Okay, so this is an article based on a very topical idea at the moment about all this
artificial intelligence and, in particular, about this chat GPT. Yeah, okay, so I'll read it to you
twice: once, to give you the gist, and the second time to go through the words. So here we go.
The type of factual error that blighted the launch of Google's artificial
intelligence-powered chatbot will carry on troubling companies using the technology,
experts say, as the market value of its parent company continues to plunge. Shareholders were
rattled after it emerged that a video demo of Google's rival to the Microsoft-backed
chat GPT chatbot contained a flawed response to a question about NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
The animation showed a response from the program called Bard, stating that the JWST, James Webb
Space Telescope, took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system,
prompting astronomers to point out that this was untrue. Google said the error underlined
the need for the rigorous testing that Bard is undergoing before a wider release to the public,
which has been scheduled for the coming weeks. A presentation of Google's AI-backed search plans
on Wednesday also failed to reassure shareholders. This week, Microsoft, a key backer of chat GPT's
developer OpenAI, announced it was integrating the chatbot technology into its Bing search engine.
Google also plans to integrate the technology behind Bard into its search engine. Both Bard
and chat GPT are based on large language models, a type of artificial neural network, which are
fed vast amounts of text from the internet in a process that teaches them how to generate
responses to text-based prompts. Chat GPT became a sensation after its launch in November last year,
as it composed recipes, poems, work presentations, and essays from single, simple prompts.
Okay, so that's the article. Let me read it again to you a little
bit more slowly. And then we'll look at the words. The type of factual error that blighted the launch
of Google's artificial intelligence-powered chatbot will carry on troubling companies
using the technology, experts say, as the market value of its parent company continues to plunge.
Shareholders were rattled after it emerged that a video demo of Google's rival to the
Microsoft-backed chat GPT chatbot contained a flawed response to a question about NASA's James
Webb Space Telescope. The animation showed a response from the program called Bard,
stating that the JWST, James Webb Space Telescope, took the very first pictures of a
planet outside of our own solar system, prompting astronomers to point out that this was untrue.
Google said the error underlined the need for the rigorous testing that Bard is undergoing
before a wider release to the public, which has been scheduled for the coming weeks.
A presentation of Google's AI-backed search plans on Wednesday also failed to reassure shareholders.
This week, Microsoft, a key backer of chat GPT's developer OpenAI, announced it was integrating the
chatbot technology into its Bing search engine. Google also plans to integrate the technology
behind Bard into its search engine. Both Bard and chat GPT are based on large language models,
a type of artificial neural network, which are fed vast amounts of text from the
internet in a process that teaches them how to generate responses to text-based prompts.
Chat GPT became a sensation after its launch in November last year, as it composed recipes,
poems, work presentations, and essays from single, simple prompts.
Okay, so that's the text. As I said, I've given you the link below. So here are some
of the words that I've highlighted and what they mean. The first word is "blighted," as in the type
of factual error that blighted the launch. When something is blighted, it is damaged. So, if they
made a mistake, as they did, there was an error, and it blighted the launch; it damaged the launch,
and people didn't look too kindly on it. In effect, it damaged the share price.
Now, you can blame lots of things. You can blight a crop by an invasion of insects,
so it's damaged because these insects cause disease among the crops, or blighted is to damage.
Next, we have "carry on." This is a simple and very well-used phrasal verb. So it says here,
the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot will carry on troubling companies. To carry
on means to continue. So, when you carry on something, you continue—carry on speaking,
carry on listening, carry on with your exercise, continue. So, when the teacher comes into the
classroom and tells the kids, "carry on with what you're doing," she means continue what
you're doing. So this damage, this blight for Google, will carry on and continue troubling
companies that use this artificial intelligence. And then, the very last word in this particular
paragraph says, "will impact the market value of its parent company as it continues to plunge." To
plunge means to fall very, very quickly. So, if the share price was $100 a share and then
after this mistake, and after the launch, the share price went to $60 or $50, then you could
say the share price has plunged. It has fallen very, very quickly. So when something falls,
it plunges; it means it goes down really quickly. In the next paragraph, shareholders were rattled
after it emerged these mistakes. After these mistakes emerged, when somebody is rattled,
it means they're not so sure; they are a little bit circumspect, or they're a
little bit nervous. So, if somebody is rattled, they are unsure about what they should say or
whether they should continue using the service. So, if shareholders were rattled, it means they
were very unhappy and frightened and scared at the sudden drop in the share price. They were rattled.
And then we use the word "flawed," as in this GPT chatbot contained a flawed response. A flawed
response means a response with a mistake in it. So, if you write some document and it is flawed,
as you see the spelling there, FLAWED, it means that there's a fundamental mistake
in the information that you're using. And then the example they had: they were using the example that
this telescope took the first images of planets in our solar system when, in fact, that information
was incorrect. So the statement they made was flawed. It was inaccurate, it was incorrect.
And then when we use the word "prompting," as in prompting astronomers, prompting means giving
the astronomers an opportunity to come out and tell them, "No, in fact, you're wrong." So when
somebody is prompted, they are pushed gently. If you're standing on the stage and you forget your
words as an actor, somebody on the side of the stage will prompt you; they will whisper what the
words should be, giving you a gentle little push or a hint. So in this case, when this
information was announced and there was obviously a mistake in it, it prompted, encouraged, and
gave astronomers a bit of a push to come out and say, "Sorry, guys, you're wrong, you're wrong."
Now, it says here, they prompted astronomers to "point out," and when you point out something,
you indicate it. If you're traveling around a city on a tourist bus, the tour guide will point out
places of interest, showing and indicating to you the places of interest. So what these astronomers
did, they were prompted to point out, to indicate where and what the mistake was.
Next paragraph, Google said the error underlined the need for rigorous testing. So when something
is tested rigorously, it means in great, great detail. Rigorous means thorough or complete. A
rigorous test would be a thorough, complete test to make sure there are no mistakes in the future.
So what Google will do now that this mistake has been identified is ensure that the next time they
launch something, all of the information is stress-tested to make sure it's accurate and
not going to give any misleading information. So when you test something rigorously, you go through
it quite thoroughly. If you buy a new car, you would expect it to be tested rigorously, with a
thorough test on the car before it's handed over to you, ensuring that the steering wheel works,
the locking system works, the brakes work, the engine works well, and in modern cars, all the
technology works. There will be a rigorous, really detailed testing program on that particular car.
Next, they're going to go through this rigorous testing before a wider release to the public.
So what does that mean, a wider release to the public? The release they had, based on
this article, was to a group of journalists or specialists in that particular area. It
was quite an invited guest list, a short, small list of people they wanted to impress. Of course,
with a mistake, that didn't impress them so much, but it was a very narrow range of invitees. A
wider release to the public means a general release to everybody. So the whole world will
have the information. A wider release to the public means making it available to everybody.
And then, at the end of that particular paragraph, it says that this attempt failed to reassure
shareholders. "Failed to reassure" means it doesn't succeed in giving people peace of mind;
they're still uncertain, unclear, and nervous. So when you fail to reassure somebody, they
don't feel any better after you've given them the information. Okay. So if you had your car stolen,
hopefully not. If you had your car stolen, and you reported to the police, the police will come
to you and tell you, I can guarantee you that we'll have your car back within 24 hours. Well,
that's a good reassurance that you believe that police are going to find your car. But if the
policeman said to you, look, the chances of us finding the car are pretty remote,
the likelihood is that the car has been stolen. And by the time it's discovered,
all the parts will be taken off the car and sold individually. So the police will fail to reassure
you that you're going to get your car back. In fact, quite the opposite. The chances of getting
your car back are almost zero so they failed to reassure you. So in this particular article,
the announcement by Google failed to reassure shareholders that they would see the share price
bouncing back up so they are a bit worried about the future of this particular bot.
This week, Microsoft, a key backer—what does that mean? A key backer is a key or an important
supporter, usually financially. If Google is putting all the money into this particular bot,
they are supporting it financially, providing resources, technicians, analysts,
or programmers to help develop this particular bot. They are the key backer, the number one,
the most important, the person with all the money available to help support and drive
this and get it to where they want it to be. And then, in the very last paragraph where
we're talking about Bard and ChatGPT being based on large language models,
we use the word vast; they are fed vast amounts. Vast means huge, a vast amount of information,
a vast amount of rain fell over the last few days, a vast amount of snow is needed for the French,
Austrian, and Italian Alps, and they're going to enjoy a nice winter skiing business. Okay,
so vast means huge, great. A vast wilderness, like the desert, is a massive area of land,
but it's a wilderness or a vast amount. Okay? So to generate and improve or to give these bots
and ChatGPT artificial intelligence to make them workable and worthwhile, they have to be fed vast
amounts of information so that they can draw on their artificial intelligence. And then finally,
the last word we have here is composed, as in composed recipes, poems, work presentations. Well,
to compose is to make up or to bring together, like a musical composition. When somebody writes
music, they compose music, somebody writes the lyrics, somebody puts together the music score.
So you know, good partnerships of songwriters and musicians who come up with the words and
the music. So to compose something is to bring it together, to write it, to create it. So in this
sentence, it says, ChatGPT became a sensation after its launch last November, as it composed
recipes, poems; it was able to create recipes and poems within seconds that other people could take
hours and hours, if not weeks, to compose. Okay, so there you've got some specific words related
to damage, carry on to continue, plunge to fall very quickly, rattled to be unsettled or nervous,
flawed response, a damaged response that has some mistakes in it, prompting to push gently
to persuade somebody to do something, point out to indicate, rigorous testing, very difficult,
detailed testing, a wider release to the public means to almost everybody, if not everybody,
failed to reassure you have failed to make people feel comfortable. Yeah,
there was a mistake, and they failed to reassure; they were unable to make
people feel comfortable and happy about it. And key backer, the main investor,
vast amounts, huge amounts of information needed, and composed recipes and poems. They
created recipes or wrote recipes or created poems, wrote poems through this artificial intelligence.
Okay, so there you go. That's the news article. As I said, it's taken from a Guardian newspaper.
I've highlighted some of the words. And often when you read a newspaper article, these journalists
are using language that perhaps you might not use on a day-to-day basis because it's okay,
it's good quality, very good quality English, but it may not be the natural English that you and I
would use if we were sitting over a cup of coffee and discussing ChatGPT. But this will help you to
use language, particularly for essay writing, particularly for exams like IELTS or CAE. So
it's important to understand the words, and it's also important to know what they mean. And as
I've given you some examples of alternative words, synonyms so you can use instead of those, okay, so
if you need any more information, you know where to contact me: www.englishlessonviaskype.com.
Very happy to help you. If you want some more news articles like this,
just let me know and we can include them in future lesson plans. Okay, this is Harry thanking you,
and thank you for watching and listening. And as always, remember to join me for the next lesson.