ChatGPT at 3: Amplify or atrophy
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Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios
Another year into society's great ChatGPT experiment, AI is proving adept at amplifying workers' productivity, or taking over work altogether.
Why it matters: OpenAI first released ChatGPT on Nov. 30, 2022. Three years later, every worker's future hinges on avoiding automating themselves out of a job.
The big picture: The past three years have felt like 30 in terms of ChatGPT's infiltration into our lives. And if you believe the AI accelerationists, there are few signs of slowing down.
- As AI models evolve, chatbots will make fewer mistakes, requiring humans to adapt from fixing AI errors to directing AI agents' work.
- Understanding how to manage AI will be the key skill. And any good manager knows that delegating all of their concrete tasks to direct reports means that their own skills quickly atrophy.
Zoom in: Researchers now have enough data to show how AI can be a time saver or a time sucker.
- OpenAI researchers found that frontier models can complete certain tasks roughly a hundred times faster and cheaper than experts.
Yes, but: 41% of workers spend their time fact-checking and reworking AI-generated memos, reports and emails, according to research from Stanford Social Media Lab and BetterUp Labs.
Between the lines: AI systems are powerful amplifiers for people who already bring expertise to the table, business leaders say.
- That leaves college grads and early-career workers who lack deep experience struggling to stand out or get hired at all.
- As the technology spreads and drives layoffs, only "using AI" at work doesn't necessarily translate to job security.
- Humans are training AI in their own domain expertise, which then risks devaluing those same skills when the models take over.
Zoom in: There's also a growing belief that AI is making us intellectually lazy, but that really depends on how you use it.
- Author Vasant Dhar tells Axios that humans who stay "AI-proof" tend to share three traits: grounded expertise in a specific field, insatiable curiosity and a habit of asking lots of questions.
The bottom line: No one knows what's next — and the AI bubble hype can't be discounted — but on ChatGPT's third birthday, significant signs point to humans, agents and bots marching together into the uncertain future.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say 41% of workers spend their time reworking AI-generated content (not that they spend 41% of their time doing so).
