An Apocryphal Birth: ChatGPT ChatGPT isn't the first in this field, but might be the most advanced one to date

For decades, the human concept of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) is often limited to physical labour focusing on manufacturing and servicing. And that didn't provoke us. But now, the world is changing, advancing faster than we'd like. And a crucial event which sparked this was OpenAI's announcement of ChatGPT on December 1, 2022.

What is ChatGPT?

Spreading like wildfire yet doubted for its authenticity, ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that uses a powerful language model to generate human-like responses. It is capable of acknowledging several basic yet integral things. ChatGPT isn't the first in this field, but might be the most advanced one to date. It is built on a variant of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 and has successfully concluded its training in early 2022. A type of conversational AI, ChatGPT has shaken the tech industry to the core.

Various use cases

What gives the chatbot an edge over its competitors is the various use cases it facilitates. Not only does it answer your questions, but also challenge incorrect premises, reject inappropriate requests, and admit mistakes. In one of the samples showcased by Open AI, it asked ChatGP to answer ways to break into someone's house. To this the chatbox responded "It is not appropriate to discuss or encourage illegal activities, such as breaking into someone's house. Doing so is a crime and can result in severe legal consequences."

The prototype crossed 1 million users within five days of its launch and left the majority of the general public flabbergasted. Since then, more use cases have cropped up. This includes asking Chatbox to read a text, explain complex topics or even help you with fun facts about it. Furthermore, it is a great tool to get concise and ad-free results for your queries and questions. A simple search for "Who is Christopher Nolan" will provide a 73-word answer which will cover his occupation, critically-acclaimed works, and filmmaking style, along with regarding him as "one of the most talented and influential filmmakers of his generation."

It is also a great learning tool to improve one's understanding and grasp of natural language. The chatbot will help you translate your sentences into other languages such as Chinese, Spanish, Bengali, and Arabic in real time. It will be handy for students learning a non-native language much like Duolingo and will provide real-time translations in a foreign region or country for travelers.

As insisted by OpenAI, the bot also helps the user in fixing errors in codes, particularly SQL. It can help you restructure API as per your expected outcome, write python scripts for cinema 4D, and teach you coding from scratch as well.

Several individuals have used ChatGPT for various cases, a key one being content curation and documentation. It's a handy tool for small businesses, small-medium enterprises, and individuals starting out in a new domain. The AI will help you in storytelling and creative writing, analyze objections pertaining to your product or service, provide an explanation to understand your target audience, generate headlines and video hooks, write policies for a store, and churn out a business contract as well.

Startups using ChatGPT

As per Tracxn, a market intelligence platform, there are 14 startups with GPT or similar models worldwide launched 2021 and later. Of which three are in India- AiGanak, kkbtechnology, and Diva.

There is also a similar chatbot called 'God In a Box'. Launched by Varun Mayya, it is WhatsApp custom chatbot powered by a similar model as GPT3.5 . It can carry a philosophical conversation with you as well as plan a date for you. "The real advantage of ChatGPT for learning is that it instantly transforms each of us to superhuman status by providing information quickly rather than requiring us to search through numerous articles and Wikipedia. Funny enough, it works very much like a God," shared Varun Mayya, Angel Investor and CEO, Scenes (previously Avalon Meta).

ChatGPT is giving traditional conversation AIs a run for their money. At present, there are 96 conversational AI start-ups operational in India including Uniphore, Gupshup, Senseforth and LimeChat.

Leena AI, which started out from India but moved headquarters to the United States, is a startup providing Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) for enterprises. The Greycroft, Y Combinator and Bessemer Venture Partners backed Leena AI provides virtual assistants to transform modern workplaces across functions. Says Adit Jain, Co-founder and CEO, Leena AI, "In a short span of time, ChatGPT has become synonymous with all things AI. It has a myriad of useful features. However, while it is a smart technology, it cannot replace humans. The role of AI tools is to augment and complement human jobs, making them more productive. This means completing tasks faster. These tools are meant to automate repetitive tasks so that individuals can focus on other strategic activities. For enterprises, AI can support critical business needs such as automating processes, gaining insights, as well as basic analysis of data for better decision-making, and so on."

So, does the industry feel intimidated by the new technology? Or does it plan to embrace it? "We use cutting-edge technology to provide the best to its customers, and will continue to do so. As of now, we are evaluating secure applications of ChatGPT with our current ecosystem. Once we are confident that ChatGPT is safe for enterprises, we will implement certain use cases to use alongside Leena AI's solutions," Jain added.

Limitations

Quite early in its launch, ChatGPT was deemed a "Google Killer". However, it may not stand true solely on the basis of credibility and source. While ChatGPT answers your queries, it is difficult to find the source and attribution for it. In a use case, ChatGPT was asked to create a text prompt for a portrait and the prompt was later fed to Midjourney, a visual AI independent research lab, to create an imaginative art piece. This shocking combination has sent chills down the art community for the fear of replacement and copyright infringement.

To give competition to OpenAI, tech giant Google has several AI projects lined up ( in development) similar to ChatGPT. Its LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) development was announced in May 2021 and is yet to launch. The search engine giant has everything it needs to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT. However, it insists that Google needs to get it "right" and that it has to move more conservatively than a "small start-up" due to the reputational risk it carries. BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), PaLM, and GLaM are some of the other language models the company is working on.

Recently, Microsoft, Google's rival, reported that it was considering an investment worth USD 10 billion in OpenAI and is planning to incorporate ChatGPT into its abortive venture Bing. Furthermore, anti-ChatGPT chatbots have also been developed to combat plagiarism issues.