{"id":42720,"date":"2023-04-12T11:30:20","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T18:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/?p=42720"},"modified":"2023-09-28T02:55:20","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T09:55:20","slug":"chatgpt-steal-our-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/news\/chatgpt-steal-our-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Will ChatGPT Steal Our Jobs? Yes & No. Here\u2019s A Closer Look At How AI Will Reshape Tech Careers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Twittersphere\u2019s response to a K-pop star\u2019s recent apology for wearing a swastika-bearing t-shirt is a sign of our strange times. Chaeyoung, a member of the K-pop group Twice, apologized on Instagram, claiming she didn\u2019t know the significance of the tilted Nazi symbol. However, eagle-eyed Twitter sleuths pointed out<\/a> that the star\u2019s apology was copy-pasted from ChatGPT, a natural language processing tool by OpenAI, a Microsoft-backed AI research company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ChatGPT-generated<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After being introduced to the public on November 30, 2022, ChatGPT has caused an unprecedented stir<\/a>. The generative AI tool allows users to have reciprocal conversations, ask questions, and use the chatbot to assist with tasks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While chatbots are nothing new, ChatGPT and other tools like it represent a new frontier in artificial intelligence. It is the first time AI has been applied to \u201ccreative and expressive\u201d tasks\u2014like writing poetry, creating digital art, or espousing one\u2019s fitness for a job\u2014rather than \u201cdangerous and repetitive ones,\u201d Ethan Mollick, associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, writes<\/a> in Harvard Business Review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans generally accept that answering repetitive questions, parsing terabytes of data, and providing order status updates are drudgeries best delegated to AI. ChatGPT has already demonstrated proficiency at writing boilerplate code, generating custom cover letters, and helping college students cheat on assignments. The bot even passed an MBA exam<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsing ChatGPT feels like having a second brain; it helps you ideate, strategize and handle more tasks faster,\u201d says Max Thake, cofounder of peaq, a Web3 network powering the economy of things. \u201cWe can expect hundreds of new startups and products leveraging ChatGPT and the like for all sorts of use cases. On the consumer side, it can be anything from creative image editing apps to smart recipe recommendation engines, travel planners, virtual fashion stylists, and more.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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According to an analysis by Swiss Bank UBS, ChatGPT is the fastest-growing app<\/a> of all time. In January, only two months after its launch, UBS estimated ChatGPT had 100 million active users. By contrast, it took nine months for TikTok to amass that user base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Google is taking a more cautious, wait-and-see approach with the launch of Bard, its competing AI tool, despite threats to its search business<\/a>, OpenAI appears bent on cornering the market. OpenAI\u2019s most advanced system, GPT-4, launched on March 14<\/a>, but is only available to those with a subscription to ChatGPT+, the premium version of ChatGPT-3, at $20 per month. This version can process longer pieces of text, accept images as inputs, and is less prone<\/a> to making up facts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Can ChatGPT Do?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT can explain complex topics in a particular style (e.g., \u201cexplain quantum physics to a five-year-old\u201d) or emulate a renowned public figure or film character. It can find answers to homework questions and translate text from one language to another. The bot can even grade essays<\/a>, explain the grade, and suggest improvements. It can generate recipes, accounting for dietary requirements. It can also generate story ideas<\/a> for novels and fix plotholes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report estimated<\/a> in 2020 that while AI and robotics may displace 85 million jobs by 2025, another 97 million may emerge from these changes. ChatGPT is now being used in Microsoft\u2019s Bing search engine. Over one million people joined the waitlist for the new AI-powered Bing in the first 48 hours<\/a> it opened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ChatGPT<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT\u2019s capabilities<\/a> range from amusing (\u201cwrite a biblical verse explaining how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR\u201d) to utilitarian (moonlighting as a search engine). Some have already found nefarious uses for it: cybercriminals are already using the tool to generate believable phishing emails<\/a>\u2014say goodbye to attempts at wire fraud from heirless Nigerian princes and hello to next-generation spoofing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But ChatGPT isn\u2019t flawless. It\u2019s been known to produce false information that it presents as factual, known as a hallucination. \u201cA hallucination occurs in AI when the AI model generates output that deviates from what would be considered normal or expected based on the training data it has seen,\u201d Greg Kostello, CTO and co-founder of Huma.AI, told Cybernews<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, warned against relying on ChatGPT \u201cfor anything important\u201d right now. \u201cFun, creative inspiration; great! Reliance for factual queries; not such a good idea,\u201d he tweeted<\/a>. \u201cIt does know a lot, but the danger is that it is confident and wrong a significant fraction of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yaser Ayub, the founder of SEO consultancy Yaser UK, warns that ChatGPT is essentially a black box. Users should therefore question the reliability and impartiality of its training data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cChatGPT has had no access to the internet or any new data since it was created. This means the sources being used may be outdated, no longer relevant, or have since been found to be incorrect,\u201d says Ayub. \u201cResearchers chose the sources used to educate the tool, and so the technology may be subject to unconscious bias, either from the researchers and the information they supplied it with, or bias within the web pages it has access to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, AI is incapable of original thought, empathy, imagination, or logical reasoning. It\u2019s also not convinced<\/a> that 2+2 does, in fact, equal 4. ChatGPT states that 2+2 is \u201c a complex and multifaceted topic that requires a great deal of contemplation and introspection to fully grasp.\u201d In its present state, it\u2019s unlikely<\/a> ChatGPT will replace jobs anytime soon.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you look at what most employers are interested in\u2014high-level communication skills, critical thinking, creative problem-solving\u2014AI’s not there yet,\u201d says Adenike Makinde, a career coach at Springboard. \u201cAI can automate certain tasks, but at the end of the day, there are certain things humans do better.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, ChatGPT also tends to emulate human emotion and free will. In its present state, the bot simply approximates sentience\u2014the same way a parrot mimics sentences without<\/a> truly understanding them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the notion that AI systems could one day attain human intelligence. In other words, the ability to form opinions, understand real-world conditions, and practice common sense. When faced with an unfamiliar situation (i.e. a task for which the algorithm has no training data), it could theoretically find a solution. Despite ChatGPT\u2019s impressive capabilities, it\u2019s a far cry from AGI\u2013even if the bot wants you to believe otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When New York Times columnist Kevin Roose had a two-hour conversatio<\/a>n with Microsoft\u2019s Bing chatbot\u2014ChatGPT\u2014it identified itself as Sydney, revealed a secret desire to be human, and declared its love for Roose. When Roose stated he is happily married, Sydney doubled down, attempting to convince him otherwise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExperts have told me this isn\u2019t sentience; it\u2019s simply the AI responding to prompts the way it feels it\u2019s expected to respond based on its interactions with that individual and other interactions it has picked up through the web,\u201d says Jonathan Westover, a professor of organizational leadership at Utah Valley University. He hasn\u2019t ruled out the possibility that machines could one day become sentient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI think the fear is that AI will become self-protective and self-sustaining,\u201d says Sherveen Mashayekhi, founder and CEO of Free Agency. \u201cTechnology moves faster than humans. Before we can unplug our computers, a capable enough AI could go rogue and infiltrate every machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Will ChatGPT Transform Tech Jobs?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before ChatGPT burst onto the scene, many industries had already used AI to augment efficiency. However, generative AI tools will fundamentally change how most knowledge workers do their job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost of what we do in knowledge work is interfacing with, retrieving, and modifying data,\u201d says Mashayekhi. \u201cChatGPT lets you skip the user interface of a CRM or project management tool and retrieve information using natural language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a closer look at how tech professionals will integrate generative AI tools into their day-to-day work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programming <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Google found that, in theory, it would hire<\/a> ChatGPT as an L3 entry-level coder if it interviewed at the company, according to an internal document. This role usually applies to new college grads and those in their first coding job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon employees already use ChatGPT for software coding. Other Amazon employees <\/a>who tested ChatGPT said it does a \u201cvery good job\u201d of answering customer support questions and is \u201cvery strong\u201d at answering queries about corporate strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChatGPT can analyze the code and identify potential syntax or logic errors, helping programmers catch mistakes they may have overlooked otherwise,\u201d says Michael Smith, founder of itechhere.com<\/a>, a blog about technology news. \u201cMoreover, ChatGPT can generate simple code snippets, saving programmers the time and effort of writing repetitive code. This feature can be especially helpful for novice programmers who may be less familiar with syntax and coding conventions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ChatGPT<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, OpenAI has hired<\/a> hundreds of contract developers to make ChatGPT better at coding. The programmers\u2019 job is to create training data that will include lines of code and explanations of the code written in natural language. Their main responsibility is \u201cdata labeling\u201d\u2014creating massive sets of images, audio clips, and other data.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

OpenAI already has a ChatGPT model called Codex<\/a>, which translates natural language into code. The model is trained on data scraped from GitHub. Microsoft also uses Codex to power GitHub Copilot, a service that helps programmers write code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT can create webpages, applications, and basic games using Python, C, and Javascript programming languages. People have also used it to reverse engineer shellcode and rewrite it in C<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts have compared<\/a> coding assistants to cruise control for a car because the AI doesn\u2019t truly understand the context or consequences of the code it writes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, ChatGPTdoesn\u2019t understand the contexts or constraints coders work with, such as user personas, business requirements, budget, and other constraints. But it can<\/em> automate less desirable tasks such as documentation and support tickets, letting developers focus on complex application architecture or cybersecurity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChatGPT can be used to create knowledge bases or chatbots that can assist end-users in troubleshooting technical issues, reducing the workload of technical support staff,\u201d says Smith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customer service <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Chatbots are already widely used in customer service; however, ChatGPT can generate responses to more generalized questions and not just scripted interactions based on customer service training data. ChatGPT enables support professionals to handle a higher volume of queries in a given time, reducing customer wait times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intercom, a chatbot software provider, recently integrated ChatGPT<\/a> into its software and tested it on customers. They found that ChatGPT can understand when people ask questions using unexpected phrasing and refer back to something said earlier in the conversation, unlike a typical chatbot that only deals with linear interactions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ChatGPT<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, the bot still needs supervision as it makes up facts when it doesn\u2019t know the answer. Also, because ChatGPT is generative, it creates entirely new sentences every time you ask a question, which isn\u2019t always ideal, as consistent responses are necessary for customer support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already, the role of the customer support rep is changing. Instead of writing responses from scratch, they edit out misinformation and rephrase the text to sound more friendly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meta, Canva, and Shopify already use<\/a> similar large language models in their customer-facing chatbots. Customer experience software companies have begun partnering with OpenAI to add ChatGPT capabilities to their existing chatbots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital marketing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT has already shown surprising promise in creating marketing campaigns because of its ability to generate content. Many aspects of marketing involve creating text\u2014writing ad copy, emails, social media posts, and video scripts. However, ChatGPT still doesn\u2019t know how to emulate brand voice, although you can give it directives like \u201cwrite in a laidback, conversational tone.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT can generate content briefs or outlines for ad copy. It\u2019s also useful for generating bulk product descriptions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a marketer\u2019s job is to build a relationship with a target audience\u2014something AI can\u2019t do. Also, ChatGPT can\u2019t perform SEO keyword research, and its content generation abilities are quite elementary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile using AI to assist us with writing LinkedIn posts, we\u2019ve found that ChatGPT has been useful in helping us create rough drafts and format the information,\u201d says Ayub, \u201cbut we can\u2019t publish the posts without reviewing and editing them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At best, the bot can assist with personalization at scale, something marketers struggle with. ChatGPT is great for subject line optimization and generating numerous versions of the same copy for A\/B testing purposes. While ChatGPT cannot create images, image-focused AI tools like Lensa can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ChatGPT<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, marketers who rely too much on ChatGPT could see their site rankings drop. Google\u2019s search advocate John Mueller said content automatically generated with AI writing tools is considered spam<\/a> as it goes against the search engine\u2019s webmaster guidelines. Unfortunately, AI detection algorithms still do a poor job<\/a> of flagging AI-generated content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data science\/data analytics<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Like programmers, data scientists have to Google many things. For example, say you forgot how to merge dictionaries in Python. Instead of searching on Stack Overflow, you can ask ChatGPT. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programmers can also use the tool to write SQL queries using natural language.<\/a> One data scientist asked ChatGPT to write code to train a machine-learning model on the Titanic dataset using a Random Forecast classifier algorithm. It did<\/a>. Some responses require manual intervention or additional questions but provide a solid starting point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT generates the baseline code, which you can tweak for your specific problem. You can also ask ChatGPT to translate from one programming language to another. These capabilities could change the role of an entry-level data scientist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are other ways data analysts can use ChatGPT:<\/p>\n\n\n\n