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Today marks a very special milestone in Liberty’s history – the start of a countdown to Liberty’s 25th birthday. We have come a long way since our first few days in business and in that time we have seen a vast array of technological innovations evolve – some more life changing than others!

Over the next 25 days (not including weekends – we wanted to give our team a rest 😉) you’ll see a series of posts from our team (and some special guests) all of whom have taken the time to write about the technology innovations they feel have had the most significant impact over the last 25 years. I am proud to kick things off – but I am taking a rather different spin. My choice is to cast a spotlight on ChatGPT and the potential it has to shape things over the next 25 years.

The first time I found out about ChatGPT, like most people, was in the media. Described by the Financial Times as “fluent, clever and dangerously creative”, it created quite a stir. From writing essays through to dispensing medical advice, many were fascinated (and also frightened) by its capacity to disrupt the status quo. Its answers are coherent, convincing and fluent and within five days of launch, ChatGPT had gained over 1 million users – something Netflix took three years to achieve!

But what is ChatGPT and will it really steal our jobs?

ChatGPT (and its rivals such as Microsoft’s Bard) are chatbots powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Think of an Alexa – but the next level up. You can ask it to write you a legal letter, compile a board report or do your Maths homework for you – and what it produces is shockingly good!

However, by its own admission it cannot be relied upon in its entirety. As it states about itself: “ChatGPT is a highly advanced language model developed by OpenAI, but it is still an AI model and not a human. Its answers are based on the patterns it was trained on, so while it can provide accurate and helpful responses, it is not always perfect and may sometimes produce incorrect or unexpected results.

It’s always a good idea to verify the information provided by ChatGPT with other sources before making any important decisions.” In fact – recent research found that advanced AI systems like ChatGPT are “at the most basic level – about as smart as a pigeon.”

Thank goodness – we’re safe then!

But the power of AI is not in its ability to steal jobs but rather in the potential it has to reinvent the way we work. Whether it is in its ability to save people time or whether it is in the questions it has prompted us to discuss, the power of AI lies in its ability to spur change. Just like the internet did in the 1980s, ChatGPT has given us a sense of what is to come and for me, it shouldn’t be feared.

Elena Davidson

Elena is the CEO of Liberty Communications

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