ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by OpenAI, designed to provide users with instant, automated responses to their questions. Its capability and potential for broad application means people in many disciplines are finding uses for this technology tool.
The ramifications for education and the world of work are the subject of intense interest and debate. ChatGPT is a conversational AI chatbot that produces plausible human-like responses in text form from user inputs. Because it can create new content based on existing patterns of data, it’s also an example of generative AI. Its ‘brain’ is powered by a large language model (LLM) that has been trained on vast sets of text from the open internet and feedback from people. Microsoft and Google are also developing and refining their AI offerings. Conversational AI is going mainstream!
What are the possible implications for workplaces, people teams and recruitment?
ChatGPT and other AI built on LLM could reduce the time and effort for many written tasks such as summarising documents, generating social media post ideas, interview guides, drafting job descriptions and templates for employee emails. This will clearly have an impact on jobs built around those activities. The ability to finetune these bots with your organisation’s own data and customise them to your needs will add capability, but with that, more risks to manage. With developments advancing rapidly, it’s worth understanding how conversational AI like ChatGPT can help us work smarter and what its limitations are. To create a safe environment to learn how to use and innovate with AI, it’s important that functions across the organisation, including HR, collaborate to establish safeguards, standards and guidelines on appropriate use.
Establishing acceptable uses of conversational AI at work
Employers are advised to establish boundaries around acceptable and unacceptable uses. For example, in the case of ChatGPT:
- Share only non-sensitive information in conversations with ChatGPT. ChatGPT’s FAQs warn users this will not remain private.
- Limit its use to creating early drafts, and check outputs. ChatGPT occasionally gives inaccurate and inappropriate answers.
- Don’t rely only on ChatGPT to make important decisions about people, e.g. hiring and promotion. Beyond assessments, these decisions should be made by people.
As this is a new tool, review your company’s position and policy regularly.
What could the future of work look like?
Things will change as conversational AI starts to be used regularly at work and in our personal lives. Interactions with AI could become increasingly conversational. Instead of trawling through a long management report, you could ask AI for the key highlights and then ask follow-up questions. This is a massive change, and the continuing evolution may ultimately be led by individuals rather than by corporate decisions and investment only. The potential uses can’t be underestimated because it’s possible to integrate existing AI chatbots or its underlying language models with other software. A legal firm has launched a chatbot built on OpenAI’s language model that can help with contract analysis, due diligence and regulatory compliance. It has the potential to reshape jobs, generate new roles, change the skills we need, or plug skills gaps many organisations currently have. It can also take on tasks to enable people professionals to be more productive, innovative and strategic in their focus. But with these and other opportunities, there are also risks. These will become clearer as we learn how to use these technologies and how they will shape the future of work.
