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Gene (00:02):

Hey everybody. This is Gene Marks and welcome to another episode of The Hartford’s Small Biz Ahead podcast. Thank you so much for joining me this week. This week I want to talk to you about a new technology that has sort of taken the world by storm. If you haven’t heard about it, your head has probably been under a pillow for the past couple of months. It’s called ChatGPT, ChatGPT. It’s an open source AI-driven chatbot, a conversational chatbot. It’s made by a company called OpenAI. And you know what? You can check it out anytime you want. It’s completely free, although there is a premium version that’s coming out and it’s something that a lot of people have been playing around with and actually starting to put it to productive business use just recently. So if you go to a OpenAI’s website, the way you get to, just Google ChatGPT and OpenAI, you’ll find their website.

Gene (00:58):

You create a user profile and you can get on it and start playing with it. So why do you even wanna do that? Like what is the point of ChatGPT? Well, it’s artificial intelligence, it’s conversational. It is a, it’s a chatbot. But it’s so much more because what ChatGPT does is, it will give you answers to your questions. It will give you advice, it will give you help and it will actually do things for you just by asking it to do things. So for example, if you’re like, “Hey, can you gimme a good recipe for apple pie?” ChatGPT will come back with a recipe for apple pie. In Google, if you go “gimme a recipe for apple pie,” Google will deliver to you links to articles online that contain recipes for apple pie.

Gene (01:45):

Do you get that? So you can do things by taking it to the next level. You can say to ChatGPT, “Hey, write a blog about a car repair for Mustangs,” and what it will do is, it will write a blog for you based on all the information it can find out there about car repair and Mustangs. And once it does that for you, you can then turn around and say like, “also include car repair advice for Camaros as well” and it will add that into the blog and do it all for you. So for some people, it’s really causing a lot of panic and concern because it’s doing a lot of work that people are already doing. I’ll give you another example. I have a friend of mine who is a developer, who writes software code.

Gene (02:34):

He’s been using ChatGPT to write software code for him. So when he has a project to do and he’s got a write code that performs a certain function for him, he says to ChatGPT, “Hey, write this code in this language that performs this or accomplishes that and ChatGPT does it for him. And he copies and he pastes that into his code and moves on from there. So it really is doing some stuff that humans are doing and the capabilities in the future are significant. You will be able to create ChatGPTs that will draft up brochures, legal contracts, it can do market analysis for you. It can make recommendations where to open up a store or what products to sell. It can draw up human resources policies based on certain criteria or information that you give it.

Gene (03:28):

It’s literally like having like an expert that can do things for you all through conversational AI, which is pretty wild, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The technology is still very early. It’s not new by the way. There’s been conversational AI forever. It’s been around for at least the past few years. You know it because when you’re doing chats and text messaging back and forth, sometimes you know that you’re talking to a bot. It’s just that ChatGPT is very, very much more advanced. Now, some people are concerned that ChatGPT will replace Google and I got news for you, Google’s kind of concerned too. In fact, one of the founders of Gmail recently says that ChatGPT could replace Google in the next few years. But my money’s still on Google. They’ve been investing billions in other, OpenAI type chat technologies that they’re soon gonna be rolling out as well.

Gene (04:22):

It’s certainly gonna change the way we search the internet for things going forward, but just remember, although ChatGPT can do things, it can’t do physical things, right? It can’t mow your lawn or clean dishes or put up drywall or paint walls. So a lot of people are concerned about it replacing workers. Yeah, it’s gonna replace some of the work that workers are doing, but hopefully it will just make them more productive. For example, like Microsoft just invested a billion dollars into ChatGPT and they want to use that technology for future versions of their Office 365 product. What does that mean? Well, it means like you’ll tell Office 365, “Hey, I’m doing a presentation tomorrow on the mating habits of African Tigers, please create a PowerPoint presentation for me that includes the most important facts about the mating habits of African Tigers” and ChatGPT will use Office 365 and PowerPoint to create that presentation for you.

Gene (05:25):

It won’t be done though. You’re still gonna need to review it and tweak it and tailor it and add it and put your value add to it. But it will certainly take you quite a long way. So it’s not gonna be, it’s gonna be doing stuff, but it’s not gonna be doing everything for you. Now people are concerned that it’s gonna replace people, but it’s gonna replace some work that’s being done. So what’s my advice to you when it comes to ChatGPT?

Gene (06:09):

Should you be using it right now? Well, the answer is no. The technology is still incomplete. It’s still inaccurate, it’s still pretty biased as well because remember, it’s software developers that are making this stuff. But my advice to you is to keep your eyes open. You don’t need to be developing any ChatGPT solutions yourself. You don’t have the knowledge to do that nor the money to do all that as a small business owner. Trust me when I tell you that big technology companies like Microsoft and Google and a lot of startups are already developing applications based on conversational AI technology like ChatGPT. So once they have that done and tested and working in the real world, then you can go and buy it or subscribe to it or use it in your business, which will be a lot less expensive than you developing something on your own.

Gene (07:03):

The thing that I want you to do, because I’m gonna be doing it, is keeping your eyes open where you see this conversational AI technology become available, that you know you can use it in your business so that you can do things more productively, more efficiently, more profitably. Jump on it, take advantage of it. Don’t run away from it. Don’t be scared that it’s gonna replace you or your business or make big changes. Let it make those changes. Because if you use it the right way, those changes will probably be for the best. So listen, ChatGPT and conversational AI products like it, this is reality. It is on the market. It is, over the next few years gonna be developed into something super powerful and I think it’s gonna be disrupting our lives in a big, big way. Don’t, don’t be afraid of it.

Gene (07:48):

Embrace it. Take advantage of this technology right now, it’s a little overhyped, but as it gets mature and as more money is invested in it and it becomes better and better, we’ll be using it all the time, not only in our personal lives, but in our businesses as well. So I hope this little summary of ChatGPT is helpful to you. Go and check it out yourself. Again, Google ChatGPT and OpenAI. You’ll find it, create a username, play around with it. It’s completely free. I think you’ll get what it, what it does now and what it can do for you in the future. You’ve been listening to The Small Biz Ahead podcast. My name is Gene Marks. Thank you so much for spending the time. If you’ve got any questions or advice or need some tips in running your business, please visit us at SmallBizAhead.com or SBA.TheHartford.com. Again, my name is Gene Marks, I’ll be back to you next week with another podcast with some advice and tips to help you run your business. We will see you then. Take care.

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