I’ve been reading a lot about ChatGPT lately.  That’s a technology developed by OpenAI that uses artificial intelligence to make a chat bot on steroids.

You’ve seen those pesky little messages at the bottom of a webpage asking whether you have a question, problem, whatever.  Thinking it may be the quickest and easiest way to get an answer, you type your question into the chat bot.  And more often than not, the results are not quick, easy or efficient.

ChatGPT changes that.  This AI powered platform delivers answers incredibly fast.  It can write essays, blog posts, song lyrics…name it!  

Pretty cool, huh?

But like many great advances that technology offers, there is also a darker side.  ChatGPT can be manipulated to spread disinformation and misinformation.

Personally, I’m used to spotting phishing schemes and scams from a mile away.  It amazes me that the idiots who distribute them are so dumb.  Basic misspellings, improper grammar, sender’s email address that doesn’t match the domain they want you to believe it’s from.

Many of my SEO colleagues have been watching and commenting on this technology for some time.  @MiriamEllis posted today on the Moz blog about her recent experience.  She asked a series of questions that were basically Local SEO 101.  In five cases ChatGPT provided answers that flat out R-O-N-G.

You might think, “Hey, just five?  What’s the big deal?”.

Here’s the deal.  If a local business owner relied on the answers provided they would blow a ton of their marketing budget, get their Google Business Profile suspended perhaps permanently, and other ugly outcomes.

The really BIG deal is what hackers and other “bad actors” could use ChatGPT for.  They could quickly spread real Fake News.  Not the type that former president Trump always spouted about.  REAL fake news.

This could lead to real conflicts between people, governments and institutions.  There would be very little way to tell if what you are reading is true or not.

And it could be WAY harder to know if the email you’re reading is real or scam.  There’s counter software available that can indicate whether AI was used in the creation of content.  But it’s not perfect.  It can give false negatives.

ChatGPT is an exciting but scary technology.  It should be very interesting to see both the good, the bad and the very ugly.