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I'm excited about this post. Creativity is a big part of business, and business chatter. This entry explores both in a still creative way.
ChatGPT is a remarkable technology. It has the promise to change business as we know it.
...Oh, and I should add. I wrote this entire piece. That'll make sense in a moment. Just keep reading...
What is ChatGPT?
We've experienced automation in different ways. Setting alarm clocks. Recording voice mail greetings. Specifying thermostats. Navigating automated phone directories. (By the way, does anyone like those things?) Invoking spelling and grammar checkers. Interfacing with Amazon's Alexa.
ChatGPT is an automation technology that generates, or writes, via artificial intelligence, or AI. And while there have been competing services, ChatGPT is something far more robust in a surprising way.
Compelling, according to TechCrunch Managing Editor, Darrell Etherington, is its interface. In December 2022 he wrote, "It’s probably not a secret to those doing a lot of focused work in the space, but when it comes to generative AI, it’s quickly becoming apparent that how a user interfaces with generative models and systems is at least as important as the underlying training and inference technology." [1]
I wouldn’t have to write a word of a blog post like this. Seriously, all I'd have to do is ask ChatGPT to write a blog post about ChatGPT and it would darn near instantly spit out a short-form essay.
Am I going to have to say I did my own work from now on?!
Photo by Tianyi Ma on Unsplash.
Beyond, type in a request for ChatGPT to write a poem, and it’ll write you a poem. ‘Same with a song. Ask a question. It’ll answer it. Demand an expository essay, and it will craft that piece on your desired topic before your very eyes. The result would be as if someone on another computer is typing really fast.
According to the Associated Press, "[ChatGPT is] part of a new generation of AI systems that can converse, generate readable text on demand and even produce novel images and video based on what they’ve learned from a vast database of digital books, online writings and other media." [2]
What Business Could Be…
For this blog post, I want to consider ChatGPT as a perfected information source and resource. That’s a leap. On account of the way it 'learns' information, disinformation from its sources (that darned Internet) plagues its results at the moment; nevertheless, improvement will occur. And the final product will be something else, a paradigm shifter, a regime changer, even. So let’s think of what could be, now.
Business will be different than anything we can practically imagine. We'll be like a nervous person taking a photograph wondering what to do with our hands. What should we do with our jobs, our employers, our employees,…?
I assert that ChatGPT or some future technology or standard like it is and will be an everyday business tool. Such a statement glosses over so much that it's more revealing to explain what's missing than what's accomplished.
Take, for example, a 10-mile one-way drive to the grocery store. We hop in the car, shop, and drive back home. 1 hour. Bang. Done. That should surprise no one. Imagine we didn't have the car or the grocery store. Those two entities are in kind with the business tool I've described ChatGPT will become.
It’s like this: the human body heals when it is damaged. We don’t think about it. The process the body goes through is taken for granted. System disruption triggers a response. The body’s healing just happens. We only apply ointment or what not to influence the healing.
Communicating ideas and structured explanations, including responses to inquiries, will be self-operating. Business will change drastically. We’ll only apply certain discretion to influence business decisions.
ChatGPT Magic: Watch As I Make This Businessperson...Disappear!
ChatGPT will be invisible, background communication that drives business with only a fraction of the effort by users or humans. AI will handle almost everything.
Instantaneous transactions between computers will act as businesses - partnerships, negotiating parties, vendors and the like. Devoid of today’s responsibilities, the definition of human businesspersons no matter their discipline or field will change drastically. We'll have to legitimately wonder about the scope of the human involved.
In a recent blog post, AI Will Be Able To Do This, I predicted that AI, "...will administer businesses in the future - no not just automate this or that, but administration and, to a degree, execution. Computers will barter with one another in association with owners."
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ChatGPT is precursory if not more.
Messages have a sender and a receiver. ChatGPT can develop the message for the sender who can transmit that automated message to a receiver to read. In accordance with my prediction, I posit computers will eventually do all of this by themselves. Invisibly.
When a human must be involved in business, ChatGPT will produce ideas and structured explanation in the same way the famous Star Trek replicator did food (a fantastical sci-fi food generator at the touch of a button). The reason is similar to why a CEO has an Executive Assistant. Scarcity. Time. Crucial decision-making with an agenda in mind is a priority; heck, collaboration with ChatGPT may make human cooperators optional.
Time spent drafting messages, documents, proposals, policies and anything else will be as fast as clicking a button. Anything more would be as silly as the thought of scrubbing our clothing in a nearby river and then hanging garments on a tree to dry. We dump our garments into a tub and press a button to wash, and then another tub and button to dry. Communicating ideas, positions and other matters, will be the same, sans the tubs.
One Less Thing
Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Unsplash.
As the car, the grocery store and the washer and dryer do for us now, we will have less planning, less execution and less wondering about time scarcity. Travel, sustenance and cleanliness are matters we see as conveniences. Won’t ChatGPT be the same? Imagine what business will be like when we don't have to generate matters of administration.
ChatGPT is the demonstration of what it will take. Maybe I should ask it to predict the world in which it or something like it will run business.
[1] Etherington, Darrell. “OpenAI’s ChatGPT Shows Why Implementation Is Key with Generative AI.” TechCrunch | Robotics & AI, 2 Dec. 2022, https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/02/openais-chatgpt-shows-why-implementation-is-key-with-generative-ai/. Accessed 26 Jan. 2023.
[2] O’Brien, Matt. “EXPLAINER: What Is ChatGPT and Why Are Schools Blocking It?” AP NEWS, 6 Jan. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/what-is-chat-gpt-ac4967a4fb41fda31c4d27f015e32660. Accessed 22 Jan. 2023.