A world beyond Pakistani politics
IT may come as a surprise for many but it is true that there exists an entire world beyond the mere politics of the Islamic Republic. The world is developing and it is developing fast. While we as a nation continue our struggle to ensure that there is enough water at home, continue getting better at navigating power-cut and gas-cut hours to carry out chores like cooking food, taking a hot shower, and/or preparing for the day, and also continue our sad but necessary conversations on how much a single tola of gold costs every passing day – on the other end of the spectrum also continues a world that is advancing beyond strides of imagination – beyond what an average Pakistani may ever be able to comprehend. One such advancement making the rounds these days is a computer program called ChatGPT.
If you have been struggling to make ends meet living in the Islamic Republic or are simply unaware and therefore missed the news on what ChatGPT is, treat these following few lines as a breakdown. A computer program that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to respond in a conversational manner to short prompts and questions by users is what ChatGPT is, in a nutshell.
The bot has been trained on a large set of data including online articles, websites, and social media posts scraped from the internet as well as real-time conversations. The chatbot can have conversations on topics from history to poetry, generate lyrics in the style of The Weeked or John Lennon, and even suggest edits to computer programming codes. The program has been developed by OpenAI based on the Generative Pretained Transformer (GPT) language model which in simpler words means that the ChatGPT is programmed to understand human language and generate responses based on large corpora of data.
The above excerpt may seem like a piece out of a fiction story predicting what the future of the technological world may look like. However, the developments in AI that are now going mainstream are simply phenomenal in their impact. While there is much to admire and equally much to learn, such development also raises the question of how societies will ultimately cope with their results. The free-to-use software acts as the window for the common man to view and experience how rich and enabling AI technology is and how it will ultimately change the world for good – ranging from education to finance to journalism to policy-making – a list that is far from exhaustion.
To further aid my own understanding and that of the readers of this article, I put in a plethora of queries to ChatGPT – one of those was a simple-sounding yet rather complicated question – ‘is there a way to prevent cancer’ – the following is the answer I got:
“1. Eating a healthy diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and low in processed foods and red meat”
“2. Maintaining a healthy weight and engaging in regular physical activity.”
“3. Not smoking or using tobacco products.”
“4. Limiting alcohol consumption.”
“5. Protecting your skin from the sun by wearing protective clothing and using sunscreen.”
“6. Getting vaccinated against certain viruses, such as human papillomavirus (HPV) and hepatitis B, which can cause certain types of cancer.”
“7. Getting regular check-ups and screening tests, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, to detect cancer in its early stages when it is most treatable.”
“It’s also important to remember that some cancers are caused by factors beyond your control, such as genetics and exposure to certain chemicals. However, by taking steps to reduce your risk, you can improve your chances of avoiding cancer and maintaining good health.”
A reply that is both admirable and impressive by ChatGPT. It is also noteworthy that similar answers can be regenerated by asking the same question again and again. As mentioned earlier, a significant aspect of the program is its ability to have a human-like conversation. Keeping this in mind I wanted to dig deeper into the matter raised in the initial question. In order to do so I asked the bot the following as a follow-up question: ‘which of these factors should be prioritized over others’
The factors to be given the highest priority to prevent cancer, according to the “conversation” include not using tobacco products and eating a healthy diet. This is followed by getting regular check-ups and maintaining a healthy weight. The bot then stresses the importance of exercise, limited alcohol consumption, skin protection from the sun and lastly getting vaccinated. To think that the above-mentioned capability is all ChatGPT can do is rather foolish. The ability to write poetry, to the ability to write articles, and short stories and the ability to so much as write a detailed book review is just the tip of the iceberg. ChatGPT’s knowledge base is here to stay and here to grow – as the program gets trained with more and more data the efficiency and accuracy is only increasing, a threat to many human jobs, as many will be shown the door but a sigh of relief for businesses wanting increased productivity.
With the upside of never falling sick, feeling tired, or asking for better working conditions or a pay raise, ChatGPT does come with its flaws. First and foremost, many of the program’s answers can be outdated and/or incorrect. The reason for this, as rightfully pointed out in the article by Iqbal Hussain is that “the data and texts it has learned from pertain to periods until 2021”. Going a step further it is also no secret that the program acts as a threat to big industries and systems including that of education – a topic that would require an article of its own.
In the end, while some aspects of the bot may seem daunting, there is little use in shying away from it. Ultimately the bot is a useful tool for its ability to provide accurate and consistent information, interact with users in a natural language, and offer a range of benefits for businesses and organizations. When I asked the program the question that acts as a flip side of technological development “will ChatGPT take my job” the answer I got was focusing on a shift in jobs and skills required, providing reassurance that human beings are here to stay but must sit back and make choices that go hand-in-hand with global developments!
—The writer is contributing for national press, based in Islamabad.
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