The Limitations of ChatGPT: Avoiding Common Pitfalls
Posted by [email protected] on Jan. 30, 2024 / Technology / Subscribe 0
By Jax Gitzes, AFP GPC Board Member
If you haven’t read the earlier posts in this series, I encourage you to check them out and see how ChatGPT can be useful in the creation of fundraising materials to save time and boost your efforts. The use of AI models like ChatGPT for creating fundraising materials and seeking strategy assistance has gained popularity. While ChatGPT is a powerful tool with remarkable capabilities, it is essential to be aware of its pitfalls and limitations. This blog aims to shed light on the potential challenges when using ChatGPT for such purposes, emphasizing the need for human oversight.
ChatGPT is a constantly evolving language model that learns from a vast amount of data. However, it is not infallible. It can make grammatical and mathematical errors, and occasionally rely on false or circular logic. Due to its reliance on pre-existing knowledge, it may generate information that fits a prompt but is actually incorrect. The model lacks self-awareness and cannot always recognize its own mistakes, making it crucial to be skeptical and review everything.
Since ChatGPT's development is influenced by human-created data, any biases in the information it has been trained on can manifest in its answers. Similar to other experiments with AI, it not only starts with these biases, but can exacerbate any biases already inherent in the prompt you include. As a result, please exercise caution to ensure that the language, terminology, and attitude in your final product align with the principles of your organization.
It is particularly important to avoid perpetuating the white savior narrative that the nonprofit sector is striving to rectify in fundraising efforts. For example, I often need to ask ChatGPT to regenerate an answer without using the term ‘at-risk youth’ in order to counteract the information it was programmed with. Since ChatGPT cannot access the internet in the general sense, it cannot know when terminology is no longer considered appropriate without being told.
While ChatGPT has drawn from a wide range of information sources in its creation, it lacks the nuanced understanding that humans develop through experience. It struggles to interpret sarcasm, humor, or subtle cues, leading to overly literal responses. Additionally, ChatGPT cannot possess knowledge about an organization or its mission that has not been explicitly provided to it. It cannot replicate the unique tone and voice of an organization accurately, limiting its ability to capture the organization's essence in its responses.
ChatGPT also tends to provide long and overly verbose answers, which may not always fit with what you need in your fundraising materials. While I ask ChatGPT to shorten its responses, it often requires multiple attempts to achieve my desired outcome. Ultimately, human editing and revision are necessary to distill the information provided by ChatGPT into concise and impactful content. Especially in a fundraising world with character counts and limited attention spans from donors.
Many organizations out there are specifically looking for folks using ChatGPT and other similar tools to avoid doing their due diligence. This means that editing becomes even more crucial as tools pop up to “spot the AI” in your writing. While these tools are not exactly reliable yet, some funders and supporters still use them to determine whether you used an AI tool to generate your content. With sufficient editing and checks, these tools will not be able to determine the origin of your language accurately. However, if you submit a proposal straight from ChatGPT without editing first, they are going to know.
While your session may be private from other users, the developers of ChatGPT, and other AI generative models, have access to everything, and we don’t know where information submitted will be stored or used in the future. This makes it crucial to avoid entering any proprietary or confidential information into the system. Even with permission from clients to share their story, any information that could identify your clients in any way should be avoided. Any impact information you provide should be in aggregate form to avoid sharing client data. Treat entering information here the same way you would in posting information online. Be sure to follow any and all regulations and compliance measures of your organization and in your state.
Many nonprofits are working to develop standard operating procedures and other forms of guidance for their employees regarding the use of these tools. Before you begin, please check with your leadership on whether your organization has or is developing guidance on this so you can remain compliant with your organization’s policies.
With the right mindset and prompts, ChatGPT can be an incredibly useful tool to fundraisers and grant professionals, allowing you to do more with less and overcome writing obstacles. Check out my previous article explaining how to craft effective prompts to get the responses you need. However, it is equally important to exercise caution and perform thorough editing and revision of the generated content before publishing it. Human oversight is indispensable to ensure the accuracy, alignment with values, and strategic effectiveness of the final output.
Did you like this article? Stay tuned for additional ChatGPT related posts coming soon!
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