Trust in AI in a post-truth world, is it possible?
My goodness has there been a lot of hype around ChatGPT in the last few weeks. And most of it is warranted — it is a truly remarkable piece of engineering. Yet, the tag line for the IG Nobel prizes comes to mind; it is something that first makes you laugh, and then makes you think?
Many of the first posts that came out from users of ChatGPT were hilarious. My favourite is still the description of how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from your VCR. It is easy to laugh at these earnest replies to what a human would consider a ridiculous question, and why not make us laugh? It brings joy to our lives.
As I dug a bit deeper to understand potential use cases, I was at first ecstatic about the efficiencies a tool like this can offer. It is clear how it can compete with search engines and save a user valuable time. As a start-up founder, I often need to find market sizes for specific products of services. That would usually entail hours of googling, report reading, combining and synthesising. I asked ChatGPT for the market size for AI products and services globally, and within a few seconds it promptly told me it was $190 Bn in 2021. An exercise that would have taken me probably 4–5 hours was done in 5 seconds.
Other use cases further highlight the disruptive power ChatGPT can have on many white collar…
