Potential benefits of using ChatGPT in small business applications
Small businesses have dipped their toe into understanding GPT and how to use it. ChatGPT is essentially a chatbot, which can give you answers and do things for you. Where a search engine provides a list of results, the AI chatbots give you what you’ve asked for by responding to your question or “prompts”.
ChatGPT utilizes a computer program called Large Language Model (LLM) designed to understand and generate human-like language. It’s like a smart language robot!
How it works:
Imagine you talk to a friend, and they understand what you’re saying and can respond with relevant information or ideas. Similarly, an LLM is a program that can understand the words you write or speak and give you a response based on what it has learned from a huge amount of text written by people.
This program is trained on vast collections of written text, like books, articles, websites, and conversations. It learns patterns and relationships between words and sentences so that when you ask it a question or give it a prompt, it can generate a logical and coherent response.
The Dataset behind ChatGPT
The reason it’s called a “Large” Language Model is that it has a massive amount of information stored in its virtual brain. This helps it to be more accurate and helpful when it interacts with you.
The answer is based upon the data it’s trained on. The dataset only went up to 2021, meaning that it lacks information on more recent events. They’re trained on a very large data set provided by the internet, Wikipedia, books, news articles, scientific journals. They can figure out what, and how, to answer your question and to write plausible sounding statements based on this completion.
There are some caveats to this as well. If ChatGPT can spit out a thousand articles for you on a topic you want to rank for in Google in a couple of minutes, should you do it?
You need to really know your topic.
ChatGPT often provides made up answers. ChatGPT doesn’t access a database of facts to answer your questions. Instead, its responses are based on patterns that it saw in the training data.
ChatGPT and other bots are trained on data. They’re not connected to the real-time internet (yet), so they don’t know about current events. It can also get things just outright wrong. But, it could create some ideas for a good description based upon something you’re using now, or take a paragraph, and improve it.
How to use a prompt in ChatGPT
The information that is generated by ChatGPT is based on the information you provide. The program is structured to “answer” a prompt. A prompt in ChatGPT is like giving a friendly instruction or asking a question to start a conversation with the AI. It’s like providing a topic or a specific direction for the AI to follow when generating its response.
For example, if you ask ChatGPT, “Tell me about your favorite hobby,” that would be a prompt, and the AI will then use the prompt to generate a response related to hobbies. Think of it as a way to guide the AI’s thoughts and keep the conversation focused on the subject you want to explore. The more detailed or specific the prompt, the more tailored and relevant the AI’s response will be.
Examples of six core types of tasks OpenAI performs well on:
Generation and brainstorming:
Write me a blog post, write me an outline, give me some ideas for a staycation – these are content creation tasks that either result in completed content (like a first draft) or outlines of content.
Knowledge seeking:
Using the language model like a search engine. What are the best places to visit in London on a small budget, how do you poach an egg, what’s the fastest land animal, and so forth. Here, we’re not assessing a model on its generation skill so much as using it as a faster search engine or a search engine that deals with complex queries more skillfully.
Rewriting:
Given a piece of text, rewrite the text in some different way. One utility will take a transcript of a voice recording and have models like GPT-4 rewrite it so that it gets rid of umms, uhhs, and filler text. It’s not creating anything new, just changing the language. This is one of the tasks these models are best at.
Summarization and extraction:
This is feeding a model a pile of text and having it condense or extract the text. Examples would be summarizing a long article or a paper into a paragraph, turning a blog post into a tweet, or extracting meeting notes and action items from a transcript. Again, this is one of the tasks that large language models excel at.
Classification:
Give the model a lot of text and have it perform classifying tasks on it. For example, we could give it a pile of tweets and have it assign sentiment scores to the tweets, or give it a letter written by someone and have it create a psychological profile from it.
Conversation:
Actual chat. People have real conversations with the models and just talk to them.
Factors to consider in Understanding ChatGPT:
- Costs and Budgeting: For a small business, budgeting is crucial, and implementing ChatGPT might incur costs. Depending on the usage and requirements, accessing language models like ChatGPT could involve subscription fees or pay-per-use charges.
- Data Privacy and Security: ChatGPT operates on cloud-based platforms and interacts with user data, which could raise concerns about data privacy and security. Small businesses may not have the same level of cybersecurity measures as larger enterprises, making them potentially more vulnerable to data breaches.
- Reliability and Downtime: Reliability is essential for any business tool, and ChatGPT’s availability and uptime are critical. Small businesses often rely heavily on streamlined operations, and any downtime or service interruptions could impact productivity, customer support, and overall user experience.
- Customization and Branding: Small businesses may require customization options to align ChatGPT with their brand identity and specific needs. Off-the-shelf language models like ChatGPT might lack this level of flexibility, potentially making it challenging to tailor the AI to match the business’s unique voice and offerings.
- Ethical and Legal Considerations: Implementing AI, especially for customer interactions, raises ethical and legal considerations. Small businesses need to ensure that ChatGPT’s responses align with ethical guidelines, avoid biases, and comply with relevant laws, such as data protection regulations and advertising standards.
It’s essential for small businesses to understand ChatGPT and carefully evaluate their needs, budget, and the ethical implications before integrating ChatGPT or any AI-based tool into their operations. Seeking professional advice and staying informed about AI-related developments can help address these concerns effectively.
Remember, while ChatGPT offers many advantages, it’s essential to monitor its interactions initially to ensure accuracy and appropriateness. Additionally, it should complement, not replace, human support where necessary to maintain a personalized touch in certain situations.
OpenAI’s tool ChatGPT reached 1 million users within a week of launching.
DATA INSIGHTS | POLL RESULTS | CHATGPT — Boston, MA: July 25, 2023 — Alignable’s ChatGPT Sentiment Study shows that 57% of SMB owners have at least tried the new AI tool & 26% of those in the U.S. have already embraced it as a new way to enhance their businesses.
How does Pig Art Graphics use ChatGPT?
Great question, I’ll ask ChatGPT. I started exploring ChatGPT in January 2023. The way that I use it is for research on a given topic that I’m not well versed in. I find the results that I get are over-explained and the “voice” is not appealing. That being said, it is great at researching specific topics but I always rewrite the information because I find it lacking.
