Acceleration Economy
  • Home
  • Cloud Wars
  • Analyst Content
    • By Category
      • AI/Hyperautomation
      • Cloud/Cloud Wars
      • Cybersecurity
      • Data
    • By Interest
      • Leadership
      • Office of the CFO
      • Partners Ecosystem
      • Sustainability
    • By Industry
      • Financial Services
      • Healthcare
      • Manufacturing
      • Retail
    • By Type
      • Guidebooks
      • Digital Summits
      • Practitioner Roundtables
      • Practitioner Playlists
    • By Language
      • Español
  • Vendor Shortlists
    • All Vendors
    • AI/Hyperautomation
    • Cloud
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data
  • What we do
    • Advisory Services
    • Marketing Services
    • Event Services
  • Who we are
    • About Us
    • Practitioner Analysts
  • Subscribe
Twitter Instagram
  • CIO Summit
  • Summit NA
  • Dynamics Communities
Twitter LinkedIn
Acceleration Economy
  • Home
  • Cloud Wars
  • Analyst Content
        • By Category
          • AI/Hyperautomation
          • Cloud/Cloud Wars
          • CybersecurityThe practice of defending computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic systems, networks, and data from malicious attacks.
          • Data
        • By Interest
          • Leadership
          • Office of the CFO
          • Partners Ecosystem
          • Sustainability
        • By Industry
          • Financial Services
          • Healthcare
          • Manufacturing
          • Retail
        • By Type
          • Guidebooks
          • Digital Summits
          • Practitioner Roundtables
          • Practitioner Playlists
        • By Language
          • Español
  • Vendor Shortlists
    • All Vendors
    • AI/Hyperautomation
    • Cloud
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data
  • What we do
    • Advisory Services
    • Marketing Services
    • Event Services
  • Who we are
    • About Us
    • Practitioner Analysts
  • Subscribe
    • Login / Register
Acceleration Economy
    • Login / Register
Home » How to Cut Through ChatGPT Hype and Still Appreciate Generative AI’s Potential
CXO

How to Cut Through ChatGPT Hype and Still Appreciate Generative AI’s Potential

Tony UphoffBy Tony UphoffJanuary 28, 2023Updated:March 11, 20236 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
chatgpt
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
AE Leadership

You’d have to have been living under the proverbial rock over the last 60 days, not to have heard about ChatGPT, a variant of the GPT (generative pre-training transformer) language model designed to generate human-like text in a conversational context.

The technology has received massive attention, with predictions that it will do everything from “reshape humanity” to the old chestnuts of taking over human jobs and/or hijacking democracy. But does ChatGPT deserve all this praise? Or condemnation? Let’s explore both sides.

What Is ChatGPT?

First, ChatGPT is only as good as what it’s been trained on, so it may not be able to generate responses to prompts or situations that are not reflected in its training data. ChatGPT’s algorithms haven’t been trained on any data after 2021, so if you ask it to write something about current news events, it comes up empty. It’s also not always right, or able to give the full picture on a topic, as many have written about since the latest version of the tool was released in November. 

Why ChatGPT Is Overhyped

There are several limitations to ChatGPT and other language models like it. First, ChatGPT is only as good as what it’s been trained on, so it may not be able to generate responses to prompts or situations that are not reflected in its training data.  For example, currently, ChatGPT’s algorithms haven’t been trained on any data past 2021, so if you ask it to write something about current news events, it comes up empty. It’s also not always right, or able to give the full picture on something, as many have written about since the latest version of the tool was released in December.

Why ChatGPT Is Underhyped

While the immediate or short-term impact of ChatGPT may be overhyped, I’d argue that the medium- to long-term impact is underhyped. In my 30-year career, there have only been two other times that I’ve seen the introduction of a new technology generate this simultaneous over- and under-hyped dynamic: The internet in the mid-1990s and the iPhone in 2007. With clarity of hindsight, we can now see that the Internet and smartphones changed everything. ChatGPT will change everything, too, and for similar reasons.

The internet existed well before the mid-’90s. Originally developed by DARPA in the 1960s, the internet was initially used by the government, then by early adopters of technology. In the ’90s, however, web browsers provided user-friendly, mainstream access to the internet, which exponentially accelerated its development and commercialization. In a matter of years, the internet changed everything. Today around 62% of the world’s population uses the internet. 

Similarly, mobile phones existed long before the iPhone. What Apple’s revolutionary device did was lay the foundation, through an easy-to-use interface, for the modern smartphone, ushering in the era in which pocket-sized computers that can answer any question with the push of a button became the norm. Now, more than five billion people around the world use mobile services.

As with the internet and mobile phones, artificial intelligence (AI) is not new, either, although it is now very much in the headlines. The technology has been around for more than 50 years. What ChatGPT represents, however, just as the internet and iPhone did before it, is a user interface that allows for mainstream use. Just type in a question as you would into any search engine, and you’ll instantly get your flawlessly-written answer. Is it any surprise that ChatGPT hit 1 million users in the first week after its introduction? What’s more, the learning that ChatGPT is taking in through all that usage will exponentially accelerate the development of the platform. And, as usage continues to grow, the technology will only become smarter and more valuable.

Within the first two months of its introduction, ChatGPT is already delivering productivity benefits. Including:

  • General Office Tasks: drafting emails; laying out slide presentations, spreadsheets, or processes
  • Writing Tasks: outlining and drafting an article or composing poetry
  • Learning: asking questions to get facts or gain insights
  • Teaching: developing a syllabus, learning outcomes, or test questions
  • Advice: both on how to do things all the way up to offering therapy
  • Brainstorming: like generating lists of names for organizations and products or ideas for blogs

ChatGPT will lead to advances in AI, which will have a massive impact on most every industry. Open AI CEO Sam Altman, in a recent interview, predicted that “over the next 10 years AI has the potential to shift the trend of the marginal cost of intelligence and energy towards zero”. AI has the potential to shift the marginal cost of the two most valuable resources toward zero?!

Which companies are the most important vendors in AI and Hyperautomation? Click here to see the Acceleration Economy Top 10 AI/Hyperautomation Short List, as selected by our expert team of practitioner-analysts

Final Thoughts

Last week, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, in announcing the company’s recent reorganization said “ . . . the next major wave of computing is being born with advances in AI, as we’re turning the world’s most advanced models into a new computing platform.” His call to action harkened back to the dramatic pivot Bill Gates led Microsoft through in 1995, when he described “the internet tidal wave.” In his comments, Gates noted “that the internet is “crucial to every part of our business” and “the most important single development to come along since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981.” At the time, some people were surprised by Gates’ public declaration, thinking perhaps it was an overreaction to the internet. It wasn’t then and neither is Nadela’s reaction to AI today.

In my view, ChatGPT is both underhyped and overhyped at the moment. Regardless, I believe that it will go on to become one of the major transitions in the history of technology.

I’ll close this post with a quote (and a caution) from noted economist Tyler Cowan:

“Today, those who learn how to use GPT and related products will be significantly more productive.  They will lead integrated small teams to produce the next influential ‘big thing’ in learning and in media.  Most current contributors will miss that train almost entirely, just as so many people missed the importance of the internet for learning and for media”. 

See the AI/Hyperautomation Top 10 Shortlist

Want more tech insights for the top execs? Subscribe to the Leadership channel:

AE Leadership

ai Artificial Intelligence data featured Featured Post generative AI innovation internet Machine Learning NLP technology
Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
Analystuser

Tony Uphoff

Acceleration Economy Analyst
4X CEO, Leadership Channel Host

Areas of Expertise
  • Board Strategy
  • Cloud
  • Digital Business
  • LinkedIn

Bringing his experiences a 4x CEO, Tony is the host of Acceleration Economy's Leadership Channel, and a Senior Advisor to the CEO and executive team at Xometry, a publicly traded, on-demand manufacturing marketplace. He most recently led the turnaround, growth, and successful sale of Thomasnet.com to Xometry in December of 2021 for $300m. Tony Uphoff is an award-winning technology, data, digital media and marketing services executive specializing in transformative leadership of companies, cultures, people and organizational performance. As an industry thought leader Tony is regularly quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Insider, and other top media brands, as an expert on the digital industrial economy. Tony also advises senior management and boards of media, marketing, and technology companies as the CEO & Founder of Uphoff Management Advisory, LLC. He also serves as a Trustee of Linfield University and a Mentor at MuckerLabs accelerator.

  Contact Tony Uphoff ...

Related Posts

Why Cybersecurity Leaders Need to Know the CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model

March 30, 2023

Let’s Talk Transformation | Strategy

March 30, 2023

How Informatica Unlocks Digital Transformation With AI-Powered Data Management Platform

March 30, 2023

How ChaptGPT Plugins Create New AI Value, Including Real-Time Information

March 30, 2023
Add A Comment

Comments are closed.

Recent Posts
  • Why Cybersecurity Leaders Need to Know the CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model
  • Let’s Talk Transformation | Strategy
  • How Informatica Unlocks Digital Transformation With AI-Powered Data Management Platform
  • How ChaptGPT Plugins Create New AI Value, Including Real-Time Information
  • How to Prioritize IT Projects and Explain Their Value to the C-Suite, Board, and Business Units

  • 3X a week
  • Analyst Videos, Articles & Playlists
  • Exclusive Digital Business Content
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Most Popular Guidebooks

Securing Multi-Cloud Ecosystems

March 24, 2023

Securing Software-as-a-Service Applications

March 1, 2023

Retail Innovation With AI, Data, and Cybersecurity

March 1, 2023

Cloud Data Strategy, Analytics, and Governance

February 27, 2023

Advertisement
Acceleration Economy
Twitter LinkedIn
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Get In Touch
  • Advertising Opportunities
© 2023 Acceleration Economy.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

  • Login
Forgot Password?

Connect with

Login with Google Login with Windowslive

Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.