ChatGPT: Overview of recent developments and applications

Group photo

UTAR Centre for Corporate and Community Development (CCCD) hosted a virtual talk titled “ChatGPT: Overview of Recent Developments and Applications” in collaboration with Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science (LKCFES) and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) on 2 April 2024. The session, attended by approximately 200 participants, featured LKC FES academics Ir Dr Danny Ng Wee Kiat and Dr Kwan Ban Hoe as the speaker and moderator respectively.

The talk delved into several focal points, including the examination of ChatGPT’s architectural framework, its methods for prompting, its capabilities, and its practical demonstrations.

The talk explored various aspects of ChatGPT, beginning with its origin and evolution. According to Dr Danny Ng, the roots of ChatGPT can be traced back to OpenAI’s GPT model, which revolutionised the field of artificial intelligence by introducing the ability to generate coherent text paragraphs. GPT-3, with its impressive 175 billion parameters, further enhanced this capability, demonstrating an unprecedented understanding of context and creativity, including coding in certain programming languages.

One notable prompting technique discussed was the Few-Shot Prompting, which provided the model with a few examples to guide its responses. This technique proved beneficial for tasks requiring specific formats or desired outcomes, allowing users to steer the model’s behaviour effectively.

Dr Danny Ng then explained the capabilities of ChatGPT, which included image generation and data analytics. He also highlighted its limitations, like the AI hallucinations, where the generative model could produce unreliable content due to its limited context window and inability to learn from experience. He also cited examples where ChatGPT referenced non-existent law cases and facial features.

In addition, he emphasised the importance of adhering to best practices. Participants were advised to handle ambiguous queries by providing specific details and requesting more detailed explanations if needed. “Additionally, staying updated on the latest versions and improvements of ChatGPT ensures optimal performance and safety,” Dr Danny Ng said.

The session concluded with an engaging Q&A session.

Dr Danny Ng explaining some of ChatGPT’s capabilities, such as image generation (left) and data analytics (right)

Dr Danny Ng conducting the talk

The poster of the talk