Rossen Genchev

Media15 March 202344:02BG · In Bulgarian

ChatGPT and the professions at risk, on Eurocom TV

The day after GPT-4: why ChatGPT is the third revolution after the internet and smartphones, which professions it threatens, and the only ones it spares.

BGThe recording is in Bulgarian. This page summarises it in English; the times link to the original.

Summary

On 15 March 2023, the day after OpenAI released GPT-4, Nikolay Kolev has Rossen Genchev, a programmer, in the studio of Delnici on Eurocom TV. Artificial intelligence has been in development for thirty or forty years, he says; what is new is OpenAI and ChatGPT, which understands the structure of speech, answers generatively and leaves the impression of talking to a person. In 28 years in IT he has seen three revolutions: the internet, smartphones, and now this one, the largest of the three.

He gives the evidence of the week. At the GPT-4 demonstration the model was handed the whole US tax code and a family's case and gave the instructions a financial expert would give; such a model passes TOEFL and SAT; AlphaFold has largely solved protein folding. For him the new class of AI is a tsunami that brings much good and makes many professions unnecessary: support, quality control, content creators and artists, and every profession built on specific knowledge, from accountants and financial experts to lawyers. Programmers are not protected either; he expects the need for staff to fall by at least half.

The second part turns to the consequences. The economy cannot absorb over-optimisation: a firm replaces twenty people with the technology, then its own client replaces the firm, and supply and service chains break, with no mechanism in place to deal with it. The only professions it will not replace are those done with the hands; a lathe operator or a farm worker is safer than a lawyer or an accountant. AI is a tool like nuclear energy, and within seven or eight years reading an image out of a person's mind may be possible. Telling a machine from a person, he says, is already very hard. He agrees to come back and show it working.

Key moments

  1. 1 · 06:19OpenAI and ChatGPT: a model that understands speech and answers generatively, as if you were talking to a person.
  2. 1 · 07:13Three revolutions in 28 years in IT: the internet, smartphones, and now artificial intelligence, the largest.
  3. 1 · 10:10At the GPT-4 demonstration: the whole US tax code, a family's case, and the instructions a financial expert would give.
  4. 1 · 11:54AlphaFold: protein folding, one of medicine's hardest problems, largely solved with AI.
  5. 1 · 16:23Support, quality control, content creators and artists are among the first at risk.
  6. 1 · 19:40A tool like nuclear energy: reading an image out of the mind may be possible within seven or eight years.
  7. 2 · 04:14Every profession built on specific knowledge is exposed; programmers too, with at least half the staff no longer needed.
  8. 2 · 09:16The economy cannot absorb over-optimisation: twenty people replaced, then the firm itself dropped by its client.
  9. 2 · 11:38The only professions it will not replace are done with the hands: a lathe operator is safer than an accountant.
  10. 2 · 15:14No chance of telling whether you are talking to a machine; it is already very hard.