- Hey, Geoff. - Hi, Danielle.
- I am working on some stuff on ChatGPT.
Have you heard of it?
- The AI made by OpenAI that you type a prompt into,
and it will respond in English that looks pretty convincingly
like it was written by a human.
- Believe it or not, some people are already using this
in the workplace for, like, workplace communications.
So I thought it would be cool to put you to the test
and see if you can tell the difference
between something written by ChatGPT
and something written by me.
You up for it? - Let's do it.
- I'm emailing you to respond to the fact
that you have been really loud on your phone calls lately
and I need you to pipe down a bit.
- "Geoff, I hope you're doing well."
So first of all, I know that you are smart enough
to not start an e-mail with "I hope you're doing well."
"I wanted to bring up something that I've noticed
during our phone calls.
I've noticed that you have been speaking quite loudly,
and it's been difficult for me to hear you
and for others to hear you as well."
What does that -- Does that even make sense?
"I would appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns."
Okay, this was clearly written by a computer.
- So one thing ChatGPT is not good at
is actually understanding what it's doing.
So while it's supposed to be responding
to your loud phone calls,
it's actually misinterpreting what we're asking it to do,
and it's saying, "I can't hear you and others can't hear you,"
and then later asks you to lower your voice.
So it's contradicting itself,
not knowing it's contradicting itself.
You ready for the next test? - Do it.
- Oftentimes, PR people e-mail us
and we have to say we're not interested.
- It's so nice that you reply to them.
- This is an e-mail declining a pitch.
- "Hello. Thanks for reaching out."
That does sound like something that Danielle would say.
"Unfortunately, I'm going to have to pass --"
The "unfortunately" is a little strong.
"-- as the story is outside of my scope."
That's a slightly weird phrase.
"Slightly outside of my scope."
But you can tell this one's a lot harder for me.
- It is harder for you.
I'm going to say this was written by the AI.
I think you would write something even shorter.
Final answer.
- Final answer? - AI.
- You heard it, AI.
And you are wrong.
- And I just succeeded in insulting your e-mail.
- So apparently, I sound like a robot.
I will say, I had ChatGPT do this.
- Okay.
- It was the same idea, but it is about twice as long.
- This is the short version? - For this next test,
I am reaching out to the Help Desk team to ask for help
on brainstorming ideas, which I often do.
- Okay, this is getting stressful.
- "Hey, Team.
That sounds like Danielle.
"I hope you all are doing well."
There's that phrase again!
With an exclamation point this time.
The exclamation point is a little Danielle-like, though.
"As you know, I have been working on a lot
of great stories lately."
That's a little promotional, Danielle.
"I'm really excited to continue exploring this beat,
and I think we can come up with some really interesting stories
that will captivate our readers."
"Captivate" seems like a very weird word choice.
"Thanks in advance for your help.
Let's keep the great work coming."
I'm going to reverse my initial instinct
and say this was written by Danielle.
- And you would be wrong. - Oh!
- First of all, good to point out the exclamation points,
because that was something I had to teach it to do, so --
-You were in cahoots with it? - I specifically asked it to use
an excited tone, and this is what it came up with.
I did feed it the stories I had previously worked on.
If you don't feed it any facts,
sometimes it fills in stuff that's not even related.
- What do you think the AI is good at and bad at right now?
- Yeah.
I think it's great for drafting ideas, you know?
It's great when you don't know what to put on a page
and you just need some help getting started.
I don't think it's quite developed enough
to be the last step.
Factual errors, right?
It has trouble with human connection
because it's not human.
Sometimes it misunderstands the prompt.
I don't think it's ready to just copy and paste and send.
It's not ready for prime time.
- For now. - For now.