How AutoGPT is taking AI to the next level and why it has technology experts worried

AutoGPT is the latest artificial intelligence* tool taking the world by storm, but cybersecurity* experts are urging caution.

The technology is based on the wildly popular ChatGPT, which functions as a chat bot*, holding conversations and creating text responses in the form of anything from poems to school assignments and computer code.

But unlike ChatGPT, AutoGPT is connected to the internet, meaning it can search for up-to-date information and even download programs onto a user’s computer.

It can problem-solve, taking one goal set by the user then, without further human advice, break it down into tasks to complete.

The move towards semi-autonomous* AI has rung alarm bells in the technology world as AI is moving too fast for governments, industry experts or the general public to keep up.

AustCyber group executive Jason Murrell said everyone – including the Australian government – was “playing catch up” with AI.

It comes as the “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton resigned from Google last week so he could talk freely about the dangers of AI and how quickly it is changing.

“The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people … I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away,” Mr Hinton told The New York Times. “Obviously, I no longer think that.”

But despite believing AI could evolve to manipulate* or harm humans, Mr Hinton is not one of the 27,000-plus people who have signed a petition* to stop work on AI.

“If people in America stop, people in China wouldn’t,” he said.

Freelancer.com chief executive Matt Barrie is among the growing number of Australians who have begun experimenting with AutoGPT.

He asked the bot to write a report on a mining company’s gold production for the past three years and collate it in a table.

“It literally blew my mind,” Mr Barrie said.

“(Without further prompting,) it found various news sources .... downloaded PDFs then couldn’t read the PDFs so it wrote code to read the PDFs, it debugged its own code, it installed new (programming) modules, it actually upgraded (the computer program).

“It realised we didn’t have any numerical maths packages installed … so it Googled how to install (them), then read that, then installed (them).

“It was crazy watching it because you can see the thought process as it says ‘this is what I think I will do next’,” Mr Barrie said.

Although not yet perfect, he could imagine a future where “all the boring jobs” are given to bots like AutoGPT.

Mr Barrie said AutoGPT also began researching another mining company, something he did not ask it to do. This is one of the reasons security experts are worried.

McAfee general manager for product growth Tyler McGee said cyber criminals could also use AutoGPT to help them “develop sophisticated scams” and that there may be weaknesses in the programs that are not picked up because of how quickly they are being released.

“There are a lot of safeguards being put in place to try to make sure that they’re used for good and not evil, for lack of a better word, but the speed these are being rolled out always means there is a risk that (there could be) a mistake along the way,” Mr McGee said.

Because it is so new and has not been fully tested, many companies have told employees not to install AutoGPT on work devices to avoid security vulnerabilities*.

WHAT IS CHATGPT GOOD FOR?
• ideas for recipes, games, TikTok videos and more
• turning long reports or speeches into dot points
• translating languages
• writing and fixing computer code
• writing songs, poems or job resumes

WHAT IS AUTOGPT GOOD FOR?
• using the internet and its powerful memory to problem-solve complex tasks such as building apps, downloading software, creating spreadsheets
• breaking down a single goal into sub-tasks by itself
• creating its own prompts and pathways to complete a task

GLOSSARY
artificial intelligence: the ability for a computer to think and learn
cybersecurity: the protection of computers and systems from information theft or damage
chatbot: software or a computer program that simulates human conversation or “chatter” through text or voice interactions
semi-autonomous: self-controlling in part
manipulate: to influence in an unfair manner
petition: a request to change something
vulnerabilities: weaknesses

EXTRA READING
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QUICK QUIZ
1. What is the main difference that helps AutoGPT problem solve better than ChatGPT?
2. Who is the ‘Godfather of AI’?
3. Why are technology experts worried about the pace of AI?
4. Which artificial intelligence bot is likely to take ‘all the boring jobs’?
5. How many people have signed the petition to stop work on AI?

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Possible Dangers of AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology can have some amazing benefits but also some potential dangers. Work with a classmate to complete the table below;

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Digital Technologies, Personal and social, Critical and creative thinking.

2. Extension
Do you think AutoGPT will take over many of the jobs currently done by humans now?
What impact will this have on the economy?
What does this mean for future jobs for the children of today?
Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Digital Technologies, Critical and creative thinking.

VCOP ACTIVITIES
1. Read with Kung Fu punctuation
Pair up with the article between you and stand up to make it easy to demonstrate your Kung Fu punctuation.
Practise reading one sentence at a time. Now read it again, while acting out the punctuation as you read.
Read and act three sentences before swapping with your partner.
Take two turns each.
Now ask your partner to read a sentence out loud while you try and act out the punctuation. Can you keep up? Swap over?
Try acting out two sentences – are you laughing yet?