ChatGPT has been used by people to assist them in their work since its release in November last year.
We have now seen the first signs of its impact in the workplace. Two MIT graduate economics students published a study in Science today that suggests this could reduce the gap in writing abilities between employees. The study found that less skilled workers with poor writing skills could produce similar quality work to their more experienced colleagues.
Shakked Noy, Whitney Zhang, and other college-educated marketers recruited 453 data analysts and marketing professionals to complete tasks that they would normally perform as part of their job, like writing press releases, reports or analysis plans. ChatGPT was offered to the half of participants who chose it as a way to complete the second task.
The results were then checked by a group of professionals, who graded the work on a 1-7 scale. 7 was the highest. Three people from the same professions were hired by the research platform Prolific to evaluate each piece of writing.
ChatGPT allowed writers to finish their tasks in 40% less time and produce work that was 18% better than the other participants. Writers who are already proficient in writing can reduce the time spent on their tasks, while writers who are deemed weaker writers produce better work after they gain access to the ChatGPT chatbot.
Noy, the lead author, says that ChatGPT is very effective at creating this type of written content. Automating parts of the writing processes could save a great deal of time.
He adds, "It's pretty clear that it will be very useful in white-collar jobs. Many people will use it and it's likely to have an impact on the way white-collar job is structured."
ChatGPT's output and that of other AI models are far from accurate. ChatGPT has a high ability to present false information as accurate, so workers can use it to increase their productivity, but they may also introduce errors.
These kinds of errors could have grave consequences depending on the job of the person. A judge fined Steven Schwartz $5,000 last month after he used ChatGPT to create a legal document that contained false opinions of the court and legal citations.
Kevin Castel, a judge, stated that "technological advancements are normal and using an artificial intelligence tool to assist is not inherently wrong." But existing rules require attorneys to perform a gatekeeping function in order to ensure that their filings are accurate.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Riku Arakawa and others, who study workers' use large language models but were not involved in the research, say that the research suggests AI can be useful at work by acting as an assistant.
"I find this a very interesting result, which shows how human-AI collaboration works well for this type of task. "When a human uses AI to refine its output, it can produce better content," says he.
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By: Rhiannon Williams
Title: ChatGPT can turn bad writers into better ones
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/07/13/1076199/chatgpt-can-turn-bad-writers-into-better-ones/
Published Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2023 17:00:00 +0000
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