Dhruv Saxena, open source developer, shares his expertise on 'ChatGPT' with 'The Philox'

Dhruv Saxena, a tech expert in AI and Machine Learning, shares his expertise on ChatGPT and other pertinent queries. He has written extensively on AI and Machine Learning and presented scores of academic papers at various international and national conferences and seminars. He is an open-source developer.

Q1. Could you please explain our non-tech savvy users in simplest term “What is ChatGPT” and the use of this application?

ChatGPT is an Artificial Intelligence tool recently made public by OpenAI. OpenAI corporation performs research on the sphere of AI. Their ChatGPT is Magnum Opus. The tool has been in news lately.  Any user can even ask ChatGPT as to what it actually is. The technical answer may not be comprehensible to many users. So in layman’s language if you ask ChatGPT to write an application for sick leave with specific details it will write an application detailing everything set forth. Similarly it can write any report, memo, letter, request prompt etc. You can also generate any particular speech through this. 

You can even ask random stuff like “What would be the speech of Mahatma Gandhi at the 74th eve of Republic”

Q2. Do you think ChatGPT will increase the cases of academic plagiarism especially in drafting thesis and dissertations? Do you think there will be a mechanism to curb it?

Yes, the possibility cannot be denied. The text is generated by AI. It resembles the writing style of Human. Traditional softwares like Turnitin is not capable enough to detect. Almost all the university depend on such software to keep a tab on plagiarism. But presently, AI is restricted by its creativity which may impinge upon the quality of the academic piece. However, there are certain software like “originality.ai” which to a certain extent can detect if a text has been retrieved from any AI software. In future the university may have to equip themselves with these detectors to stop such avanta-garde plagiarism style. The other issue that crops us is that AI does not form any opinion of its own. Any academic piece requires a thorough understanding of any topic and human opinion. The AI cannot take a stand. 

The similar analogy can be made for the game of chess. No matter how calculative the chess engines become there will always be an absence of element of human intelligence. 

Q3. Many are afraid of ChatGPT or such similar chat bot of its potential misuse by unethical hackers in writing codes and exploring vulnerabilities in any software?

AI such as ChatGPT (if not ChatGPT) is capable enough to draft a phishing mail and automatically send it to many users. Apart from that it can write a malicious code and insert that into any software or extension. Prima facie, the software appears to be innocuous but will be inimical to the interest of users. There are certain esoteric programming language which is legible only to the machine. The understanding of such code transcends the understanding of the best coders of the world. This will definitely have a soaring effect on the number of cyber cases.

Q4. Is there any possibility of affluent political party manipulating the data saved on ChatGPT and retrieving queries favouring their ideologies? What if we ask ChatGPT to choose a party between Congress and BJP will it favour one of them?

As of now ChatGPT does not favour any political party. If we ask ChatGPT with respect to choosing any political party it will answer “I am a machine learning model and I am not capable of choosing a party or supporting political parties. My purpose is to provide helpful and informative answers to the best of my knowledge and abilities. It is important for citizens to make their own informed decisions when it comes to political matters and participate in the democratic process”

Every technological advancement is prone to many vulnerabilities so in future we might see a scenario where affluent political party might misuse this.

Q5. How will the application bring reformation (if at all) in any aspect/domain of any individual user? 

Like any other technological advancement it always depends upon the individual or user of the technology. For example many uses Google to gain knowledge while other use this as a recreational means. Social Media was initially supposed to be a tool which will help users to connect and communicate with themselves quickly. However with the passage of tiem we realised the Social Media Platforms are responsible for wasting substantial chunk of users time. There are pros and cons of AI tool like Chat GPT as well. Completely relying on the tool will eventually led to destruction of creative cognitive faculties of the user. 

Q6 - Will the AI tool such as ChatGPT annihilate job prospects in any particular industry or make any of it obsolete. Do you think artistic industry such as music, video editing, painting, content writing etc will be affected by such or similar applications? 

There are several industries, workers of which are apprehensive of loosing their jobs because of heralding onset of AI. Since the commencement of industrial revolution many have lost their job to machines. Many clerical jobs have been lost in the voyage. With the AI many more clerical job will be certainly lost. It is difficult to estimate the exact industry where the jobs will suffer. There are many websites and blogs extensively writing on such issue. I will limit my response to ChatGPT and similar applications. ChatGPT as of now won’t cut out any jobs. 

Talking about the next part of the question, there are several AI tools available which can generate voice, create an image, produce artificial or non-existent videos etc. Such tool will definitely have impact on artistic industry. Many voice artist have lost their jobs after many media industry have opted for artificial voice.  Google has video generating software, though fledgling, ‘imagen.ai’. Such tool in future may affect the jobs of video editor. Similarly ChatGPT may affect the pocket of Content Writers. But creativity is something which the tool devoids of. So presently there is no risk but the future is uncertain.

Q7. Do you think ChatGPT, being an artificial intelligence, is sensitised on issues such as gender, race, caste and queer community?

 ChatGPT or any other chatbot is restricted to talk about many sensitive issues as this may infringe on their goodwill if they go against interest of any community. I am not an expert in such sensitised matters. Any intellectual or academician will be in a good position to answer that. However, these chatbots take dataset from large repository datasets. It is difficult to assess what type of philosophy these data sets have. The opinion,if any stated by it, may be influenced by the type of data it is using. The ramification of which will be  that some of the points might affect the interest of the community.

Reach out to Dhruv Saxena at dhruv.saaaxena.1998@gmail.com