In this article, I will highlight five limitations of ChatGPT that you ought to know about.
This remarkable tool is one that you definitely should utilise—it can save you significant amounts of time! We’ll explain in other posts how ChatGPT can benefit your business, but first up it’s vital to understand its limitations in order to protect your firm.
So, prior to jumping in, it’s crucial to understand its drawbacks. Let’s explore those five weaknesses now.
1. Precision and Dependability
It is essential to recognize that ChatGPT is not always precise or dependable. Consider it as your virtual assistant, akin to a new team member; like any employee, mistakes can happen occasionally.
ChatGPT exhibits similar tendencies due to a phenomenon known as human bias, which plays into two key aspects of its training process.
First, the data utilised for training ChatGPT may contain biases introduced by humans, leading to potential inaccuracies in the information provided.
Second, during the model’s development phase, human evaluators determined whether responses were accurate. This also introduces an element of human bias.
Thus, it’s crucial to approach all outputs from ChatGPT with caution. It’s important that we verify facts independently and apply our own professional judgement alongside our knowledge and experience to assess the validity of the responses given.
2. Confidentiality and Privacy
The second point to consider, which is especially crucial for professionals, involves confidentiality and privacy. When you initially create your account with ChatGPT, it wisely advises against entering any personal details, confidential data, or information regarding your clients because the model continues to learn from interactions. In March 2023, there was a software bug that caused some users’ conversations to appear in those of other users. If private information had been included in these conversations, then unauthorised individuals could access it. The prevailing recommendation—something emphasised by both ChatGPT and OpenAI—is to refrain from including any confidential data in your chats.3. Mathematical Constraints
The third limitation, which will be especially relevant for accountants and bookkeepers, is its mathematical capabilities.
ChatGPT excels in language processing as it is fundamentally a large language model adept at grasping natural language. While it possesses basic knowledge of numbers and simple maths operations, it tends to make errors when faced with more complex calculations.
Nonetheless, with the advent of plug-ins available for ChatGPT 4, users now have improved methods to accurately integrate mathematics into their interactions with ChatGPT.
4. Hallucination
The fourth point is quite fascinating. ChatGPT experiences what is termed as hallucination, which refers to its ability to confidently provide incorrect information.
In essence, when ChatGPT is uncertain about a particular answer, it often resorts to fabricating a response. This fabrication can be remarkably persuasive.
This phenomenon highlights the crucial necessity of fact-checking and leveraging your own expertise in these situations.
5. Outdated Information
Lastly, the fifth point is quite significant: it lacks current information. When ChatGPT was introduced in November 2022, it was trained on data only until September 2021, meaning it doesn’t have knowledge of events or developments that occurred afterward. Therefore, relying on ChatGPT for queries like “What’s on TV tonight?” or “What were last night’s lotto results?” isn’t feasible.
For professionals such as accountants or bookkeepers, using it for tax-related inquiries can be problematic since tax regulations change annually and the system may not possess the latest tax data or tables from recent years.
Consequently, we must exercise great caution when utilising ChatGPT for specialised topics like taxes because its mathematical capabilities are limited; combined with issues related to misinformation (hallucinations) and outdated content—these factors raise concerns about accuracy.
Nonetheless, similar to its arithmetic restrictions, updates to ChatGPT 4 now allow browsing functionality. This enhancement enables ChatGPT to access and retrieve real-time information from the web—beyond what was included in its original training which concluded in September 2021.
Conclusion: Understanding the Pros and Cons of ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an impressive resource, yet it does have its shortcomings. It may not consistently provide accurate information, reliability can vary, updates may lag behind current events, and it struggles with mathematical tasks. Nonetheless, despite these drawbacks, it remains a valuable tool that can help you save significant time and simplify your tasks.
Keep in mind to treat it as a supportive assistant rather than a substitute for your expertise. Always verify the details it gives you—particularly when dealing with important matters such as tax calculations. Most importantly, avoid entering any sensitive or personal data into your conversations.
