At the start of 2023, it seemed as if the tech world had never been more exciting. Naturally this coincided with my first break from the blog in over ten years. Not sure if this is a real world example of the “grass is always greener,” but I’m happy to catch up now.
Shortly before my pause, ChatGPT arrived. The effects of Elon Musk taking over Twitter started to become apparent. Public institutions started banning TikTok. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is in the news daily, it seems. It’s been an eventful few months.
First off, ChatGPT! People in my personal and professional life ask me about this. Have I used it? Would I use it? Should we be concerned at work about people using it? What can we use it for?
In summary, ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot designed to be conversational and use more natural language (i.e., how we speak with one another) to interact with us. Chatbots have been used for customer service for years already. You may have used one at some point by texting or calling customer service. The chatbot listens, or reads your words, and then directs your query accordingly (e.g., to an agent, more information, etc.). ChatGPT, however, does a lot more than customer service. The uses discovered already are mind boggling. I’ve read some articles about people using ChatGPT to create content (i.e., something like this humble blog post) or write essays for school. Others use it for conversations, to answer challenging questions, or help preparing for interviews, including writing CVs and customized cover letters.
To answer the questions above, I haven’t used it yet. However, I’m planning on using it to write a blog post and see if my regular readers can tell. Yes, we should be wary of using any new technology before we fully grasp how to use it and its impacts.
This last point is a good transition to TikTok. I haven’t blogged much about TikTok, probably because I don’t use it. But it’s popular, and similar to ChatGPT, has an awesome array of uses. Recently, many public institutions started banning TikTok from work phones and onsite resources (e.g., college campuses) citing security concerns. In my opinion, too little, too late. Though I am glad to see digital privacy concerns getting some attention.
To sum it up, top trends: AI, privacy and security, and stronger regulations for the tech industry.