Open AI is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based independent non-profit research organization currently working on exploring AI for the human benefit. This private company came into being in 2015 to make AI technology helpful for humans living across the globe. This US-based private AI-specific research organization is mainly supported by the leading IT tycoons of the world with the mission of promoting AI technologies for people living under different political administrations.
The Open AI’s main project, the Chat GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) series, revolutionized the role of technology in the contemporary world and compelled the entire community of international internet users to adopt and appreciate this new means of Information Communication Technology (ICT). The growing admiration for this AI-supported online communication system, Chat GPT, has facilitated people to access various unexplored dimensions of ICT with the help of its user-friendly apparatus system.
The increasing reliance of people on this emerging tool of advanced ICT has led people across the globe to massively relay on this human-like text-based online system.
The question-answer format of this online database has a conversation apparatus system that tries to provide every possible set of information to its users with the help of available online data. In other words, the fundamental framework of Chat GPT is designed to generate comprehensive answers to human-generated questions by collecting and analyzing various online information sources.
In a broader sense, Chat GPT is a part of modern AI technologies, and it is capable of creating a wide range of content with the support of its deep learning, which allows it to process a large amount of text concerning all fields of life. The responses of this AI-modeled application are objectively coherent and contextually relevant to the human-generated queries.
The increasing societal appreciation of this AI-supported digital application has validated the inevitable role of modern technologies in the contemporary international system, and its worldwide expansion has augmented the increasing reliance of people on advanced communication technologies. This versatile AI-supported online application has improved the efficiencies of international academic communities through its multidimensional and time-saving functions.
International academic communities have started relying on Chat GPT to perform different educational tasks because its automated quick text responses are cost-effective and contextually coherent. Apart from facilitating the people, this AI-generated application has raised specific challenges in the field of education because its informative answering texts have raised the questions of reliability and validation of information collected from various online sources.
While answering the human-generated questions, it replicates the political, societal, cultural, ethnic, and gender biases of online content. The reflection of data biases generally creates misinformation due to the collection of incorrect and misleading online sets of information. This issue becomes a major challenge in the case of sensitive topics and topics having scarce information sources.
There is a high probability of formulating inappropriate or insensitive responses when the AI-generated information of Chat GPT overgeneralizes the available data on different topics.
These inadequate responses further led this AI-led information model to make assumptions based on stereotypical analysis and flawed arguments. This deficiency is linked to its learning from text data sources based on internet knowledge, generally backed by human knowledge. Its analysis always depends on human opinions where the perpetual biases cannot be controlled and overruled. In this way, its conversational text sometimes exhibits cultural, racial, ethnic, and political partialities because the element of rationality in its arguments is strictly associated with a wide range of human expressions.
In this way, a critical examination of Chat GPT’s performance reveals the incapability of this AI-generated application to liberate data from different human-centric biases. The lack of contextual awareness and inadequate learning about the cultural and ethnic diversity of the world are responsible factors undermining the performance of this AI-supported application. Additionally, its unawareness of the ongoing political disagreements of the states, diplomatic inflexibilities of leaders on various issues, and strategic contests of the nations further underestimate the performance of Chat GPT.
There is a need to let the users of Chat GPT remain aware and updated about the limitations and biases of AI technology where the primary responsibility lies on the academic communities. The contemporary academic world has started massively relying on Chat GPT’s information without knowing its deficiencies in certain areas where it is unable to access diverse data sources in a sophisticated manner. While using this AI application for various educational purposes, there is a need to understand its contemporary failures in understanding human judgment and critical thinking in different complex issues of the real world.
Based on the flaws of Chat GPT mentioned above, the only method to overcome the challenges of rationality and authenticity is to adopt a critical approach to using this AI-supported application.
The reliability of data sources can be enhanced through re-verification or cross-verification of the output of this AI model with different reliable sources. The internationally reliable sources generally consist of published books, academic journals, educational websites, official reports, and authentic news outlets, which provide an appropriate way of managing Chat GPT’s data biases. In this way, it is necessary to understand the practical limitations of Chat GPT while using it for diverse purposes, especially in third-world countries where it has become a reliable source of information.
The author is an Assistant Professor, at the Department of International Relations, National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad.