We may still be decades away from Kurzweil’s nightmarish concept of the singularity—the convergence point when AI surpasses human intelligence— but, the fact is, AI has landed and it’s not going anywhere. Since its release in late 2022, ChatGPT changed the conversation, and it certainly has changed business. AI is now used in HR and other departments.
As of yet, this ground-breaking technology cannot take over functions performed by human beings. Depending on who you ask, it is debatable whether it ever will. Yet, at this moment, remote teams can leverage the power of AI technology to improve their processes and shave off valuable time off menial tasks and free workers to focus on the truly creative stuff.
Whether you are growing or managing a remote team or a company looking to expand your tech team, we explore the use of ChatGPT for your business.
ChatGPT as a Tool for Business
As soon as ChatGPT came into view, various companies jumped on the AI train and began implementing the technology in different ways. Companies across all sectors are thinking about how this new tool could help their companies better accomplish tasks and improve efficiency. Salesforce, for example, announced quickly that it would integrate Open AI’s technology to build a generative AI for customer relation management tools.
Companies in other industries like education and retail also announced how they would use this technology.
Quizlet: As a free website that provides students with study tools and resources, Quizlet announced a one-on-one tutoring feature that works on the backbone of AI technology.
Shopify: For those who love online shopping, Open AI technology will be used as a shopping assistant. This new shopping buddy can help by making recommendations based on requests.
At the same time that companies embraced the use of this technology, however, other businesses are restricting its use. Major banks, for example, made concerted efforts to restrict their workers from using ChatGPT for performing certain tasks due to certain risks, among those privacy concerns. This goes for JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, and several school districts that also expressed doubts about using the tool in their organizations.
Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. implemented a third-party software that restricted the use of the AI technology by banning staffers from using it and disabled their access.
As far as ChatGPT in schools, it has also been quite a heated debate. There are those educators that have embraced it as a tool and those that are quite weary of welcoming the technology into their classrooms and encouraging its use among its students.
ChatGPT for Recruiting: Can it be a Tool in the Hiring Process?
As a talent solutions partner, CodersLink has spent a lot of time in the recruiting space. We know that quality recruiting requires building relationships, talking to candidates and employers, and understanding needs on various levels.
As of this moment, ChatGPT is simply incapable of replacing a recruiter’s job. It cannot sift through resumes or profiles, and choose the right candidate. There is a lot that goes into recruiting and productive hiring that simply requires the human touch.
Yet, there are several ways that hiring managers and companies are implementing this technology to help their hiring process.
It’s no surprise to know that about 77% of companies that said they use the chatbot for the hiring process say they use it to help write job descriptions. About 66% of businesses said they were using the tool for writing code while 58% used it for creating content and copywriting.
While using ChatGPT as a tool might fill in certain gaps and speed up certain tasks, it certainly shouldn’t replace the detail-oriented work of hiring managers and recruiters. After all, filling a position—say, in tech— requires a real understanding of a company’s mission, development roadmap, and current technical needs. This is difficult to explain to a Chatbot.
And although it can be used as a starting point for a job description, it might not hit all the points that a company needs when filling a very specific role. It certainly will not help you choose the right candidate.
As a test, we typed in the following onto ChatGPT
“Write a job description for a Python software developer.”
Below is its response:
Not bad, ChatGPT. BUT it is pretty generic.
When it comes to a real company that has unique needs, it will not cut it. A company may be looking for very specialized candidates that possess specific soft skills needed based on this company’s organizational structure, culture, etc.
What do Business Leaders Say About the Impact of AI Thus Far?
Responses to the technology and its many known and unknown possibilities range across the spectrum. Some have responded with some amount of dread and skepticism, while others embrace the new age that this technology welcomes. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman himself warned that the chatbot should not be used for “anything important.”
Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, called AI a “profound technology.” When ChatGPT hit the public, Google jumped into overdrive, hoping to finish off their own AI tool called Bard. Others like Elon Musk, for example, said that AI was “one of the biggest risks to the future of civilization.” Musk himself acknowledges that the technology comes with great promise but, if not handled correctly, can pose a great threat to life as we know it. The Tesla CEO was one of the business leaders recently calling for a six month stop on AI. A proposition that fell on deaf ears—as it seemed AI had built such momentum that asking people to stop now seemed impossible.
We asked our own CTO, Jesus Lopez, who seems rather optimistic about the possibilities of using this technology for improving work.
He encourages his team to take advantage of the technology to make their work more efficient. Lopez said, “It’s an exponential factor that increases productivity, efficiency, and quality of work when used correctly. ChatGPT is a must-learn tool for business professionals in my opinion”
In an industry that moves quickly and must learn to adopt, Lopez mentioned that “It’s one of those things that when we look back, we’ll see the big difference between those who’ve adopted it and those who lagged in adopting it.”
This is a common point of view, although to what level and for what it is to be used, is still up for debate for many. The integration of AI comes with a lot of considerations.
AI and Other Considerations
It’s no secret that ChatGPT is not perfect. It has produced questionable answers and still falls short in composing profound responses to complicated life questions or queries that require subjective experience, multi-disciplinary expertise, or human emotion. It’s been accused of being biased, inaccurate, and sometimes downright dark and gloomy.
Relying on these tools as the end-all-be-all is likely a mistake but so would ignoring it completely. The question is how to leverage the power of the technology to enhance human potential or human innovation not to replace human consciousness or knowledge.
Can ChatGPT Replace Developers?
This depends on who you ask, but according to many experts, it’ll be difficult to get to a point where software developers and engineers become obsolete. After all, one needs the tech talent to implement AI or to direct software development or major projects.
For the foreseeable future, companies will still need to hire reliable tech talent like software developers and engineers to get their projects off the ground and continue the great digitalization that’s been happening across all industries.
What Does All This Mean for Your Growing Company?
It’s difficult to say to what degree ChatGPT will change the way we work and when those changes will materialize or whether they are in the process of integrating themselves into the status quo. At this point, companies around the world are experimenting with the technology in different capacities.
When it comes to hiring, however, using ChatGPT can be an empowering tool but it can come with risks and limitations. So while you can consider using ChatGPT as part of your tool arsenal when building remote teams, it might not be wise to rely on it to do important work for you.
When it comes to hiring for your tech role, it’s best to rely on industry experts that understand the local market and talent pool.
Connect with industry experts from the CodersLink team to learn more.
