AI Gets It Wrong? One Produce Grower’s Cautionary Tale of Using ChatGPT
August 29, 2023 Artificial intelligence (AI) is creeping into all parts of our lives, whether we want it to or not. Among the tools, ChatGPT is all the rage right now. The open-AI platform/chat bot can take prompts from users and create text, dialogue, and even images as if it was created by a human. However, to err is human. One produce grower recently experienced ChatGPT’s weakness. His cautionary tale of using it to create a social media post is one anyone can learn from.
Shay Myers, CEO of Owyhee Produce in Parma, ID, also is an influencer on social media. He has amassed more than 420,000 followers on TikTok alone. His posts on that platform have received more than 6 million likes. One recent post though, according to Myers, went awry.
Myers wrote to followers and connections on LinkedIn: “I made a mistake and need to own it. We used ChatGPT to generate an article surrounding Tuesday’s video and I did not check it before hitting publish. Bad on me. Please forgive me.
“Parma did not get 10 inches of rain and thousands of acres were not damaged.”
Turns out the details plugged into ChatGPT generated false information. But before the verbiage was reviewed, it posted to his social media accounts, thus causing confusion among those who viewed the original post.
Check out the post and accompanying video from Myers about what happened.
To his credit, Myers does a nice job of addressing the issue, explaining the circumstances behind the post, and what he learned from it.
As painful a lesson this is/was, it is an excellent reminder about how new and somewhat untested some technology is. AI bots know an awful lot; maybe too much for their own good.
Bottom line: Even AI needs handholding to keep it in check. No matter what capacity you’re using AI, fact check — and then check again. You and everyone else will be smarter for it.
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