Don’t worry. ChatGPT is not a threat

Ornella Salifo, Features Editor|February 2, 2023

Graphic created by Ornella Salifo

In Nov. 2022, OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company, released an interactive language model called ChatGPT, which struck many controversial conversations. 

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligent text generator that can put together emails, essays, poetry, conversations, and even answer questions. It originated from OpenAI, an artificial intelligence non-profit research organization, whose mission is to guarantee that AI is beneficial to humanity. 

What also makes ChatGPT attractive is that it is free and open to anyone that would like to use. However, registration is required through the website and sign up using an email address and mobile phone number.

ChatGPT is commonly being used by students, employees, and more to help cure writer’s block, write emails, create resumes, learn quick facts about a certain top, etc. 

“I don’t know how to use a press release, so someone told me to go to ChatGPT to show me how to,” English paraprofessional Cynthia Fey said. “ChatGPT can be helpful for resume writing or looking at samples for writing.”

Many might find this useful, but is it righteous? Ever since its release, there’s been much talk and fears of ChatGPT possibly making it easier for students to plagiarize and cheat on essays. In addition to this, numerous schools/universities, including Niles North have banned ChatGPT from their domain. 

“As writers, we need to keep in mind that ChatGPT is something we need to embrace and understand before we are afraid of it,” Fey said. “I think there’s a tendency to think that it’s cheating, but I think we should see it as an imperfect machine.”

Even though it’s proven it’s smart enough to pass the law and medical exam with the help of courses, is it a threat to education as a whole?

“Robots don’t have the feelings or love or depth of real human feelings so overall I think it’ll be okay,” Fey said. “It will give us okay mechanical writing, but it won’t give us art and definitely won’t replace the beautiful form of everyone’s individual writing.”

Furthermore, there’s also a worry that ChatGPT could potentially make certain jobs obsolete. 

According to Context News and their interview with executive director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, Gina Neff, ChatGPT is not advanced enough to take away professions. 

“AI is more likely to change what we do in our jobs, rather than eliminate lots of different jobs,’ Neff said, adding that jobs will shift around new and emerging technologies without being disrupted completely.”

Maybe in the future, it could possibly take away smaller positions like customer service, data entry, and more routinely tasks. Though, it does not have the advancement and human interaction to take away passionate professions like lawyers or doctors.

Even though it is blocked on school grounds, many students will still find ways to try and utilize it. If it continues to become popular, maybe schools should potentially educate everyone on how to properly use ChatGPT, instead of discouraging it in total. That way, students can know their limitations on the use of it. 

“Throughout my experience of using ChatGPT, I believe that if used correctly it can be extremely helpful with assignments and to learn about the topic,” senior Abrar Quadri said. “ChatGPT has a wide variety of knowledge on many topics. For example, I have used ChatGPT to help me learn about how narcotics can affect the human body, the pathway for a specific career, and how to fix a bumper. However, ChatGPT can be used as an easy way out for assignments.”

Overall, since it is such a new creation, it appears that ChatGPT isn’t much of a threat to future society, but more of a helpful and efficient resource.