Hello everybody and welcome back to the Cognixia podcast. Every week we gather and discuss something new & interesting from the world of emerging digital technologies. From interesting trivia and insights to the latest developments and best practices as well as guides, and so much more, the Cognixia podcast aims to inspire our listeners to learn something new to take the next big leap in their careers by adding new skills to their repertoire.
In today’s episode, we look back at the year that was, not for us or India or any person. Instead, we look back at the year that was, for ChatGPT. Launched in November 2022, ChatGPT rapidly became the dominant force in the world of Generative AI and Large Language Models. ChatGPT’s ability to generate top-notch human-quality text and have interactive human-like conversations with users made it immensely popular among individuals and organizations all around the world.
If you remember the headlines from November last year, you will recall that ChatGPT became so popular that it broke all records held by any platforms and apps in the past and reached a mind-blowing one million users in just five days of its launch. This huge surge in user sign-ups was hailed as an undeniable testimony to the growing interest in large language models and as an indicator of the beginning of a new era powered by artificial intelligence. Countless reports of potential job losses and rampant unemployment triggered by AI circulated, while there were also plenty of reports highlighting how the world was going to change for the better thanks to artificial intelligence.
Since then, things have changed significantly in many ways and not so much in some ways too. Initially, ChatGPT attracted a technical audience and some tech-savvy folks too. However, with time, the non-technical folks jumped on the ChatGPT bandwagon. This included even the artsy folks like writers and artists as well as educators and business professionals. This widening of the user base definitely showcased how the public at large was warming up to the possibilities and opportunities opened by Generative AI tools like ChatGPT. It is a testament to how useful and versatile a tool like ChatGPT was across domains.
So, what have the users been using ChatGPT in the past year?
From writing marketing copy to creating interesting blogs, generating social media captions writing scripts for videos, writing poetry and prose, ChatGPT has become very commonplace in generating content. It does come with limitations and obstacles, sure, but it does work as a great aid for anyone seeking some help to generate content, hashtags, etc.
ChatGPT has also found a great place in the education space. In the past year, educators have used ChatGPT to craft personalized learning experiences for the learners, build interactive exercises, and send personalized feedback for the learners. Students are also leveraging the power of ChatGPT to help with their learning journeys and for self-directed learning and language acquisition.
The advent of automation had already begun transforming customer service and user experience. ChatGPT only championed the potential of AI to transform this space further. In the past year, several businesses have adopted ChatGPT to improve how users interact with the brand and their customer service interactions. ChatGPT can answer common customer queries, resolve basic issues, provide 24/7 personalized support, and more without breaking the bank. The interactions can be so human-like that it can often be challenging to identify whether you spoke to an AI or a human!
ChatGPT has also helped countless IT professionals – developers, QA testers, coders and programmers, engineers, project managers, and more to accomplish their tasks more efficiently – writing code, checking code, testing code, mapping resources, doing complex calculations, running test scenarios, etc. Some of these individuals were also the initial adopters of ChatGPT and have reaped amazing benefits from using the tool.
ChatGPT is also helping individuals engaged in research and development by assisting them in writing elaborate research proposals, getting summaries of scientific research papers, analyzing huge data sets, double checking results, writing a research thesis, summarizing the research thesis, staying updated on the latest developments in the field, and so much more.
Additionally, once the ChatGPT API was released, it helped individuals and businesses, even more, to tap into the potential of generative AI and large language models, enabling them to integrate the path-breaking technology into a diverse range of applications. This led to a new array of writing assistants, chatbot interfaces, learning options, communication channels, data interpreters, translators, and the list is almost endless!
While the applications kept diversifying and becoming increasingly innovative, ChatGPT also rolled out some very useful updates throughout the year. OpenAI took active steps in the year since ChatGPT’s release to improve factual accuracy and factual consistency. We all know how ChatGPT often hallucinates, forgets who it is, or gives random answers that make no sense. OpenAI has worked and continues working to reduce inaccuracies and inconsistencies in ChatGPT’s responses. They have also been working tirelessly on reducing bias and preventing the generation of harmful content by ChatGPT. This requires improving the training data and fine-tuning the model powering ChatGPT, which is a mammoth task but a very important one. Support for new languages, enabling translation to a growing number of languages was also offered by ChatGPT during the past year.
In recent months, there has been a slowdown or even a decline in the number of active users of ChatGPT, but this is something that we observe with all new technologies as the initial novelty and popularity die down, and the technology gets seen from a more functional and pragmatic perspective, than just a new thing to try out. This wouldn’t necessarily mean that the tool itself is becoming redundant though.
So, the past year has been super eventful in the world of Generative AI and Large Language Models, thanks to the arrival of the cool kid on the block – ChatGPT by OpenAI. Experts believe we have barely scratched the surface of tapping into the potential of Generative AI and going by that, we can’t even begin to imagine the possibilities and avenues that can be opened by Generative AI and Large Language Models.
Reports say that OpenAI is working to empower ChatGPT with multimodal capabilities, which would enable the tool to work with not just textual inputs and outputs but also with images and audio. This would make ChatGPT a truly immersive and full-spectrum utility tool for users. Efforts are also being made to improve the transparency of the decision-making process that goes behind ChatGPT, which would enable the users to get a better understanding of how ChatGPT arrives at and delivers the outputs that it delivers to the prompts that the users enter. In the coming years, ChatGPT could also be more customizable, which would help offer a more personalized experience to the users, thereby giving its utility and effectiveness a great boost.
Another popular possibility in the future is that ChatGPT goes open-source. Will it happen for sure? We don’t know. But it is a possibility. Making ChatGPT open-source would usher in a huge new wave of development in the space and accelerate things manifold. It would also make the technology more democratic. Going open-source comes with some risks but often, the merits outweigh them. Whether this will truly happen for ChatGPT, only time will tell.
ChatGPT’s remarkable evolution in just one year underscores the immense potential of LLMs to transform various aspects of our lives. As the model continues to evolve and gain new capabilities, its impact on society will undoubtedly grow, prompting further research, development, and ethical considerations around AI technology. This exciting journey has just begun, and the future of ChatGPT holds immense promise for innovation, advancement, and progress across diverse fields.
It has truly been a very exciting year for ChatGPT and Generative AI, hasn’t it? The future holds exciting possibilities and we can’t wait to see how things will turn out.
One thing we would like to highlight here is that the key to working effectively with any Generative AI tools like ChatGPT is to ask it the right questions and give it the right inputs. This calls for a valuable skill called prompt engineering. Prompt engineers are very highly sought-after across industries today, so now is the perfect time to sharpen your skills in the field and get ahead of the game. Cognixia’s prompt engineering training and certification courses are live online and instructor-led, helping you gain thorough practical experience while learning from anywhere. Do visit our website – www.cognixia.com to learn more about prompt engineering certification courses. You can connect with us there over the chat function and our team will respond to any questions you might have. We look forward to seeing you there!
With that, we come to the end of this week’s episode of the Cognixia podcast. We will be back next week with another interesting and exciting episode, hoping to inspire you to learn something new and take the big leap in your career, score that promotion you deserve, achieve the goals you have set for yourself, and future-proof your career with the right skills.
Until next week then, happy learning!
