Last month we talked about how New Zealand businesses can benefit from ChatGPT. (Read the blog here) We’ve had so many clients interested in how ChatGPT can help their business, that we are talking here about it again!
What we are looking at here is weighing its advantages against the security implications.
Firstly, a quick review. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language model designed to generate human-like responses. The increasingly popular AI-powered platform has a wide range of applications.
ChatGPT responds to questions or commands, drawing on pre-training using large amounts of text data. The inputs include books, articles, and websites on a wide range of topics.
The model can help automate aspects of business communication and streamline business processes.
Ways to use ChatGPT include:
- providing customer support by training it to answer common questions and resolve issues;
- generating leads by having ChatGPT collect data from website visitors to qualify leads;
- offering personalized recommendations, product information, and marketing promotions;
- giving employees quick access to internal policies, IT support, or training materials;
- finding errors in computer code;
- calculating spreadsheet data.
This can be a huge productivity boost for businesses when used correctly. However, you should be aware of some downsides.
ChatGPT is not perfect
You can get ChatGPT only via a Web browser right now. You’ll register via OpenAI, which developed the model. Don’t download an app claiming to give you access to ChatGPT. Bad actors create those fake apps to defraud or scam you.
But there are other risks a business should weigh up. Keep in mind that the technology may generate inappropriate or inaccurate responses, as the model may pull data from biased or discriminatory sources.
The model may not understand your question or request completely either. The more complex or nuanced your prompt, the greater a challenge it is for ChatGPT as it learns to understand and respond accurately.
Further, the safety of ChatGPT depends on your use case, as well as the level of control and monitoring you use. Someone else may have the copyright on the information output you get from ChatGPT. Review any ChatGPT output before using it.
Also, be careful of the input you give to ChatGPT. For example, asking it to find errors in proprietary code could risk your data security. ChatGPT itself currently warns users against providing sensitive data.
After all, the model uses all its available data to respond. So, if you enter sensitive data, it might end up being disclosed to another user who makes a similar request.
Your industry may also be subject to strict data privacy rules. If ChatGPT output contains confidential data, you may breach industry standards or government regulations.
Using technology safely
Technology can transform the way you do business, which can be a good thing. Still, you’ll want to consider the legal and privacy risks before proceeding with ChatGPT.
Interested in learning more about workflow automation and streamlining communication through business technology? Contact us at Ultra IT and we can help you evaluate the best solution to meet your needs.