Aunt AI-gony will see you now

EVERY time I want to make someone squirm (which is all the time), I ask them how often they’re using ChatGPT these days. I am no statistician, but I believe that the length of the pause that ensues before an answer is given correlates with how much labour that person is outsourcing to the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. 

So, imagine my surprise to learn from an OpenAI study that as at June this year, 70 per cent of ChatGPT use was of a “non-work” nature, up from 53 per cent the year before. 

The study, which analysed 1.5 million conversations, included usage behaviour from only consumer, not business, plans. That’s a minor detail; it is safe to assume that enterprise usage is overwhelmingly work-related.