Happy one-year anniversary, ChatGPT! If only you could get it right.

PARIS

It was exactly a year ago that what was to become the world's most famous AI tool was published taking the world by storm. In just 2 months, it had reached the 100-million-user mark.

Compare this with ubiquitous WhatsApp which took 2.5 years to reach the same number of users.

Internet took 7 years. Nextflix 10 years. Smartphones which nobody remembers ever living without took...16 years to reach 100 million users. 

 I was among the first to test it and like most was blown away by its magic-like qualities: providing mostly OK answers to every question asked. But, careful, ask the same question in a language other than English and you may well get a different answer. Or none. One example: Most, if not all, Danish scientists conduct and publish their research in English since they are all fluent in the language. Ask a very specific question on one such topic in Danish and since no research has been published in Danish ChatGPT will draw a blank. So, yes, it is available in a zillion languages, but its practical uses are quite limited.

Since so much has already been written on ChatGPT, no need for me to pontificate here on its pros and cons. I will just mention two things.

First, in my area, HR technology, there's little doubt that the AI potential is huge. So much of what HR does is repetitive that an AI-based tool could, for instance, provide users with lightning-speed answers to their queries, a step up over traditional FAQ or emailing somebody in HR.

Second, hoping I won't come across as too narcissistic, I asked ChatGPT who wrote my best-selling book, "High-Tech Planet: Secrets of an IT Road Warrior". To my utter surprise this was ChatGPT 's answer:

 

 

 

Hurt, I hit "Regenerate" to see whether ChatGPT will get it right the second time round (at least the description of the book was correct.) This time I got another author.

 

I wondered whether, in spite of my title being quite specific, there wasn't another, possibly two, books with the same title. So, I just searched the traditional way: I googled it and saw that only one book was published with this title and it was the one by yours truly. Sigh of relief.

Feeling much better, I remembered that Bing now comes with Microsoft's own IA tool, so I asked Bing.
And this is what I got:

So, here you go. All the hoopla may be about OpenAI's ChatGPT, but for me Bing is the most reliable of the two.