I sat at my desk in the dying light of the sun as the rest of the world glued their eyeballs toHarry&Meghan Volume II:The Wrath of Sussex while I contemplated an event that received a fraction of coverage of the royal revenge play but was immeasurably more significant.
And I felt a deep sense of unease.
Artificial intelligence is set to change the world.Getty
For those who came late:At the start of the month,San Francisco research group OpenAI released a free preview of its platform,ChatGPT. Users who register at type in a request about almost anything and receive a written answer seconds later.
When asked,it wrote instructions on how to remove peanut butter from a VCR in biblical verse:“And it came to pass that a man was troubled by a peanut butter sandwich,for it had been placed within his VCR,and he knew not how to remove it.” It created a dairy-free recipe for macaroni cheese and an essay comparing and contrasting the nationalism of political scientist Benedict Anderson and philosopher Ernest Gellner. It refused to write about the benefits of eating glass,declaring “there are none”.
The quality of the responses shocked many.
“The technology proved to be astounding,” said.
wrote:“We are not ready.”
The AgeandThe Sydney Morning Herald’s sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke’s quote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
AndThe New York Times wondered:“?”
Time pressed on,so I did what workers across a vast quantity of industries are about to start doing. I outsourced. In the small ChatGPT oblong at the top of my screen,I asked the AI platform:“Write three sentences of a newspaper column about ChatGPT in the style of Stephen Brook.”
The screen went blank for several seconds,and I foolishly thought I had thwarted the technology. Then up popped this:
“ChatGPT is a revolutionary new language model developed by OpenAI. With its advanced ability to understand and generate human-like text,ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with technology. Whether used for personal conversation or business communication,ChatGPT is sure to be a game-changer in the world of natural language processing.”
Hmm. House style is to spell revolutionise with an S and not a Z. And this is a neat summary but dull. Perhaps my writing style has not digitally disseminated quite as widely as I had hoped.
But pretty soon,the urge to outsource will become irresistible to all of us. The list of potential ChatGPT content opportunities is endless – thank-you notes,Christmas cards,staff memos,press releases,exams,speeches.
In fact,it has already happened. One mate proudly revealed that he had used an AI program to write the thank-you notes to his wedding guests. The written word was once the highest form of human expression,but the digital age has turned us lazy. Why order takeaway when you can get home delivery?
Emily Bell,former director of digital content for Guardian News and Media and founder and director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School,wrote that ChatGPT proved her greatest fears about AI and journalism. “Not that bona fide journalists will be replaced in their work – but that these capabilities will be used by bad actors to autogenerate the most astounding amount of misleading bilge,smothering reality.”
Strap in. Already,the Queensland police killings offer a warning,showing us the spread of disinformation online can rapidly lead to the radicalisation of people,and sometimes turn them violent.
Liberal MP David Coleman was onto the job implications quicker than most. The former digital executive –he was once the head of digital for Nine Entertainment Co (publisher of this masthead) and chair of ninemsn – says ChatGPT is a remarkable product that will create opportunities but also cause massive change.
“AI will upend entire industries and radically change the global economy – soon,” he said. “Because the implications of AI are unsettling,politicians will tend to downplay it. But there’s no doubt that jobs will be lost in some industries and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.”
Meanwhile,in the real world,the big scandal revealed by theHarry&Meghandocumentary was that Prince William screamed at Harry.
The fallout appears unresolvable. But might ChatGPT come to the rescue? I asked it:Tell me how Prince William and Prince Harry can resolve their dispute.
It replied in seconds. “It is not appropriate for me to speculate on the resolution of a personal dispute between Prince William and Prince Harry.”
But then it couldn’t help itself,offering up this advice:“It would be best for them to communicate openly and honestly with each other and try to find a resolution that works for both of them.”
Wading in with some unwarranted advice? No wonder newspaper columnists are worried.
Stephen Brook is deputy editor ofThe Sunday Age.
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