ChatGPT Craze: What's driving the surge in popularity of this AI technology?

Today I'd like to talk about ChatGPT. In case you haven't heard of it, ChatGPT is a publicly accessible language model developed by OpenAI. Imagine a chatbot pre-trained with the knowledge of Google, that can talk to you like a person can. 

You can ask it questions, then ask follow-up questions based on its answers. For software engineers, it can write code; for students, it can explain complex concepts in different ways; and for us marketers, it can assist with our content creation, SEO, marketing planning and strategy.

Below, I'll break down why I think it's gotten so popular and some of the potential impact on us as marketers.

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ChatGPT Craze: What's driving the surge in popularity of this AI technology?

Most of the tech services that you use now will use AI. Think of the recommendations from Spotify or Netflix. In Google Ads, you can choose automated bidding strategies based on several algorithms. AI is continually becoming more ubiquitous but generally playing behind the scenes.

Enter: ChatGPT (GPT) 

Reaching 1 million users in 5 days and raising a storm of excitement and consternation; it's the first time I've seen an AI tech have such immediate and widespread impact.

Why is it so popular? After going down the rabbit hole myself, I have a few thoughts:

1. Scope of knowledge: The scope of topics it can discuss is astounding. You can ask it questions about literally anything. It's actually easier to define what it doesn't know which would be anything that happens after 2021.
   
   
2. It goes a step further than Google: With Google, you have access to the same information. GPT goes further by using the knowledge it has to answer your question directly. It's the difference between having to "Google" it and someone explaining and telling you the relevant answer right away.
   
   
3. Accessibility: Its natural language model is excellent. It is trained to read what you're writing and respond in a human way. And it does a pretty damn good job. The significance is that it understands you. You don't need a computer science degree, you don't need to learn how to code to access the most powerful AI tool to date.
   
   
4. GPT can be put to work: Based on what it knows and what questions you ask, any task involving language or knowledge can be augmented with ChatGPT. Some examples include:

• Content Generation: GPT can generate content, such as articles, blog posts, and product descriptions.
• Text Summarization: GPT can be used to summarize any piece of text content.
• Virtual Assistance: GPT can be used to create virtual assistants that can handle everything from scheduling appointments to booking travel.
• Sentiment Analysis: GPT could analyze customer reviews to understand how customers feel about a product or service.

What are the limitations? Firstly, GPT doesn't have agency of its own. It's a tool and will work best if you understand its limitations, capabilities and the best way to prompt or ask it.

You still need people to implement, to do the things. Your job won't be taken over by ChatGPT (yet) but it could be taken over by someone that's using ChatGPT (Flitter, 2023).

Secondly, GPT can only provide you with the knowledge we know. It can be incorrect, it can be wrong and biased. What it provides is an "average" of human knowledge. If you're looking for an opinion or prediction, something truly innovative, it can't do that.

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Kim's Opinion: I would highly recommend using ChatGPT to at least understand what it is and what it can do. I'm confident that it will change a lot about HOW we do our work over the next two years. Two predictions:

1. Content will get more creative with more thought leadership. All the general content can be done via AI. If you want to produce something that stands out, you'll still need to write or create it yourself.

2. Everyone in the knowledge economy will use ChatGPT or something similar in the next 2 years. It's too good not to have open beside you and yes, I do.
   

Final note: ChatGPT brings a lot of change. I'm looking at something that will transform the roles of myself and my team right now. And like many people out there, I'm trying to figure out what that will look like for us. 

But I think we're far better off starting to understand this technology now rather than later. Its impact will be significant regardless of how we feel about it.

Ok, that's enough. This is a huge topic, but if you'd ever like to chat further, do let me know!