Those of us who work in technology – which is most of us here – can’t help but glom onto or at least test the shiny new thing that comes along. It’s in our DNA. The problem is that tech tends to jump in feet first without realizing the possible consequences, dystopian side, or even fully examining the product.

Apologies if we sound a bit repetitive here, but read on. We do have a point to make, that no one else seems to be considering.

BuzzFeed To Use ChatGPT’s AI For Content Creation, Stock Up 200%+ (forbes.com). Okay, it’s ‘BuzzFeed’ which is ‘clickbait’ by any other name.  As Forbes further reported, “Investigative reports on The Byte shared that media website CNET was using AI technology, under articles penned by the anonymous “CNET Money Staff”. The AI was created by CNET resources, and only used for a very small number of posts before human oversight detected significant misstatements of facts, errors and plagiarized content, according to multiple news sources.” The result: CNET pauses publishing AI-written stories after disclosure controversy.

Speaking of plagiarism, we do wonder what the consequences will be when the AIs start plagiarizing the AIs…

Stack Overflow (has banned) ChatGPT as ‘substantially harmful’ for coding issues. High error rates mean thousands of AI answers need checking by humans, The Register reported and that’s hardly a time or cost saver.

ChatGPT Detectors are being released – of course, and what ambitious founder wouldn’t be keeping his or her eyes open for the next potential big opportunity – that suss out whether some code, cover letter, writing sample – has been generated by the applicant, or an AI. Consider potential employers: if they’re using a Detector and discover that you’ve used an AI for your cover letter, coding test, etc and that an  AI had done the work for you, is that a good sign, re who will be doing the work for which you’re being considered? You or the AI? First impressions! Next applicant, please!

Consider this, founders. We wonder how long it will be before ChatGPT or some other AI generator disrupts startups themselves. Say you have a company that’s gaining amazing traction/potentially generating unicorn-level revenue – until along comes an AI-assisted megacorp that decides to replicate rather than acquire or invest.

The possible outlier: the human factor. The nuances, subtleties and vision that we lowly bipedal sentients can bring to the table. How many times have you heard that founders don’t know what they don’t know. In that case, how will an AI assistant help? You don’t know which questions to ask, or which needs must be addressed – because each startup playbook is different.

Lest we forget, The dream of an artificial mind may never become a reality if AI runs out of quality prose to ingest—and there isn’t much left, said The Atlantic. What to speak of the fact that its grammar and punctuation tend to be wrong, and word choices are uninspired at best. In other words, it seems to gravitate towards the lowest common denominator. Adult, if not professional, supervision is required. 

AI may well be an amazing tool. Given the excitement it has generated in so short an amount of time, although truth be told, it’s been around for years now; it’s just that with the release of ChatGPT, it has reached something of a tipping point and even a use case point, but we may have already forgotten, ignored or overlooked the fact that it’s a tool, not a resource. At present and perhaps well into the future, if you want to know what your greatest resource is and to quote Charlton Heston, “it’s people!”

Onward and forward.