A story in The New York Times explores how customized ChatGPT agents could have an impact on our personal lives and on replacing jobs. (Source: Adobe Stock)

Personalized AI Agents Make It Easier Than Ever to Adapt ChatGPT for Everyday Use

The implications of a major announcement by OpenAI last week are sifting into the public consciousness as experts weigh in on how it will impact the use of chatbots in the coming years.

OpenAI, which opened up ChatGPT to the public only last year has now made it possible for the public to use customized AI agents to create the kind of bot they can use for their work or other purposes, according to an nytimes.com story:

“OpenAI has made it very easy to build a custom GPT, even if you don’t know a line of code. Just answer a few simple questions about your bot — its name, its purpose, what tone it should use when responding to users — and the bot builds itself in just a few seconds.”

Not everyone—and definitely not every watchdog—of AI thinks this is a good idea. According to the nytimes.com story:

“The Center for AI Safety, a nonprofit research organization, listed autonomous agents as one of its ‘catastrophic A.I. risks’ this year, saying that ‘malicious actors could intentionally create rogue A.I.s with dangerous goals.’ ”

The bots can be designed for specific tasks, such as “Creative Writing Coach” and “Mocktail Mixologist.” It can also pull private data and use it in responses. More troubling is that it can be trained to act on your behalf in populating your calendar, completing your to-do list, and updating other accounts using your login information.

But that’s just the beginning, according to the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman.

“For now, OpenAI’s bots are limited to simple, well-defined tasks, and can’t handle complex planning or long sequences of actions. Eventually, Mr. Altman said on Monday, users will be able to offer their GPTs to the public through OpenAI’s version of an app store. (He was light on details, but said the company planned to share some of its revenue with the makers of popular GPTs.)”

The story points out ways that these customized bots will likely be able to take over jobs that people do right now, such as online customer service, customer service for large corporations in handling insurance questions and creating chatbots that mimic the voice of a writer, for instance. The article ponders the possible uses, and concludes that it will still take many iterations before these customized bots can replace people—but it’s not at all farfetched.

read more at nytimes.com