220: What is ChatGPT and Why Is Everyone Obsessed With It?

Why does it seem that all of a sudden everyone is obsessed with the bot? ChatGPT in this episode, I'll tell you why I think so. Welcome to the Indestructible PR podcast, where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible RA reputation. CHAT GPT is here and it is guaranteed to change your life if you work in communication or your student who has to do a lot of writing. In this episode, let's talk about the benefits and some of the risks of using this new platform. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot system that was released in November. If you think back, there was a time before ChatGPT and then a time where it seemed like everyone was talking about it and you may have been someone who Googled how to log into it. Like, you don't. Is it an app? Do you download it on the phone? Is it a computer program? It's a part of a system with OpenAI. And there's a difference in ChatGPT compared to other programs. Artificial intelligence, particularly when it comes to, you know, writing, there are a lot of programs out there Grammarly, for instance, you know, corrects and edits your copy. Even within, you know, Google, when you're writing or Word, there'll be, you know, a correction for your grammar in there. But the artificial intelligence piece of it of ChatGPT, and it's still in this prototype phase, but it has this capability of understanding natural human language, that's the distinction. These other programs out there are just correcting grammar mistakes or offering grammar solutions. ChatGPT is about becoming more human like and creating more detailed human like written text. Now, if that frightens you, that's a good thing because we don't know where this technology can go, right? But if you happen to be someone who works in communication, and you might think, man, I put out a lot of content and wouldn't it be awesome if there's a platform out there that could create content that writes like me? Well, Here you go. ChatGPT. Now think about it also as a program that you can use that might replace like a Wikipedia, for instance, or Google. When you ask questions such as what is the acceptance rate at Boston University? Or why did the New York Yankees suck? As you can see from my queries, it can be a very personal experience. But you could also ask it to do something within your work, like write me a blog post about X, write me a press release when the words come back. You can also ask it to make it more exciting, you know, make it more casual, make it more professional. There's a lot of different ways that you can use it. Now, ChatGPT, it doesn't necessarily know everything, but it's trained to recognize patterns. It's trained to almost, I hate to use the word think, but it pulls information from the Internet and then you further train it with your human interference, if you will, to tailor it and customize it for how you use it. The answers are going to sound more plausible, they're going to sound more authoritative, they're going to sound more like you. Now the mission of ChatGPT, it comes from OpenAI. So if you go to that website, then that will send you a link to try out chatgpt. And this is a very hard word to say. Chatgpt is really difficult. So this will probably be shortened to GPT or maybe even chat at some point. Someone might say, might become a verb, even send it to the chat. I'm going to chat this. Okay, that's my prediction. People are going to call it just like, I'm going to Google this, I'm going to chat, I'm going to chat with you, chat this. But chatgpt so is a variant of GPT, which means generative pre training transformer. It's a language model that was specifically designed to generate human like text in a very conversational context. So it can be used in a number of different ways to help you in your communication, which is why I'm talking about it. This is a podcast that's geared towards people who work in communication, public relations, also leadership, people who are interested in reputation management and crisis management. But there are other areas that we can use it in our communications. One, generating personalized responses to your customer inquiries. So the ChatGPT function can be used to answer questions about products or services or resolving issues. So this frees up time for customer service representatives. I happen to just write that this very mom we want to pull people off of Facebook where it's live messaging and I was encouraging let's automate it. Well now with ChatGPT, this type of technology, your responses can be less bot like and more human like. Two, it also creates content for social media or for your customer newsletters. So it can help you engage with your customers better. It can help you learn more about your customers. Again, to free up time with your communication team. It could also be used to assist in language translation and any type of source language that you use. Again, to reduce the workload of any other human translator out There it can also generate marketing copy, web copy, sales copy, all of these things that save time and effort for a marketing team, your comms team, and also money. It's going to save you a lot of money. Now, one of the questions that came up in a class that I teach, I just finished a semester teaching this year I decided to go back into the classroom. I'm working as an adjunct. I started at one school in Greater Boston, and starting in January, I'm going into Boston. I'm working for my alma mater. I'm going to be teaching media there, media writing, social media writing. And this is going to be a part of the syllabus because the question, does ChatGPT is it something that can help students cheat better? And the answer is, yes, it can. Now, in the initial stages, it's really not that effective yet because it's so new. But if you think back like years ago, like probably if you're around my age, when you had to research information, where did you go? You went to a shelf and pulled off an encyclopedia and then you copied word for word what was in the encyclopedia, and then you tried to dress it up a bit in your own language. It's very similar to that, you know. And then nowadays students might use Wikipedia or they might go online and find other places in the Internet. But I know this as a professor, there's plagiarism checks in there. But ChatGPT is not something that lives on the Internet. So that plagiarism piece is not going to come up when you're checking in some of the programs that they have. Also, because the chat features, because it has that human like interaction where it learns language, it's going to learn to sound like the student. So the tone is going to be less bland, less stuffier, it's going to be more casual and really more similar to the writer. So in short, yes, it is going to help people do that more. So with our students, it will likely change the way they're going to write. I have a daughter and possibly a son now, both looking at journalism, you know, for college. And we were just talking about that. I was just talking about this morning with my daughter. We were talking about AI, artificial intelligence and journalism and the ethical impact of it and what that does. Now we can also use this chat feature for our press releases. So that's not news. I mean, this is now the promotional element, the proactive element where we're putting out our information. So you can use the chat function for media relations, personalized responses to journalist inquiries. Any other communication, you know, emails, you know, back and forth. So some of the examples here, here are three. So again, like the journalist inquiries, so when they are asking you very specific questions about a particular topic or addressing concerns raised by the media, the more complex the tasks are, ChatGPT can start to mold your answers in a way that these journalists are going to understand, help it be more effective. Again, you can use it to draft a press release easily draft a press release, a media advisory or any other type of news communication. Of course you're going to have to vet it and make sure that it's accurate, but it's going to get you more than half of the way there in completing it. And then also if there's any type of translation, if you have a press release and you need to translate it into another language, that's going to improve the chat function, is going to improve the accuracy and the consistency of those translations. So it's important to note no matter why you're using the ChatGPT, what you're going to use it for. If it goes to a public facing place, if it's on a website, if it's in an email, if you are using it for your external communications, it is important, incredibly important, that it needs to be accurate. Now, in every podcast I include one indestructible PR tip. That is the one tip that you are going to remember easily. You can slip it in your back pocket, you can always remember it and pull it out whenever you need it. Now, in this case, what does a reputation have to do with ChatGPT? If you are using external communication and you are using this as a source for original source, meaning coming from your organization or coming from you, but you are using artificial intelligence to create that source. It is important that you trust the system and trust that ChatGPT is giving you the right information. But you have to verify it. Never input a query in there, pull it whole cloth and slap it on a website, or slap it on a press release, or put it out there in a public facing external manner. Make sure you verify. And then once you do, you go back into the program, you start teaching it the truth. And then next thing you know, that bot is going to be thinking just like you. Here's a little tip. This podcast written by ChatGPT. There you go, that's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now.