[Software] How ChatGPT is changing the way we use artificial intelligence

[Douma]

"Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence" by mikemacmarketing is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Ryan Mattfeld offers insights into how the recently developed technology could become integrated into our lives.

The public has rapidly become fascinated with the power of a new artificial intelligence technology — ChatGPT — a chatbot developed by the research and deployment company OpenAI and launched late last year. Already it’s demonstrated the ability to serve up detailed answers to complex questions while using the information it processes and feedback from users to improve its ability to respond.

ChatGPT has proven to be versatile, with users using the technology to compose music, debug computer code, write restaurant reviews, generate advertising copy and answer test questions. It’s able to deliver its responses in a conversational way, and has sparked excitement about its potential, along with some concerns with how it might be used.

But what exactly is ChatGPT and what does it say about the state of AI now, and in the future? Today at Elon reached out to Assistant Professor of Computer Science Ryan Mattfeld, who has been using ChatGPT as a discussion point in the classroom and has insight into how it could transform our use of AI. 

sample I saw was of a piece of software written by ChatGPT, including an explanation of how the code worked. I was immediately skeptical about the capabilities, and I initially assumed the example was cherry-picked. I continued to hear more about ChatGPT, so at the end of the semester, I created an account and started playing around with it.

I was immediately blown away. I gave it an assignment used in one of my 2000-level courses from the prior semester, which included a specific programming task embedded in a story/scenario about creating robots. This was multiple paragraphs long, had unnecessary information, and referenced parts of the class that ChatGPT had no knowledge of. I thought it would stump ChatGPT.

I was wrong. It immediately produced an accurate solution, including an explanation for the code written and a description of how it solved the provided problem. I quickly emailed everyone in my department to alert them that ChatGPT was real and demanded attention.

https://www.elon.edu/u/news/2023/02/13/how-chatgpt-is-changing-the-way-we-use-artificial-intelligence/