Abstract

Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT (Conditional Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an artificial intelligence technology that is fine-tuned using supervised machine learning and reinforcement learning techniques, allowing a computer to generate natural language conversation fully autonomously. ChatGPT is built on the transformer architecture and trained on millions of conversations from various sources. The system combines the power of pre-trained deep learning models with a programmability layer to provide a strong base for generating natural language conversations. In this study, after reviewing the existing literature, we examine the applications, opportunities, and threats of ChatGPT in 10 main domains, providing detailed examples for the business and industry as well as education. We also conducted an experimental study, checking the effectiveness and comparing the performances of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, and found that the latter performs significantly better. Despite its exceptional ability to generate natural-sounding responses, the authors believe that ChatGPT does not possess the same level of understanding, empathy, and creativity as a human and cannot fully replace them in most situations.

Introduction

Did you know that you could be talking to a machine without even knowing it? You might just be doing that with ChatGPT, an advanced natural language processing model developed by OpenAI, a research company co-founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and John Schulman [1]. ChatGPT is an advanced natural language processing (NLP) model that is trained on a vast amount of data [2], including billions of web pages and documents, making it capable of generating human-like text responses to prompts [3]. Since its launch, it has quickly become one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history, with an estimated 100 million active users monthly. Its vast knowledge base and language processing capabilities have the potential to revolutionize the way people interact with technology, making it easier and more natural to communicate with machines. However, while ChatGPT has impressive language processing capabilities and is an exciting technology with a wide range of potential applications in various fields, it still has limitations and challenges, including bias and the occasional generation of nonsensical output, known as “hallucination” [۴].

Conclusions

This paper examines the evolution of ChatGPT and studies its applications, opportunities, and threats with a focus on the business and industry and education domains. We conducted an experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of GPT-4 in an educational setting. While ChatGPT has revolutionized natural language processing and has the potential to save time and money by automating routine tasks, it is essential to be mindful of the potential threats and take steps to mitigate them, as it can produce misleading results and biases, raise ethical concerns, and be misused. That is why some countries, such as Italy, have banned the use of this AI [25,26], and responsible use of ChatGPT must be a top priority to ensure that everyone benefits from its use. While these models have shown impressive capabilities, we believe it is unlikely that they will be able to fully replace humans or individuals in all tasks and situations, and the jobs that are most likely to be affected are the ones that require routine and repetitive tasks [27]. Machines may struggle to replicate human intuition, emotion, creativity, and intelligence, which are essential for many tasks; however, they can assist humans in developing new ideas and insights based on existing data and may be able to create entirely new concepts with human input and guidance.