Introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines or
computer systems that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their
actions. Similarly, ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an online
artificial intelligence chatbot that is trained to have human-like
conversations and generate detailed responses to queries or questions. ChatGPT became
a blockbuster and a global sensation when it was released in November 2022. According
to web traffic data from similarweb.com, OpenAI’s ChatGPT surpassed one billion page
visits in February 2023, cementing its position as the fastest-growing App
in history. In contrast, it took TikTok about nine months after its global launch to reach 100
million users, while Instagram took more than two years. Users of
ChatGPT span the world, with the United States having the highest number of
users, accounting for 15.73% of the total. India is second with 7.10%. China is
20th with 16.58%, Nigeria is 24th with 12.24% while South
Africa is 41st with 12.63%, as at March 14, 2023. OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT is currently valued at about $29 billion. Feedback and reactions from
academics, global
and business leaders to artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, is mixed. The likes of Bill Gates agree that ChatGPT can
free up time in workers lives by making employees more efficient. A research titled – ‘’Experimental Evidence on the Productivity
Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence’’ - by two economics PhD
candidates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) attests that using
ChatGPT made white collar work swifter with no sacrifice in quality and then
made it easier to “improve work quickly”. Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, recently revealed that the opening
part of his speech was written by artificial intelligence software -ChatGPT.
Lately, Bill Gates and the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, were reportedly grilled by AI
ChatGPT during an interview. Similarly, the United States Department of Defense
(DoD) enlisted ChatGPT to write a
press release about a new task force exploiting novel ways to forestall the
threat of unmanned aerial systems. On the flip side, Elon Musk, is of the
opinion that ‘’artificial intelligence is the real existential risk to humankind''. According to
Musk, ''artificial intelligence will
outsmart humanity and overtake human civilization in less than five years’’.
On March 29, 2023, an open letter with signatures
from a bevy of 1,000 prominent tech leaders and researchers from academic and
industrial heavyweights like Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, Caltech, Columbia,
Google, Microsoft and Amazon, including Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve
Wozniak, surfaced online, urging the world’s leading artificial intelligence
labs to pause the training of new super-powerful systems for six months, saying
that recent advances in AI present “profound risks to society and humanity''. Prior to now, theoretical
physicist and one of
Britain's
pre-eminent scientists, Professor Stephen Hawking, seem to agree with Elon Musk.
He warned in in 2014 that
artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. In the words of
Hawking, "Once humans develop artificial intelligence it would take off on
its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate’’. He went further to
asset that, ‘’Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete,
and would be superseded’’. Cybersecurity experts from the National Cyber
Security Centre (NCSC), a branch of the United Kingdom’s Spy agency, Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), says artificially
intelligent chatbots like ChatGPT pose a security threat because sensitive
queries, including potentially user-identifiable information could be hacked or
leaked.