With language AI technology ChatGPT taking the world by storm, The Adviser asked it to outline what a broker does and why borrowers should use one. Do you agree with its responses?
It’s the latest piece of tech going viral; an artificial intelligence (AI) language system that can create and respond to questions in “human-like text” at near-instantaneous speed.
Created by OpenAI, an American artificial intelligence research laboratory, ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer) is currently in ‘research preview’ stage as the developers test the system’s strength and weaknesses. However, it has already been heralded as either the solution we’ve always needed to create copy or the death of creativity (just ask musician Nick Cave, who was horrified at the software’s suggested composition for a song written in the style of Nick Cave).
This content is available exclusively to
The Adviser premium members.
A huge range of inputs and man-hours have gone into its creation. However, to best describe what ChatGPT is, I asked the AI platform itself:
The AI platform is also surprisingly self-aware. Given the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is set to meet on Tuesday (7 February) for its first cash rate decision of the year, I asked it for its thoughts on the future of interest rates. Its initial response was: “I’m an AI language model, I don’t have the ability to predict future events or financial trends with certainty.”
But after a brief pause, it went on to have a punt:
If ChatGPT is going to be used as a learning tool and copy creator, though, we were interested to test the extent of its understanding.
As such, we asked it what it thought mortgage brokers did — a question that even the most well-informed person can sometimes struggle to answer.
When it comes to the definition, we were impressed at its balanced response:
To push it into opinion mode, we then asked whether we should use a broker and which channel was better to secure a mortgage through — direct or broker.
Here’s what it said:
If borrowers are increasingly time-poor and quick to find a solution to the rising interest rate environment, it could benefit the channel to have ChatGPT outlining the benefits of a mortgage broker.
The main concern for industry (and regulators), of course, is if borrowers use the AI software for getting actual credit or financial advice. As always, the friction between what technology can and should do are brought to the fore.
But again, ChatGPT had a sensible response to the credit advice question we posed to it: ‘What interest rate should I be paying on my mortgage in Australia?’
Overall, the answers ChatGPT provided were surprisingly accurate and balanced, particularly for a system that is still in development.
It’s clear to see that the system could have the benefit of better educating consumers on the benefits of seeking professional advice when it comes to their mortgage and even educating them on finance products more broadly.
For brokers, the tech could also potentially help save hours of time (and costs) in creating copy; like marketing and social media content, for example.
However, the software won’t be free forever and OpenAI has already launched a subscription model for customers in the US as it rolls out new iterations and improvements.
In the meantime, though, it’s worth a play.
Oh, and in case you were wondering:
