With an unassuming smile, 12-year-old Kaz Keller effortlessly demonstrates the capabilities of the artificial intelligence platform, ChatGPT. His father, Sam Keller, watches in awe as Kaz delivers seminars to curious individuals seeking to understand and utilize this transformative technology. In a matter of months, the duo has become sought-after educators, sharing insights at the Mill Valley Community Center and online sessions from their home in Mill Valley.
Kaz’s ability to navigate the intricate world of AI has left participants like Lucy Salter of Tiburon thoroughly impressed. As a tech executive attending Kaz’s seminar, Bianca Buckridee found herself inspired by his profound statement: “This will change the way we think.” It’s a sentiment that resonates as GPT-4, the powerful successor to ChatGPT, was released in March, solidifying the Kellers’ relevance in their field.
Generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) technology, like ChatGPT, possesses the remarkable capacity to search, replicate, and simulate human expressions, maintaining the original context, style, sound, and voice. Participants in Kaz’s seminars have playfully tested the AI by requesting amusing tasks such as creating a recipe for a “peppered chocolate chicken medley” and having it read aloud in Julia Child’s iconic voice.
Yet, as with any powerful technology, concerns arise. Questions of copyright infringement, identity theft, voice impersonation, and cheating on exams surface. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, emphasized the need for regulation, licensing, and safety measures for ChatGPT during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Altman’s warning echoed through the demonstration where U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal’s voice was replicated convincingly, raising concerns about the blurred lines between reality and AI-generated content.
Aware of these ethical considerations, Sam and Kaz Keller have incorporated six key caveats into their seminars. They stress the importance of acknowledging the potential dangers of ChatGPT, such as its potential misuse for scams, disinformation, and cheating. Kaz emphasizes that ChatGPT, devoid of morality, sentience, and biases, shares the fallibility of some humans who struggle to differentiate between fake and real news.
Kaz, whose passion for engineering has been evident since childhood, has already gained acceptance into the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. Bianca Buckridee reflects on the transformative nature of the AI era, quoting the World Economic Forum’s projection that 65% of children entering grade school will work in jobs that do not exist today. It is in this moment of transformation that Kaz’s extraordinary talents shine.
Kaz reveals astonishing statistics about the AI’s capabilities, citing that 10% of ChatGPT-generated simulated test takers passed the bar exam, while an impressive 90% of those generated by GPT-4 succeeded. While ChatGPT remains freely accessible, GPT-4 carries a cost for its advanced features.
The Kellers’ experiences in Marin County reflect global sentiments surrounding AI. Concerned parents fear ChatGPT’s potential impact on their children’s education, while professionals celebrate its ability to enhance content generation and productivity. As Sam Keller remains deeply moved by the diverse range of responses, he recounts a memorable moment when a musician requested ChatGPT’s help in composing a song about her cat in Bob Dylan’s style. The AI not only provided lyrics but also chords, resulting in a profoundly human performance by the musician.
Sam and Kaz Keller’s future plans involve teaching other young individuals to become trainers themselves. Their ultimate goal is to instill empathy and human connection into a technology that currently lacks both qualities. Sam concludes by emphasizing that numerous young people worldwide possess the potential to provide similar ChatGPT training in their communities, ushering in a new era of responsible AI usage.