Journalists should also exercise caution around inputting sensitive material into ChatGPT. We have no idea how its creator, OpenAI, handles data fed to the bot, and it is likely our inputs are being plowed right back into training the model, which means they could potentially be regurgitated to people using it in the future. Companies are already wising up to this: a lawyer for Amazon has reportedly warned employees against using ChatGPT on internal company documents. 

ChatGPT is also a notorious bullshitter, as CNET found out the hard way. AI language models work by predicting the next word, but they have no knowledge of meaning or context. They spew falsehoods all the time. That means everything they generate has to be carefully double-checked. After a while, it feels less time-consuming to just write that article yourself.

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Deeper Learning

People are already using ChatGPT to create workout plans

Some exercise nuts have started using ChatGPT as a proxy personal trainer. My colleague Rhiannon Williams asked the chatbot to come up with a marathon training program for her as part of a piece delving into whether AI might change the way we work out.  You can read how it went for her here. 

Sweat it out: This story is not only a fun read, but a reminder that we trust AI models at our peril. As Rhiannon points out, the AI has no idea what it is like to actually exercise, and it often offers up routines that are efficient but boring. She concluded that ChatGPT might best be treated as a fun way of spicing up a workout regime that’s started to feel a bit stale, or as a way to find exercises you might not have thought of yourself.

Bits and Bytes

A watermark for chatbots can expose text written by an AI
Hidden patterns buried in AI-generated texts could help us tell whether the words we’re reading weren’t written by a human. Among other things, this could help teachers trying to spot students who’ve outsourced writing their essays to AI. (MIT Technology Review)