\u201cAI is not going to replace our jobs,\u201d he says. \u201cBut someone who knows how to use it will.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Mazen Kourouche, a software engineer and creative director at Litmus Digital.<\/span>Credit:<\/span>Dominic Lorrimer<\/cite><\/p>\n ChatGPT is the public face of a breakthrough in AI models. Deep learning, a technique that allows AIs to learn from large amounts of data, has been around for decades but really took off in 2010 as computers powerful enough to run them efficiently started to arrive. The field accelerated exponentially in 2017 with the development of transformer models like ChatGPT \u2013 an approach that allows AIs to understand the relationship between words.<\/p>\n By running these models on supercomputers \u2013 Microsoft built one specifically for ChatGPT \u2013 and training them on almost 600GB of data from books, Wikipedia and the wider internet, these AIs are able to convincingly generate human-like text. Others like DALL-E can generate whole artworks from text prompts.<\/p>\n The applications are obvious: report writing. Internet copywriting. Graphic design. Software engineering. Social media marketing. Customer service.<\/p>\n ChatGPT itself said it expects \u201cjobs that involve repetitive tasks, data entry and simple decision making are most likely to be replaced \u2026 customer service representatives, telemarketers, and data entry clerks\u201d.<\/p>\n Professor Declan Murphy with a surgical robot.<\/span><\/p>\n It is hard to imagine society will lament the loss of telemarketers. But ChatGPT\u2019s answer is somewhat modest. Few would consider radiology \u201csimple decision-making\u201d, yet a radiology AI performs almost as well as experts on radiology fellowship exams. A medical AI achieved 92.9 per cent accuracy answering a battery of common health questions. ChatGPT itself can almost pass US medical licensing exams.<\/p>\n Professor Declan Murphy, director of genitourinary oncology at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, can already see the AI\u2019s value in his own practice, like writing up-to-date information leaflets for newly diagnosed patients.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to embrace them because they are not going away,\u201d he says. \u201cResistance is futile.\u201d<\/p>\n The models do have limitations. Centrally: they don\u2019t actually understand what they are talking about.<\/p>\n Talking to a medical AI is like talking to an actor playing a doctor. They can confidently answer a wide range of medical questions, says Professor Nicholas Davis, co-director of the Human Technology Institute, but ultimately \u201cyou\u2019re still talking to someone who is impersonating a doctor\u201d.<\/p>\n That means they lack the \u201chuman element of cadence, voice of the customer, flow, idiom, even human empathy\u201d that remains central to many creative pursuits, says Sydney-based SEO copywriter Rachel Green.<\/p>\n SEO copywriters write content that tries to respond to things people often search for \u2013 which requires the copywriter to put themselves in the shoes of the person asking the question. \u201cIn my experience, I don\u2019t think a bot can ever replicate all that,\u201d says Green.<\/p>\n The models seem likely to be socially disruptive. The software is capable of churning out essays complete with references, raising big questions about the future of homework.<\/p>\n \u201cClearly, we won\u2019t be asking people to write 2000 words on a medical topic [in medical school],\u201d says Murphy. \u201cI don\u2019t see how we\u2019re going to presume people aren\u2019t using AI tools. That will have to change.\u201d<\/p>\n They may even change the way we search the internet. Many Google searches are questions: Why did Russia invade Ukraine? Can you get COVID twice? These searches return websites \u2013 but an AI can return actual answers. Google has held a semi-monopoly on internet searches for two decades; the company\u2019s executives fear ChatGPT \u2013 which is partially owned by Microsoft \u2013 could spell the end of all that, The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> has reported.<\/p>\n Through history, we have been through many waves of technological disruption we thought would destroy jobs \u2013 the car, the calculator, the computer, Microsoft Excel. Yet, Australia\u2019s unemployment rate sits at 3.5 per cent.<\/p>\n The Australian Institute of Machine Learning\u2019s Dr Paul Dalby, author of a Senate report on AI\u2019s impact on the future of work, points to a theory known as Baumol\u2019s cost disease \u2013 which posits that as one part of the economy becomes more productive it gives those workers more money to spend, which grows other parts of the economy and creates new jobs.<\/p>\n An image generated by AI DALL-E to illustrate a story about the promise and perils of AI.<\/span>Credit:<\/span>DALL-E<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cUnemployment is entirely disconnected from automation,\u201d he says. \u201cIf we automated every single job we have today we would still have jobs in the future. Rich people just have to spend more money on shit.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than replace jobs, AIs like ChatGPT will make workers more efficient by automating repetitive tasks, allowing them to spend more time on stuff that only humans can do and therefore making them more productive.<\/p>\n Graphic designer Justin Marchant, founder of Wollongong-based Black Bear Creative, is already using ChatGPT to write blogs and social media content and help quickly generate ideas for graphics.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re seeing it now in the industry \u2013 it\u2019s a great time-saving tool,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He does not expect it will replace graphic designers \u2013 just make them more efficient. The key, he says, is the \u201cprompt\u201d, the instructions given to the AI. Amateur users might ask a simple question, but the AI\u2019s real power can be unlocked by designing long, detailed and tested instruction sets that transform it into a job interviewer, translator, plagiarism checker, and even a relationship coach.<\/p>\n PromptBase.com is already selling these AI prompts, like a viral tweet prompt or an AI lawyer prompt. Indeed, rather than replace jobs the emergence of AIs might end up creating a new industry of AI-oracles trained to talk to them and interpret their words.<\/p>\n \u201cTo get the most out of it, you still need someone who knows what they are doing,\u201d says Marchant.<\/p>\n The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. <\/i><\/b>Sign up here.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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