ChatGPT Can’t Take Your Job Unless It Figures Out How to Do One Really Difficult Thing

Is the artificial intelligence revolution about to fizzle?

Are you worried about ChatGPT taking your job? Me too! After all, writing is a huge part of my job, but, in the time it takes for you to reach the end of this sentence, ChatGPT can spit out 2,000 coherent and compelling words about the exact same topic.

Clearly, I’m screwed.

However, a recent experience using ChatGPT has me thinking the situation isn’t as dire as I’d originally assumed.

For starters, using the phrase “artificial intelligence” to describe something like ChatGPT is a misnomer. A better phrase to describe it might be “large language model processor.” However, since “large language model processor” doesn’t make for compelling headlines, everyone seems to have agreed that ChatGPT, and other tools like it, are “artificial intelligence.”

Fine.

Whatever.

We can keep calling this stuff artificial intelligence, but let’s also agree that ChatGPT (and its similar tools) are as stupid as they are intelligent.

To be clear, I’d say the same thing about humans. People aren’t nearly as intelligent as we like to think (myself included). Instead, we’re not particularly different from the AI we’ve built. By that I mean we’re very good at collecting small amounts of data and then making enormous assumptions using the data while tricking ourselves into thinking we “know stuff.” Better yet, if we’re really good at this process, we move into careers where our jobs are to trick other people into thinking we “know stuff.”

For the record, that’s what I do. I’m an “academic.” I teach entrepreneurship at Duke University, which basically means I get paid to explain stuff that I’m supposedly an expert on. Am I really an entrepreneurship expert? Maybe. Maybe not. Certainly, with a bit of thoughtful searching on YouTube or by listening to a few good podcasts, people could learn everything I know. As a result, my unique value proposition isn’t “knows a lot about entrepreneurship.” The thing I’m good at is asserting information about entrepreneurship with clarity and authority. For better and for…