There are lots of articles about bad use cases of ChatGPT that Google already provided for decades.
Want to get bad medical advice for the weird pain in your belly? Google can tell you it’s cancer, no problem.
Do you want to know how to make drugs without a lab? Google even gives you links to stores where you can buy the materials for it.
Want some racism/misogyny/other evil content? Google is your ever helpful friend and garbage dump.
What’s the difference apart from ChatGPT’s inability to link to existing sources?
Edit: Just to clear things up. This post is specifically not about the new use cases that come from AI. Sure, Google cannot make semi-non-functional mini programs automatically, and Google will not write a fake paper in whole for me. I am specifically talking about the “This will change the world” articles, that mirror stuff that Google can do exactly like ChatGPT can.
The problem with chatGPT is that it allows for automation of content creation.
Imagine a a single guy using chatGPT to control thousands of social media bots, who answer in a human-like way and are able to follow conversations and context, but who all defend the same point of view.
Or imagine a single guy controlling thousands of “local news blogs” that have a constant stream of fresh AI-generated content (both articles and comments), once again all pushing the same narrative.
That is the main problem with things like chatGPT, if not controlled - they allow anyone to create their own “troll farm”.
But that was possible before. Just that these bots would just copy content, add random words and run it through Google Translate, translating it to a different language and back again. That already did the trick for the last 10 or so years.
Those bots wouldn’t pass the turing test, that’s for sure. One thing is pure spam like you’re describing, another is to be arguing with an AI (and losing) without even being aware that it’s an AI on the other side.