The Risk/Reward of ChatGPT
ChatGPT has become a hot topic in the title and real estate industry. While many see the benefits of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, others raise concern over the drawbacks.
Among the advantages of ChatGPT is the ability to generate content quickly with minimal effort. On the flip side, potential risks of the natural language processing tool include plagiarism, security, privacy and bias.
The pros and cons of ChatGPT, which was released in November 2022 by OpenAI, were the focus of a recent discussion on ALTA Connection.
Anton Tonev, co-founder of InspectHOA, loves ChatGPT and has been using it every day for the past few months.
“It is a great time saver for almost everything that I write—from emails to presentations,” he said. “If you learn how to use it—not just ask generic questions—I don't see how you would ever go back. It is like having an extremely smart colleague, or better yet, like a huge team of extremely smart colleagues.”
Cheryl Evans of Wicked Title Forum said it’s helpful to draft content for social media posts, ad copy, emails and articles/blog posts. While it creates the content quickly, Evans said it’s important to read what the chatbot generates to correct any mistakes and “make it sound like you.”
“While it feels like talking to a person, it's not,” Evans said. “You're talking to a machine. The quality of your inputs determine the quality of your outputs. So if you aren't getting the results you want, it's not because ChatGPT is bad, it's because the prompt is wrong. Writing a good prompt is more of an art form than it is a science.”
Andy White, co-founder and CEO of Closinglock, agreed it’s a useful tool and uses it to create a range of things from drafts of documents to generating business analytics queries. However, his main concern with ChatGPT and similar platforms is the risk exposing proprietary or sensitive information.
White posted several items that cause him concern including:
- Bias: ChatGPT is trained on a massive dataset of text and code, which means that it can reflect the biases that are present in that data. This can lead to ChatGPT generating text that is offensive, harmful or discriminatory.
- Misinformation: ChatGPT can be used to generate text that is factually incorrect or misleading. This can be used to spread misinformation or propaganda.
- Privacy: ChatGPT is trained on large amounts of data, which can include personal information. This data could be used to track users or to identify them.
- Security: ChatGPT could be used to create malicious software or to attack computer systems.
“It is important to be aware of the risks associated with ChatGPT and to take steps to mitigate them,” White said. “This includes using ChatGPT responsibly and being aware of the potential for bias, misinformation, privacy and security risks.”
To mitigate these risks, don’t share personal information with ChatGPT, don’t use it to access sensitive data, don’t assume everything it creates is accurate and be aware of text that can be harmful.
“By following these tips, you can help to mitigate the risks of ChatGPT and use it safely and responsibly,” White added.
Sabrina Bier, director of digital media and education at Proper Title, sees the AI chatbot as a powerful tool that’s still in the beginning stages of the benefits it can offer.
As an example, she shared the results of a question she posed to ChatGPT:
"What are the top ways for a title company to brand themselves so that Realtors will choose to work with them consistently?"
ChatGPT generated a bulleted list. Bier then asked the chatbot to create a blog post about the second bullet point.
“What it generates is an awesome guide, but you need to edit it to fit your company, brand, market and expertise,” Bier said. “With that said, it saves so much time.”
She also noted that the information isn’t cited, so users must perform their own due diligence to ensure the content is factual.
Cathy Clamp CTIP, NTP, an escrow officer at Heart of Texas Title Co. LLC, also agreed ChatGPT can be a useful and timesaving tool to draft preliminary documents and complicated explanations of title issues matters.
“Phrasing requirements in a way that is non-threatening and encouraging to stubborn heirs or warring neighbors can be challenging and it would be a useful aid,” Clamp said.
But as a content creator, however, she’s largely concerned with plagiarism.
“One of my advanced paralegal certifications is in Intellectual Property, so I've spent a long time reading through the history of the predecessors of ChatGPT and how the AI software was ‘trained’ to create text,” Clamp said. “While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as an author and writer, I have to object to the possible use of any text I've created over the years that might have appeared in their database to create new articles, stories or even emails. For myself, I'll keep writing my own emails and webinars. It may take more time, but I can sleep better at night.”
Congress Gets Involved
Concern over the artificial intelligence chatbot has reached Congress, which held a hearing in May to discuss the powerful technology. During the hearing titled Oversight of A.I.: Rules of Artificial Intelligence before the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy Technology and the Law, Sam Altman, CEO of the San Francisco start-up OpenAI, urged lawmakers to regulate artificial intelligence.
“I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong. And we want to be vocal about that,” he said. “We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.
“We believe that the benefits of the tools we have deployed so far vastly outweigh the risks, but ensuring their safety is vital to our work,” Altman continued.
Upcoming Webinar
Want to know more about ChatGPT’s impact on the title industry? Register for the upcoming RamQuest sponsored ALTA Insights Webinar to learn about the use of artificial intelligence and robotic process automation in our everyday lives, and algorithms that are constantly improving. The webinar will dig into the AI and robotic process software that can improve efficiency and service and also discuss the potential dangers about how criminals can use the same technology to steal data and money. CE/CLE is available for this webinar.
Speakers
- Brett Beckett | Vice President of Finance and Strategy | Independence Title
- Jimmy Lewis | CEO and Co-Founder | TrueFocus Automation
- Hoyt Mann | President and Co-Founder | alanna.ai
- Kevin Nincehelser | Chief Operating Officer | Premier One
When
- 1:00-2:00 p.m. ET, June 21
Posted by ALTA Blog at 10:58:05 AM
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