PORTLAND, Maine — Rich Brooks of Flyte New Media joins us regularly on 207 to talk about technology and its impact, and when he suggested we spend some time discussing ChatGPT, we didn’t hesitate for a moment before saying yes.
Admittedly, an artificial intelligence program would have responded faster—in milliseconds rather than one second—but the outcome is the same either way.
Here are the talking points Rich provided:
207: "When ChatGPT was released to the public, people were amazed at how 'human' the responses were. Since its release, it has changed education, the workplace, and will continue to impact our everyday lives. AI has been around for a while—we've done a few tech segments talking about it—so why is ChatGPT such a game changer?"
Rich: "It feels light years ahead of what's been out there, and it's a tool that anyone can use. All you need to do is ask it a question or give it a prompt.
"The first time I used ChatGPT, I was blown away by how natural the responses seemed. I have asked it, 'How much should I sell my PS4 for?' 'Explain macroeconomics to me like I'm a fifth grader,' and 'Write me a sonnet about the Marvel Cinematic Universe,'" and in all cases, it did so in amazing fashion.
"In fact, I was so impressed, I actually 'interviewed' ChatGPT in a recent podcast I did, and used another AI-powered tool called WellSaid to voice the answers. It was an amazing experience and the results were mind-blowing.
"A lot of the previous AI tools were either pretty rudimentary in comparison, or they were for big corporations or data scientists, or they were baked into services and we never really saw them in action."
207: "How is this impacting education?"
Rich: "This has been huge. Schools and universities have had to rethink the way they teach since ChatGPT came out, as students can just say, 'Write me a 5000-word essay on the economic impact of homelessness in America' and ChatGPT will spit it out.
"Because of this, teachers and professors are changing the way they teach. Some are requiring more oral presentations and exams, or are allowing students to use ChatGPT but requiring the first drafts to be done in class."
207: "How is this impacting business?"
Rich: "I see businesses trying to figure out how to best use this to automate certain tasks or provide better customer service or create content for marketing.
"I was speaking to an insurance agency owner the other day who had invested thousands into an AI tool to automate many of their low-level services to free up the time of underwriters.
"The other day we were planning a video on SEO and the idea was we'd start with a scene in a coffee shop between two directors of marketing who were struggling. I literally typed into ChatGPT, 'Write me a script of two marketers talking in a coffee shop, frustrated with the performance of their website at Google.' Ten seconds later I had a rough draft of the opening script."
207: "Should people be afraid of losing their jobs to AI?"
Rich: "That's a tough question. AI will automate a lot of tasks for us, so the short answer is there will be some job shifts, if not job losses. I know in my industry that there are a lot of marketers, copywriters, and artists who are concerned about tools like ChatGPT and MidJourney, an AI illustration tool, and the impact they have.
"However, as I've been using ChatGPT over the past few months, I've definitely noticed some shortcomings in the answers, including answers that are completely wrong.
"My feeling is that humans have always used tools to improve their lives and lighten their loads. AI is no different in that fashion. I might use ChatGPT to generate some ideas or a rough draft, but ultimately I'm going to need to put my own twist on those ideas to make them unique so that they speak to my audience.
"My recommendation would be to experiment with these tools so that you can use them in your jobs and become even more valuable to your company or to your clients."
207: "What other changes should we expect?"
Rich: "Well, Google just rushed out their own competitor to ChatGPT called Bard, and I expect other companies to follow. I think we'll see AI baked into more devices and services going forward, which will make our lives easier in some ways while bringing up new ethical considerations along the way."