to launch X.AI as a challenger to ChatGPT. The alphabet “X” is an absolute favourite of Musk, what with his and Grimes' child named X Æ A-12 Musk and X Corp now owning Twitter. Musk is looking to use the large data from Twitter to train its X.AI learning language and face its ex-founded company product with complete force.

Whatever happened to the dooming statements Musk gave regarding the overdevelopment of AI? I guess it’s fine as long as Musk himself does the development.

Alibaba has also announced to soon launch of a ChatGPT rival named Tongyi Qianwen. This is in developing states, as informed by Alibaba’s CEO Daniel Zhang and would soon be integrated into the giant company’s various range of businesses.

This means that now there is going to be an abundance of brothers and sisters of ChatGPT looking to attract users' attention. In the chase of profits and large market share, when will the big sharks start to think for people's welfare?

The Bottom Line

The developers at OpenAI are on a continuous outlook to improving this system so as to create an AGI, i.e. Artificial Generative Intelligence sufficient enough to solve all human problems, small or large. The thought process behind the creation of a sentient being is not the issue, the actual problem lies behind humans' ability to keep that system under control. 

After all, we all have a good idea from those tech-savvy movies of how the world would look if machines and AI systems took control of humans, right?

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