This is more of a status update on a previous one I made back in December. That article can be found (here) but what I discuss is the recent OpenAI’s ChatGPT and my thoughts around it. Looking back I find many things that I would change about that but I am going to let it stand for posterities sake.
So, update time now. I have continued to use OpenAI in varying ways in my life. One of the main ways that I didn’t anticipate using OpenAI but have found myself doing so has been as a “Study Buddy”. I found that you can using it to get better pointers on topics that you might not fully understand and need someone to explain it like you are 10 years old. Which is an actual thing I have done. I really couldn’t wrap my head around a topic that I was studying and I asked ChatGPT to explain it like I was in middle school and then with some continual refined questions everything snapped into place for me.
Another way beyond just asking questions is that I sometimes have straight up copied all my OneNote notes into ChatGPT and then asked it to use that to form 20 to 30 questions around that source material. I did find you have to outright tell it to ask you one by one if you want the opportunity to respond. This made the learning session fun for me.
Using ChatGPT like that also sparked the idea that a awesome commercial product would be to have an app that integrates OneNote, or OneNote like features and takes that material automatically and has an active “Quiz Partner”. I haven’t done anything to this regard as I am not a developer just someone who can piece together most code and understand how it is working. Maybe in a year or two if something like this hasn’t been made yet I might take a shot at it even if it is just for personal use.
That brings me to the next “brain dump” topic that I have had rolling around in my head as well. Microsoft’s looming induction of ChatGPT into itself. I made that sound way more ominous then I think it will actually be, however there is some fear I think around how the “Soul” of ChatGPT will survive if Microsoft inducts it into its services.
I have a variety of ideas how Microsoft could use ChatGPT but those are just my take and I doubt that Microsoft or even other ChatGPT fans would agree with my take on it. Before I go into my take on how Microsoft could integrate ChatGPT into it’s services, I want to first also mention that there are some rumors that ChatGPT might be offering a monthly paid subscription for people to have access to ChatGPT. I cant easily find this page yet so not fully certain on that front.
Now my hot take on how Microsoft could integrate ChatGPT into its services…
Azure
For me, there is the obvious choice of having ChatGPT be a resource or service that someone using Azure can build with. Be it a ChatBot or some other app. You can have the user create a ChatGPT resource that is auto launched in a container that can scale, which a developer could call to with a program running on Azure. You could also just have ChatGPT be a guide in Azure and assist in Network configuration and troubleshooting.
Dynamics 365
I don’t have a lot of experience with this ERP/CRM as my company utilizes a different one but there are somethings I could guess at that an AI could improve in any ERP system. A guided learning path that keeps score on what you might have struggled with in the understanding of its functionality. A built-in Chatbot to assist with troubleshooting issues before having to reach out to IT.
Bing Search
There are two ways I could see implementing ChatGPT into Search. Either could be done together or separately and I am going to try and keep with the concept that Microsoft ultimately needs to generate money from either of these methods.
First: Integrate it on the backend directly into understanding and servicing of results to the user. Also, you could with this method have a “ChatGPT Selection” on the results page that gives ChatGPT’s best curated related articles or results to the query. The monetization in my opinion should be thought of as the potential market share increase and thereby advertiser increase you could potentially gain by giving users a good experience. (Article coming soon here on my thoughts on how Google is Failing Search).
Second: You could use ChatGPT alongside search instead of integrated into it. What I mean by this is that you could right under or next to Bing’s search bar have a ChatGPT Prompt option where you could ask ChatGPT questions just like you do right now on the OpenAI site. Now monetizing this gets a little trickier if you are looking to still “keep the soul of ChatGPT” as it were. My thoughts are that you could have the first 1 or 2 prompts happen just in the initial window but maybe if the user goes beyond that you have it open a new session where related advertisements to the current discussion appear alongside. There is a lot of adjustments to this that could be explored however.
Windows OS
I feel like the obvious spot that ChatGPT can really assist is Cortana, which I feel is the AI Assistant equivalent of the Forth Forgotten Child. (Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant being above it). AI Assistants are something that I am not opposed to personally despite the potential tracking issues that arise. However, I have an iPhone and the only thing I find I can really count on Siri reliably to get right is me asking he to set an alarm or timer. Alexa is a bit better and Google Assistant is sometimes decent, but all of them feel like you have to phrase everything just right or get served a useless or irritating result. ChatGPT if it can be made to assist Cortana and potentially move it into a more conversational experience would defiantly improve and increase my usage of Cortana.
Office 365
I believe there is already some talks about Microsoft intending to do this already where they might have ChatGPT be a tool in Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. I think having it be able to assist in summarization of documents or even generating new ones could be extremely useful. Also maybe having a better selection of instant replies to an email to reduce time having to write it would be beneficial.
Regardless how ChatGPT specifically shakes out in the coming months/years, AI is going to become much more prevalent in the next decade. I think a lot of it might be “under the hood” stuff that the common user might not even notice but there are going to be more interactions between the populace and AI.
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