EmotAIns: The Magic of ChatGPT

We type addresses that we plan to visit into Google without giving it a second thought. Search for things we like or are interested in. Even research on disease-related symptoms or other very personal topics are part of our daily routine. That's how Google finds out a lot about us, but we have no issue to use the search in that way.

ChatGPT, however, is a whole other matter. Using the tool makes us feel something. Every question we type in, makes us feel like we are being watched somehow. When we receive the correct answer, we are rather unpleasantly surprised. While we are curious, we are also strangely a bit afraid of it. It feels like magic – but rather like dark magic. And you no longer have the feeling that you're in control of what's happening. Because nobody really understands it. That's probably where the hype around the recently released dialog system, which uses machine learning and natural language processing to generate text, originates from.

Just another hype?

ChatGPT came to us virtually overnight. The chatbot, which is currently still in beta, is turning the digital industry upside down. There's almost no one who hasn't asked it a question or played around with its features a bit. And everyone – whether from the industry or not – has heard about it: on LinkedIn, in the daily newspaper, or through office grapevine. There have been articles and blog posts en masse in recent weeks. And to be honest, we are relieved that we only have to write ChatGPT here so many times instead of saying it out loud. (Seriously: Why not give that thing a simpler name? We have some creative suggestions, FYI).

Trying to become friends with ChatGPT

In conversations about ChatGPT, people drop terms like “fascinating”, “scary” or “futuristic”. And we can relate to each and everyone one of them. The tool makes you curious, you want to experiment, understand more, but at the same time you are cautious. In any case, googling feels less weird than interacting with the chatbot. Sooner or later, everyone will certainly come in contact with it. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we will all at least read AI-generated text at some point. This means that the whole thing will also somehow arrive in our everyday lives.

One digital trend after another

The fascination with new technological developments is nothing new. Just over a year ago, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook's direction toward the Metaverse. The metaverse is evolving, and already there are some people who spend time in the virtual parallel world. The trend of NFTs has not passed us by either. Numerous new use cases can still be found here. When it comes to NFTs and the topic of Metaverse, most people are still dominated by a distanced feeling. That our real world will be replaced by a virtual life currently still feels very unlikely. And although ChatGPT is basically just another AI tool, the chatbot somehow manages to make the abstract and futuristic tendencies more tangible and real.

So, don't panic just yet. Right?

Slowly we realize that AI has come to stay. So what can we do to overcome that slightly queasy feeling? How to stop being creeped out when the bot says exactly what we want to hear? How can we integrate ChatGPT and other AI features into our everyday work? And how can we make our work more efficient and easier by leveraging OpenAI? Without becoming superfluous ourselves?

Testing the limits

All channels are full of experiments on Artificial Intelligence. Surveys on which text is human-generated, which is machine-generated. Self-tests, whether ChatGPT can replace Google search. (We say no, by the way). Automatically generated keyword searches, meta descriptions and SEO content are tested for success. Even code that actually works is created by the chatbot. And challenged by web developers, of course. But that's not all. AI has arrived in the design space, too: Artsy avatars are flooding Instagram. Fun in theory. But what role will all of these uses play in real life?

We're asking ourselves many questions. And we want to explore them even further in the coming weeks. You can expect a series of articles in which our Growth Marketing, Experience Design and Software Engineering departments will explore various use cases in which we can make good use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Stay tuned.

Deep Dive 1: AI-Tools in Experience Design