HCI, UI Design, and Cybersecurity Expert & Adjunct Professor at San Jose State University
March 8, 2023
ChatGPT (https://chat.openai.com/) is attracting considerable interest from the public and the
media nowadays. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and
launched in November 2022. In the first five days of its launch, 1 million users used it, and it
reached 100 million users in January 2023. What is ChatGPT? I asked ChatGPT itself this
question.
Question: What is ChatGPT?
Answer:
“I am ChatGPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI. I have been trained on a vast
corpus of text data, allowing me to generate human-like responses to a wide range of questions
and prompts. I use natural language processing techniques to understand the meaning and
context of text input, and then generate responses based on that understanding. I can assist with
tasks such as answering questions, generating text, providing recommendations, and more.”
Question: Who is your owner?
Answer:
“As an artificial intelligence language model, I don’t have an owner in the traditional sense. I was
developed and are maintained by OpenAI, which is a research organization focused on
developing advanced artificial intelligence in a way that is safe and beneficial for humanity.
OpenAI is backed by a team of researchers and engineers who work on developing cutting-edge
machine learning algorithms and tools, including language models like me.”
I have also started to test ChatGPT by asking HCI questions such as exam questions. Responses
have been accurate and very fast. Then I asked a social science professor to try her exams and
difficult essay questions. Again, all responses were accurate and fast.
Since the appearance of ChatGPT, Google (1) and Meta (2) have also released their versions of
artificial intelligence chatbots. And Microsoft (3) plans to integrate powerful A.I. Technology
into its search engine.
The impact of these A.I. technologies on human life is enormous. On the one hand, it makes
access to knowledge quick and easy. But on the other hand, its impact on many types of work
like journalistic reports (4), marketing, and particularly education is enormous. In education,
online teaching was already a significant change that people in educational institutions still
struggle with. And now, this technology makes testing students’ knowledge almost impossible.
Many universities have started to discuss the effect of this technology on education. At the same
time, Stanford University announced they have new projects to build an algorithm to
differentiate I.A. text from human text (5). I am sure some technological solution will be found.
However, until we find such solutions and all universities worldwide can acquire them, we find
ourselves in a period of uncertainty on how to deal with ChatGPT.
Abbas Moallem
Published:HCI International NEWS – March 2023 – Number 118
References
(1) “Google’s AI chatbot Bard makes factual error in first demo,” JAMES VINCENT, February 8,
2023.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/8/23590864/google-ai-chatbot-bard-mistake-error-exoplanet-
demo
(2) “Mark Zuckerberg looks to ‘turbocharge’ Meta’s AI tools after viral success of ChatGPT,”
Catherine Thorbecke, CNN, Published 11:57 AM EST, Tue February 28, 2023,
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/28/tech/mark-zuckerberg-meta-ai-team/index.html
(3) “Microsoft unveils revamped Bing search engine using AI technology more powerful than
ChatGPT,” Clare Duffy, CNN, 6:00 PM ET, Tue February 7, 2023.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/tech/microsoft-ai-
event/index.html#:~:text=Seattle%20(CNN)%20Microsoft%20on%20Tuesday,OpenAI%2C%20t
he%20company%20behind%20ChatGPT.
(4) “Sports Illustrated Publisher Taps AI to Generate Articles, Story Ideas,” The Wall Street
Journal, February 3, 2023.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sports-illustrated-publisher-taps-ai-to-generate-articles-story-
ideas-11675428443
(5) “Human Writer or AI? Scholars Build a Detection Tool” Stanford.edu/news. Feb 13, 2023.
https://hai.stanford.edu/news/human-writer-or-ai-scholars-build-detection-tool