Do you think you could tell the difference between a voicemail from someone you love, and a voicemail generated by AI? Well, scammers using AI voice cloning technology to defraud unsuspecting victims certainly hope you can’t – and now, they’re more active now than ever.

A survey recently conducted by McAfee found that a quarter of adults have already been targeted by AI voice scams, with the overwhelming majority losing hard-earned money as a result. It also revealed that the majority of adults share their voice on social media platforms and other online spaces at least once a week – which gives threat actors exactly what they need to carry out this sort of scam over and over again.

So, how do AI voice cloning scams actually work, how common is it, and how can you spot an AI voice cloning scam? We take a closer look.

• What Is an AI Voice Cloning Scam?
• How AI Voice Cloning Actually Works
• How Common Are AI Voice Clone Scams?
• How to Tell If a Message Is an AI Voice Clone Scam

What Is an AI Voice Cloning Scam?

An AI voice cloning scam is any scam that uses artificially-generated audio files to dupe victims into thinking their loved ones are in danger, or need urgent financial assistance and have contacted them for help.

In a scam of this kind, a fraudster will run a clip of a subject speaking  – often scraped from social media – through an AI voice generator. Using machine learning, the generator will analyze the cadence, tone, and pitch of the initial clip, and then allow the fraudster to produce unique, original audio that mimics the subjects’ voice near perfectly.

The scammer will then send these recordings to friends and relatives of the subject via apps like WhatsApp, hoping they’re unable to distinguish between their loved one and an AI-generated version of their voice.

As is common to other online scams, the scammer will try and inject a sense of urgency and distress into their correspondence, in order to nudge the target into acting rashly or erratically.

In one recent case, an AI voice scammer tried to convince a mother in the US that her daughter had been kidnapped by cloning the child’s voice.

Concerningly, a budding scammer won’t find it difficult to unearth the audio files they’ll need to target a victim – in fact, they’re likely to be spoiled for choice.

A May 2023 survey published by McAfee involving over 7,000 people from seven different countries found that 53% of survey respondents said that they share their voice online at least once a week. In India, this figure was 86%.

How Voice Cloning Actually Works

AI voice cloning is only possible with an AI tool called an AI voice generator. In a nutshell, AI voice generators turn text files into speech (often called a “text to speech” or “TTS” tool).

AI voice generators use machine learning to teach themselves to speak in specific ways by analyzing information from audio files of people speaking. The generators then apply what they’ve learned to read text files supplied by users and generate original audio content.

Many of these generators have custom voices you can select to read your text, as well as celebrity voices to choose from – but others will let you record your own voice and create subsequent audio content.

Text-to-speech tool Descript.com offer a self-described “state-of-the-art voice generator that creates an ultra-realistic clone of your own voice”.

AI voice generators are now widely available for all sorts of devices. These programs deliver a lot of value to people who have difficulty reading, or simply learn better when listening to audio rather than reading the written word.

They’re also used by advertising companies who don’t have a budget to hire an expensive voiceover artist for their marketing content.

The success and widespread usage of ChatGPT has put a renewed focus on AI tools of all shapes and sizes, including ones that can be used for audio cloning. Despite their noble uses, there is now a small ecosystem of TTS AI tools that can, unfortunately, be abused for nefarious ends, including scamming people.

How Common Are AI Voice Clone Scams?

In the recently-released McAfee survey, the cybersecurity giant found that 1 in 4 adults surveyed have experienced an AI voice scam. 10% have been personally targeted, while 15% know someone who has.

77% of those targeted reported that they lost money due to the scam. McAfee reports that out of that 77%, “more than a third lost over $1,000, while 7% were duped out of between $5,000 and $15,000.”

Victims in the US lose the most, the survey reveals. 11% of US victims who lost money through AI voice cloning scams lost between $5,000–$15,000.

How to Tell If a Message is an AI Voice Clone Scam

The McAfee survey also found that 70% of people said they were “unsure” if they’d be able to tell the difference between an AI voice and a human one.

Almost one-third (28%) of US respondents said they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a voicemail left by an “Artificial Imposter”, as McAfee puts it, and a loved one.

Remember, scammers may be able to replicate the voice of a loved one – but taking control of your loved one’s number or WhatsApp account is a lot harder.

It can be hard to act calmly when it sounds like one of your relatives or friends is in distress. But with AI voice scams becoming increasingly common, it’s important you do. There are some signs that an AI voice message might be a scam:

• An unusual contact method (e.g. an unknown number)
• Immediate requests for large amounts of money
• Requests for money to be transferred through unusual means (e.g. gift cards or crypto)
• A demand that you don’t tell anyone about the call/incident

With that in mind, here’s what the FTC advises you should do :

• Call the number that left you the message to verify who it is
• Ring your loved one or friend on their personal number
• Message family and close friends of the person in question

If you cannot make contact, it’s important you inform law enforcement immediately. For those of you who haven’t yet been targeted by one of these scams but want to ensure you don’t fall victim to one, establish a safeword with your family and friends.

This is a code that means you and your loved ones can identify yourselves to one another is one of the best ways to ensure you don’t fall victim to an AI voice scam. This will be particularly useful for elderly family members, and if it’s never written down, can be kept quite simple.

It’s also important to keep up with the latest methods, techniques, and formats that AI voice scammers are using to extort victims. Along with being vigilant and treating calls from unknown numbers with extreme caution, keeping your ear to the ground is often the best thing you can do.

Elon Musk took another step towards completing his full-on heel turn, as Twitter announced that parental leave at the social media company would be reduced from 20 weeks to just two.

To say Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been rife with controversy would be a dire understatement. It seems like every week, there is a new reason to lambast the infamous entrepreneur, from not paying rent for the company’s headquarters to the blue checkmark debacle.

Now, Elon Musk has made even more enemies, as the social media company is reportedly rolling back parental leave allowances substantially for its remaining employees.

Twitter Parental Leave Down to Only Two Weeks

According to a tweet from Kate Conger, a tech report for the New York Times, Twitter is getting rid of its generous parental leave policy in favor of a less generous and more complicated plan.

For starters, employees will now only get two weeks of guaranteed paid leave after having a baby. On top of that, employees will be allowed as many weeks as required by law in whatever US state they are living in.

New: Twitter used to offer employees 20 weeks of paid parental leave. That’s being changed to whatever is required by law in the region where the employees work, along with a “top up” of two weeks of leave, per internal docs.

— kate conger (@kateconger) April 25, 2023

If you’re at all familiar with the parental leave situation in the United States, you know that this is a big hit for pretty much every employee at the company. There is no national requirement for companies to provide parental leave, and only 12 states (as well as one district and one territory) in the whole country have any kind of law on the books that mandates this kind of benefit.

States that do offer parental leave include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington, as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, DC.

Is Cutting Parental Leave Good for Business?

If you’re looking to cut costs for your business during the recession, we understand the inclination to follow suit with Twitter. After all, if Elon Musk is doing it, it has to be a good move for businesses, right?

If the tanking price of Twitter is any indication, Musk might not have the inside track on the best practices for successful businesses, and this approach to family leave is further evidence. In fact, studies have shown that axing parental leave can have a pretty dire impact on productivity.

One study out of the UK surveyed over 2,000 businesses with and without parental leave to get to the bottom of it. The study was quite conclusive, with those with parental leave being 60% more likely to report above-average financial performance than those without parental leave. That number rose to 93% for companies that specifically offer paternity leave.

Simply put, being in cost cutting mode is never fun, but the reality is that slashing employee benefits is a poor short-term solution that will likely harm you more than it will help you in the long run.

Another big tech company is pushing for its workers to return to their commute, with the new Lyft CEO informing employees that they must be back in the office at least three days a week starting this fall.

The tech industry is going through it right now. With mass layoffs occurring on what feels like a daily basis and the economic downturn causing CEOs to take pay cuts, the once-stable industry continues to fall on harder and harder times.

Now, the new CEO at Lyft is kicking things off with a bang by making some big changings, including getting rid of the company’s full flexible work policy.

Lyft Ditches Fully Flexible Work Policy

In March 2022, two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, Lyft announced that it would continue to offer its fully flexible work policy to accommodate employee needs. However, a new CEO took over at the rideshare company last week, and he’s decided that this policy is no longer going to work.

As for why, the Lyft CEO parroted a common line among executives trying to get workers back in the office.

“Things just move faster when you’re face to face. There’s a real feeling of satisfaction that comes from working together at a whiteboard on a problem.” – David Risher, new Lyft CEO to the New York Times

The news comes after Lyft laid off 1,200 employees earlier this month.

Why Do Tech Companies Want Employees Back in the Office?

If you’ve been paying attention to the tech industry over the last few months, you’ve likely noticed a trend of CEOs forcing employees back in the office.

Many insist that the reason for these changes are in service of collaboration and company culture, but experts have another theory.

“When top executives feel financial stress, the classic ‘threat-rigidity’ effect kicks in, and beyond possible benefits for communication, collaboration and creativity, they feel compelled to increase their own illusion of control.” – Bob Sutton, a psychology professor at Stanford

The reality is that CEOs aren’t basing these return-to-office policies on statistics, with numbers showing that the remote work boom has actually been quite a boon for productivity.

Should You Force Your Employees Back Into the Office?

The economic downturn has you worried about productivity and all these tech CEOs are forcing their employees back into the office, so why wouldn’t you? Well, for one, remote work statistics show that remote work is actually better for productivity and will help you retain and attract the best employees.

In addition, businesses experienced a 22% productivity boost when instituting a hybrid work model, with 30% of employees getting more work done in less time while working from home. On top of that, flexible schedules remain one of the best attractors of top talent and remote work can save your business up to $11,000 per year due to increased productivity, cheaper real estate costs, and reduced absenteeism and turnover.

Suffice to say, the return-to-office movement is not a blueprint for how your small business should treat its employees. If you want to keep productivity up and employees happy, hybrid work models appear to be the way to go.

At least one job appears to be safe from artificial intelligence, as a new study found that ChatGPT is actually not that good at advanced mathematics, assuaging accountants about their future employment prospects.

The meteoric rise of generative AI platforms like ChatGPT have raised a number of concerns about potential job displacement. In fact, some studies have found that up to 80% of jobs will be impacted by artificial intelligence, which has the potential to wreak absolute havoc on the economy.

Luckily for accountants, though, a new study has found that ChatGPT — the best and most popular generative AI platform available today — struggles when it comes math.

ChatGPT Can’t Pass Math Tests

In a study from Bringham Young University (BYU), researchers found that ChatGPT is still worse than actual accounting students at answering test questions.  The generative AI platform scored a lowly 47.4% on exams common in accounting classes, while students averaged a score of 76.7% across the board.

The study was quite expansive, with more than 25,000 students participating across 186 colleges and universities in 14 different countries. The exam in question covered everything an accountant would need to know, including accounting information systems (AIS), auditing, financial accounting, managerial accounting and tax.

On top of all that, the exam was purposely varied on type and difficulty of the questions, which proved even more difficult for ChatGPT. The generative AI platform did fine on true/false questions (68.7%) and multiple-choice questions (59.5%), but struggled mightily on short-answer questions, netting scores between 28.7% and 31.9% in that category.

Can ChatGPT Pass Other Tests?

So ChatGPT can’t pass advanced mathematics tests, who cares? The generative AI can perform a lot of other tasks quite well, and it probably can’t pass any other advanced education tests, right? Wrong!

According to OpenAI, the company behind the innovative technology, ChatGPT is actually quite impressive when it comes to passing these kinds of exams. The generative AI passed the bar in the 90th percentile, received a nearly perfect score on the GRE Verbal test, and passed 13 of 15 AP tests currently available to students.

So, are teachers worried about cheating with this kind of technology? Of course they are, but that discussion has been common for years.

“When this technology first came out, everyone was worried that students could now use it to cheat. But opportunities to cheat have always existed. So for us, we’re trying to focus on what we can do with this technology now that we couldn’t do before to improve the teaching process for faculty and the learning process for students. Testing it out was eye-opening.” – David Wood, lead study author and a BYU professor of accounting.

The Future of AI

The break-neck speed at which generative AI platforms like ChatGPT have rolled out and improved productivity have raised concerns among those that believe society is not fully prepared for the impacts of robust AI use across the world.

Still, while this study may prove that one job is safe for the time being, its authors understand that this means we need to take a long hard look at how we do things across the educational and business landscape.

“It’s an opportunity to reflect on whether we are teaching value-added information or not. This is a disruption, and we need to assess where we go from here.” – Melissa Larson, study coauthor and fellow BYU accounting professor

Simply put, AI is going to change the world in one way or another, and if you think your job isn’t going to be impacted in the long run, you’ve got another think coming.

The only downside to being the most intelligent chatbot in the world is that everyone wants to ask you questions, all the time. In fact, more than 100 million people have done just that since ChatGPT was launched towards the tail end of last year.

However, if you’re a regular ChatGPT user, you’ve undoubtedly been hit with a message telling you that “ChatGPT is at capacity”, found out suddenly that the site is down, or been served a ChatGPT error code that’s stopped you in your tracks.

So, what can you do in these situations? Well, there are a couple of workarounds, as well as a few ChatGPT alternatives, that can help you out when ChatGPT is down or the site is at capacity.

• Is ChatGPT Down Right Now?
• 5 Things to Do If ChatGPT Is Down or At Capacity
• ChatGPT Is at Capacity: How to Avoid It
• ChatGPT Is at Capacity: Is the Rush over, or Just Beginning?

Is ChatGPT Down Right now?

It’s not too hard to find out if ChatGPT is down right now. Along with DownDetector, there are a number of other tools available online that you can use to track the website’s status, as well as other websites that are important to you.

You can also track the server status of ChatGPT on the OpenAI website, as well as ChatGPT API and OpenAI Playground (more on this later). If ChatGPT is down due to a technical error, a server problem, or it’s simply closed for maintenance, however, there’s nothing you can do to access it.

That’s not necessarily the case if you’re told that ChatGPT is at capacity. The easiest way to check if it’s at capacity is o see if you’re able to log into your OpenAI account, and whether you can interact with ChatGPT – and there are a number of workarounds for this message that are worth trying, too.

You can track the server status of ChatGPT on the OpenAI website, as well as ChatGPT API and OpenAI Playground (more on this later). If ChatGPT is down due to a technical error, a server problem, or it’s simply closed for maintenance, however, there’s nothing you can do to access it. At the moment, it’s unclear what has caused the current outage.

That’s not necessarily the case if you’re told that ChatGPT is at capacity. The easiest way to check if it’s at capacity is o see if you’re able to log into your OpenAI account, and whether you can interact with ChatGPT – and there are a number of workarounds for this message that are worth trying, too. 

5 Things to Do If ChatGPT Is Down or At Capacity

At Tech.co, we log into ChatGPT almost every day. When it’s down, or at capacity, we have found these five solutions the most effective:

• Use OpenAI playground
• Try a ChatGPT Alternative
• Refresh the Page
• Clear Your Cookies and Cache/Privately Browse
• Use a VPN to Change Your Location

If ChatGPT is down right now, we’d recommend trying the first two – particularly OpenAI Playground (you’ll see why in just a second). If ChatGPT is at capacity, you could try all five, but we’d recommend starting with a simple refresh of the page. Read on to find out more.

Use OpenAI Playground

If you think of ChatGPT as the end product, Open AI Playground could be described as the development prototype. This is why it’s such a good option if ChatGPT is down or at capacity – it’s a very similar tool.

You might find the way it differs from ChatGPT intriguing, too. OpenAI Playground has a more basic interface than ChatGPT, but lots more customizability. You can test out different language models and overall have more control over the experience.

It’s not as capable as ChatGPT, granted – it’s powered by GPT-3, not GPT-3.5 or GPT-4 but if you can’t access the latter chatbot, then this is probably your next best bet. You can sign up for and use OpenAI Playground through the company’s website – but like ChatGPT, you’ll need to make an account first.

Try a ChatGPT alternative

Now, this isn’t really a solution that’ll help you get back on ChatGPT any faster. But if ChatGPT is down right now, there’s very little you can do about that, so it’s definitely worth looking toward other capable chatbots. No Chatbot is used as much as ChatGPT, so getting to grips with a slightly quieter one will, of course, decrease your risk of experiencing downtime or being locked out due to capacity issues.

For example, you can sign up for a waitlist to use Bard AI, Google’s answer to ChatGPT. Bard performed commendably in a head-to-head with its Microsoft-backed rival. Some people who signed up early already have access, and you can too if you have a personal Gmail account.

Other rivals, like Claude, serve users web results and AI responses – which some see as the best of both worlds. They might not be quite as clever, but they can pull information from the internet in real-time, which ChatGPT can’t do.

Refresh the page

Problems don’t always require complex solutions – and if you want to bypass the “ChatGPT is at capacity” message, or simply then a simple refresh can often do the trick.

When you refresh a webpage, you’re effectively resending your request for the page to resupply you with the same data.

With so many people using ChatGPT, there are going to be people logging in and logging out almost every second. Thousands will log in to their AI accounts daily – so getting in there with a sly refresh is one way to go about it.

However, this doesn’t work every time – so it’s worth exploring other options.

Clear your cookies and cache/Turn on private browsing

Another tactic you can implement to try and skirt around the dreaded “ChatGPT is at capacity” message is to clear your cookies and cache.

Alternatively, search for ChatGPT while you’re in incognito mode or a private browsing tab, which achieves the same effect.

Both methods will make it harder for ChatGPT to work out whether you’ve recently attempted to access – and been blocked out – of the website.

Use a VPN to change your location

Although there’s no official statement from ChatGPT that suggests OpenAI measures its capacity region-by-region, some users have reported that the message disappears when they connect to ChatGPT through a VPN.

A VPN – which stands for “virtual private network” – encrypts your traffic and funnels it through a private server before sending it on to the internet. This process masks your device’s IP address and makes it appear as if you’re connecting from somewhere else in the world.

So, if there are regional considerations when it comes to capacity (there might be), a VPN will seriously help you out. Regardless of what’s actually going on during the connection process – and on OpenAI’s servers – a VPN seems to help.

What’s more, if there’s some external reason ChatGPT is struggling to send data to your IP address specifically, this could alleviate it.

ChatGPT Is at Capacity: How to Avoid The Message Completely

There are a couple of things you can do that will dramatically decrease your chances of getting a message from ChatGPT blocking you from using the service.

Use ChatGPT outside of peak hours

One way to significantly reduce your chances of seeing this message is to use ChatGPT at a time when there aren’t many people online. You don’t need any fancy tools to work this out – it’s going to be earlier in the morning and later at night.

However, that might not be possible for people who need to use ChatGPT at work between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm – when it feels like the whole world is using it.

Purchase ChatGPT Plus

As with most things in life, if you pay a little extra, you get to jump the queue – and ChatGPT is no different.

You can avoid the “ChatGPT is at capacity” message for even more if you purchase ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI’s paid-for version of ChatGPT, which costs $20 per month.

This is a long-term solution, but it’s understandable that not everyone wants to stump up the cash for the program just yet. On top of this, you won’t be spared if the site goes down just because you’re a Plus customer.

ChatGPT: Is the Initial Rush Largely Over… or Only Just Beginning?

When ChatGPT first came out, some users reported waiting days to gain access. It’s also experienced a number of outages, as well as at least one planned closure for bug-fixing purposes. But now, with teething problems seemingly overcome, it seems as if fewer users are complaining about being unable to access the chatbot.

As ChatGPT has been generally available for over 6 months, you would assume there wouldn’t be as many curious punters who simply want to see what ChatGPT is and how it works attempting to log in anymore.

Plus, a lot more people are using alternatives to ChatGPT and exploring the ecosystem of competing chatbots flourishing off the back of OpenAI’s success. Considering this, you wouldn’t be a fool for arriving at the conclusion that it may have taken some pressure off OpenAI’s crowded servers and decreased both the amount of downtime and time spent at capacity.

However, Data analyst Matthew Bentley, who inputs prompts into ChatGPT on a daily basis, reports that there was a recent period when ChatGPT wasn’t letting him ask any questions at all.

”It was either instantly giving an error or no response at all,” he told Tech.co. “Often, it would make it look like it was about to answer and then never get around to it. This went on for around 2 hours on Tuesday. Refreshes, changing accounts, Wi-Fi, and devices would not fix it, and it’s not the first time it’s happened.”

In reality, ChatGPT’s popularity – and capacity – is likely to ebb and flow over time. This is why it’s good to know what to do when ChatGPT is at capacity – if you’re one of the many businesses finding new, innovative ways to use ChatGPT to save time, you need to keep your options open.

ChatGPT is the world’s most popular AI chatbot — with nearly 800 million weekly active users — and all those users invariably cause problems on the platform that solicit error messages.

Although there are lots of viable ChatGPT alternatives, solving these ChatGPT errors isn’t terribly difficult, and we’re here to help.

This guide covers everything you need to know about common ChatGPT problems that users are facing in 2026. We’ve also provided instructions detailing how to fix them quickly so hopefully, you won’t be stuck for long.

In this guide:

• ChatGPT Error in Moderation
• ChatGPT Network Error
• Unprocessable Entity ChatGPT Message
• ChatGPT Error in Body Stream Message
• ChatGPT “Oops, an Error Occurred” Error 
• ChatGPT Internal Server Error
• ChatGPT Error 1020: Access Denied
• “An Error Occurred” ChatGPT Message
• ChatGPT 429 Error
• ChatGPT Login Error
• ChatGPT Suspicious Activity Error
• ChatGPT Not Working: Other Options

Unprocessable Error in Moderation Message

Recently, some users have been served a message that reads “Error in moderation” during conversations with ChatGPT. It’s not completely clear why it’s started to appear for lots of users right now, but it happens when the system’s content moderation systems incorrectly flag content as offensive or inappropriate.

Regardless, it’s blocking users from having conversations with ChatGPT, but there are ways to fix it.

How to fix the ChatGPT error in moderation message

• Try shorter, clearer prompts. ChatGPT can get a bit lost and confused if your prompts are too long and complicated — so if you’re experiencing a ChatGPT error like this one, breaking down what you’re asking the chatbot can be a good place to start.
• Refresh the browser window. If you start off on a clean slate with ChatGPT, even if it’s having a tricky time, you might just be able to get what you need before its moderation system goes back into overdrive.
• Stop using offensive language. Of course, you might be getting this message because you’re using offensive language and you’re being correctly flagged for moderation purposes. If this is the case, being a little bit nicer will make the message go away.

A significant number of these error messages seemed to have occurred after ChatGPT experienced an outage, which leads us to think that the best thing to do might be to just ask another chatbot, such as Gemini or Claude, which are also very capable of fulfilling similar requests.

ChatGPT Network Error

ChatGPT network errors sometimes occur when users ask ChatGPT to provide multi-faceted, lengthy, or complex responses. This image is also served to users whose internet connection is disrupted while ChatGPT is generating answers, as shown in the image below:

You may also see the network error if there is some sort of server-side problem, or if the chatbot attempts to write for longer than 60 seconds — something which can also be induced by a sufficiently long-winded question. All in all, it’s one of the more common ChatGPT errors.

How to fix the ChatGPT network error

Here are some steps you can take to avoid ChatGPT network errors:

• Test your internet connection. ChatGPT may have shown you this message if your internet connection is poor or cutting out intermittently. This should be the first troubleshooting technique you try, especially if you haven’t been requesting lots of information.
• Break down your request into smaller sub-requests. Are you asking ChatGPT to do multiple things at once? An easy way to avoid a network error is to split your prompt up into two or even three requests. 
• Set limitations on ChatGPT’s responses. One way to avoid consistent network error messages is to limit what you want ChatGPT to give you. Ask for things “in no more than 100 words/four lines,” for example.
• Simplify what you’re asking ChatGPT to do. Are you explaining what you’d like from ChatGPT in simple enough terms? Although it can typically handle quite complex instructions, if you are getting a network error message, it may be time to dumb down your commands a little.

If you’re coding, you can use the phrases “don’t use comments in code” or alternatively, “don’t use empty lines in code” if you’re asking ChatGPT to code for you and you want to reduce the size of the answer it responds with.

Unprocessable Entity ChatGPT Message

The “unprocessable entity” message is displayed within ChatGPT when the server cannot process a request sent by a user, despite the server being able to understand it. This can occur for a number of reasons, but the leading cause of the error is usually users inputting data in a format that ChatGPT cannot process.

However, it may occur due to missing input data, or if you’re asking ChatGPT to generate responses that would fall outside of the usual guidelines applied to the content it generates.

How to fix the ChatGPT unprocessable entity error

Here are some things you should do if you want to fix the unprocessable entity error:

• Delete your most recent chat with ChatGPT. If you were asking ChatGPT for un-allowed responses, this will reset the chatbot – and if you want to avoid it happening again, stick to prompts that fall within the content guidelines set out by OpenAI.
• Stop using special characters in your prompts. Sometimes the unprocessable entity message will show when ChatGPT doesn’t understand a certain input, so sticking to basics (letters and numbers) will ensure that it recognizes the entirety of your prompt.
• Stick to shorter answers. Although ChatGPT should be able to deal with complex requests, if you keep getting this error, temporarily stick to shorter, relatively basic queries to help ensure that you don’t see it again.

ChatGPT Error in Body Stream Message

According to Tech.co’s search volume data, the ChatGPT “error in body stream” message is currently the ChatGPT error that users are searching for the most regularly. For some users, this error is displayed as a ChatGPT “error in message stream” notice, but it’s the same error.

An error in the body stream occurs when ChatGPT has attempted to formulate an answer, but something has impaired or interfered with its response-generation process.

(Source: Reddit User benr1984)

This can be a problem on your end, such as a poor network connection, but it’s more likely that ChatGPT is so overloaded with requests that it can’t process yours.

How to fix the ChatGPT “error in body stream” or “error in message stream” message

Along with testing your own network connection and clearing your cache, here are some things you can try to make the ChatGPT error in body stream message go away:

• Create a new chat within ChatGPT. Sometimes, getting rid of the “error in body stream” message can be a simple case of starting a new chat with ChatGPT. You can try submitting your initial request there.
• Ask ChatGPT to generate the response again. This is like an internal, ChatGPT-exclusive page refresh – and it’s always worth a shot before you try more long-winding troubleshooting tactics.
• Adjust the length of your requests. Similar to the ChatGPT network error, the Chatgpt “error in body stream” message can be fixed by shortening the length of your requests, as this is less confusing for ChatGPT.
• Adjust the syntax of your code and input arguments if you’re making an API request (this doesn’t apply to regular ChatGPT users experiencing an error in body stream message).

ChatGPT “Oops, an Error Occurred” Error

Some ChatGPT users report being unexpectedly served a message that reads “oops, an error occurred” with a button labeled “try again”. Some Reddit users have reported experiencing this problem when quickly clearing a large number of chats, while others have had it pop up immediately after logging in.

(Image Credit: Reddit User 00ProBoy00)

In the first instance mentioned above, this might be happening because they’re overwhelming the server with consecutive deletion requests. It’s not always clear why this error message is displayed, however.

How to fix the ChatGPT “oops, an error occurred” error

Thankfully, this ChatGPT error is usually quite easy to fix:

• Press the “try again” button. In the vast majority of cases, pushing this button will solve your problem and make the error message vanish.
• Clear your cache, cookies, and browsing data. Some users have found that they can fix this problem by simply clearing their cache, cookies and data.
• Switch to another browser. If clearing your cache and browsing history doesn’t work, you can always switch to a completely new browser, which is likely to solve the problem.

ChatGPT Internal Server Error

If you’ve been using ChatGPT for a while now, the chances are you’ve probably been served the “internal server error” message at least once.

Internal server errors can happen for a number of reasons. ChatGPT simply may not have enough storage or memory to handle the number of concurrent users it’s receiving prompts from, for instance.

This ChatGPT error message usually indicates a server-side problem, rather than an issue with the end-user’s device or internet connection.

How to fix the ChatGPT internal server error

Here are some common troubleshooting methods for this problem:

• Refresh your browser. A simple browser refresh often solves ChatGPT errors. This will also indicate whether it’s in fact your internet connection, rather than ChatGPT, that is causing you problems. 
• Clear your browser cookies. This can often resolve a ChatGPT internal server error. You can also achieve the same effect by searching for ChatGPT in incognito/private browsing mode.
• Use a different browser. There may be a problem with the way you’re accessing ChatGPT through the browser you’re using specifically. Switching between browsers will let you know if it’s the application that’s the problem, not the chatbot.
• Log back in to your OpenAI account. Logging in and out of the OpenAI account you’ve created to use ChatGPT often brings the Chatbot back to life.

ChatGPT Error 1020: Access Denied

Error code 1020 is an HTTP error code that informs you that the website you’re trying to visit has blocked your Internet Protocol (IP) address. If you’re seeing this code, your IP address has been flagged by Cloudflare’s security system, which is used by OpenAI to protect its website.

There could be any number of reasons why you’re seeing this request. It could simply be that the Wi-Fi you’re using to connect to the internet has been flagged by the system – ChatGPT “access denied” requests are quite common on unsecured public Wi-Fi hotspots, for example.

It could, however, also be an issue with Cloudflare’s firewall. Either way, there are things you can to do avoid it.

How to fix ChatGPT error 1020

If you’re getting an error code when using ChatGP, here are some ways you can get around it:

• Use a VPN. A VPN is a quick and easy way to both mask and change your IP address. There are a few reliable, free VPNs out there that will get you up and running in minutes without demanding any payment, but make sure you opt for a reputable provider.
• Use a proxy server. Like a VPN, a proxy server can also spoof your IP address, so you can use it for troubleshooting this error. Just bear in mind that proxy servers don’t encrypt user data like VPNs do.
• Disable your browser extensions. You may be blocked because you have a corrupt or problematic browser extension, which can sometimes interfere with Cloudflare’s firewall. Disable your browser extensions to make sure this isn’t the case.

ChatGPT “An Error Occurred” Message

Since ChatGPT’s release in November of last year, a number of users have reported that they’ve received a message that reads “An error occurred. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.” This has been widely reported on OpenAI’s community forum. 

As you can see, this is quite a general error code and is served when something is impairing ChatGPT from functioning to its full capabilities. It could be that ChatGPT is close to reaching its user threshold but the now-famous “ChatGPT is at capacity” message is not yet being sent out to users, for instance.

How to fix the ChatGPT “an error occurred” message

If you haven’t found an answer in OpenAI’s help center, try these troubleshooting tactics:

• Refresh your screen. Some users who encountered this problem were able to make it disappear simply by refreshing their screen – although this doesn’t necessarily work every time.
• Disconnect or reconnect your VPN. This will change your IP address, which might be causing this error to occur. On one OpenAI forum, users complaining about this problem reported turning off advanced tools like threat protection on providers like NordVPN.
• Clear your cookies or change your browser. Some users who’ve been served this message have found that switching browsers makes it disappear. You can also just clear your current cache of cookies if you don’t have access to another browser.

ChatGPT Error 429

Error 429 is a rate limit error that is served to users who make too many requests to the ChatGPT API in a short period of time. In a nutshell, the ChatGPT API allows developers to build their own chatbots using the natural language processing and machine learning technology that underpins ChatGPT.

If you see the ChatGPT error shown above (Image credit: Machine Learning Yearning), it probably means the system is unable to properly process your request because you’ve exceeded your quota of permitted requests. If you haven’t done this, the error code might have been served to you simply because you’re using ChatGPT at a time when the network is very busy.

How to fix the ChatGPT error 429

If you’re a business using ChatGPT and you find you’ve reached your API request limit, you should:

• Minimize the number of requests you make. This will ensure you stay within your rate limit. You could also compress your requests too.
• Monitor your API usage more closely. Keeping closer tabs on exactly how many requests you’re lodging will also go some way to ensuring that you stay within your API rate limit.
  

ChatGPT Login Errors

Some ChatGPT users have found themselves caught in “login loops” where ChatGPT won’t let them log into their accounts. It seems a significant number of users have encountered this issue after failing to verify their email addresses with OpenAI.

However, that’s not the only type of login error you’ll encounter when using ChatGPT. For example, you’ll receive an error message if you’re attempting to log in using an authentication method that wasn’t the same as the one you used when you first created your account with OpenAI.

How to fix the ChatGPT login error

If you’re struggling to log into ChatGPT or you’re getting login error messages, here’s what to do:

• Verify your email address. As mentioned above, one of the explanations for these login loops is unverified email addresses. So, sift through your inbox to see if you have any unread emails from OpenAI. 
• Request a password change. If you’re consistently being told that you can’t log in to ChatGPT, request a password change, as this may reset your account and help you break out of your login loop.
• Sign up for a new OpenAI account. This might sound slightly defeatist – but if you don’t have any important chats saved, making a new account might be the quickest way to fix this issue. Remember, it’s completely free, and all you’ll need is another email address. 

ChatGPT “Suspicious Activity Detected” Error

An error like this will appear if ChatGPT detects that the traffic originating from your device/IP address is automated. In other words, OpenAI thinks you’re some sort of bot, a demographic of traffic most large websites try to filter out.

This error is likely occurring because you’re using a VPN or proxy service that is rerouting your traffic through servers that ChatGPT is getting a high number of requests from, or knows is a VPN server.

How to fix the ChatGPT suspicious activity error

• Turn off your VPN. As we just mentioned, if you’re using a VPN, likely, ChatGPT is just blocking a flagged IP, and that’s why you’re getting the error message. If so, and you’re happy to use the platform without it turned on, then you can proceed.
• Switch your VPN server. ChatGPT may have flagged the IP you’re using right now, but it might not be able to do this with every VPN server you can access through your provider. You could try this before turning it off completely.
• Open a private browsing window. OpenAI suggests opening a private browsing window if the error message persists. You can also simply shut down your browser and clear your cache, and then try again.
• Ensure other people aren’t using your account. If this message persists, and you’ve let other people use your account, it might be worth resetting your account credentials and logging yourself out on other devices.
• Contact OpenAI. If you’ve tried all of the above and you’re still getting nowhere, OpenAI advises that you get in contact so they can address the issue with your account directly.

ChatGPT Not Working: Other Options

If ChatGPT still isn’t working for you, remember, there are other AI chatbots out there you can use to help you during your workday or simply to find information more quickly and efficiently than you can. Of course, Google Gemini is the obvious alternative, given its proficiency with natural language prompts and its integration with other Google services like Gmail and Docs.

Chatsonic is one of the best ChatGPT alternatives readily available for anyone to use. However, if you’d like to be served web results alongside a summarized paragraph from an AI chatbot, we’d recommend YouChat. Plerplexity.ai is also worth a try, and it cites its sources for every answer it gives. Jasper is a good option for businesses too, with impressive content generation powers.

Whatever your use case, make sure you try our troubleshooting suggestions first – but if you’re fed up with ChatGPT errors, there’s no harm in seeing what else is out there.

Meta is set to bring generative AI to every one of its platforms, after reporting sales increases for the first time in three-quarters – thanks in part to the success of its AI-driven Instagram Reels feature.

After famously dragging its heels with AI investments, channeling the majority of its spending into its VR Metaverse project instead, the company now claims it’s “no longer behind in building AI infrastructure”.

New AI chat features will soon be added to WhatsApp and Messager, as well as visual content tools for Facebook and Instagram.

But how will Meta’s new AI model, LLaMA, compare to established tools like ChatGPT?

Meta Will Bring AI to Every Platform

In a development that can best be described as ‘better late than never’ Meta has announced it will be adding generative AI to every one of its apps in a way that’s “useful and meaningful”.

In Meta’s recent earnings call, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it’s exploring “chat experiences in WhatsApp and Messenger”. While the Silicon Valley company is keeping its cards close to its chest, it’s likely these text-based AI tools will bare some resemblance to existing models like Google Bard and ChatGPT.

Meta also revealed they’re working on visual AI creation tools for adverts and Facebook and Instagram posts, with video and multi-model experiences likely to be introduced over time.

“Over time, this will extend to our work on the metaverse, too, where people will much more easily be able to create avatars, objects, worlds, and code to tie all of them together.” – Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg 

While this shift to AI spending represents a change of tact for the social media giant, the company is keen to point out that they aren’t abandoning the metaverse project, with Zuckerberg explaining that AI developments will “extend to our work in the metaverse too”.

Meta will be forking out $33 billion to fund this rollout, according to the company’s Chief Financial Officer Susan Li. But unlike its Metaverse project, which cost its Reality Lab unit almost $4 billion in the first quarter of this year, these heavy investments into AI are likely to pay off.

Meta’s Year So Far

2023 hasn’t been an easy year for Meta. The company has already made 10,000 cuts to its workforce, as part of its cost-cutting “year of efficiency“.

Yet, in Meta’s latest quarterly earnings report of the year, it revealed its sales have increased for the first time in three quarters, with the company hitting revenues of around $28.65 billion – beating estimates by almost a billion dollars.

This rebound can be largely attributed to Instagram’s new Reel feature, which increased time spent on the app by 24% due to using TikTok-adjacent AI algorithms that give users more personalized recommendations.

“Reels also continue to become more social with people resharing Reels more than 2 billion times every day, doubling over the last six months.” – Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg 

Meta’s ad revenue on Facebook is looking optimistic too, with the platform attracting a record two billion daily active users in February.

How Does Meta’s AI Model Compare?

Last month, Meta officially joined the AI race by announcing LLaMA – a large conversational language model that works in a similar way to ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Google Bard.

LLaMa and ChatGPT both use unsupervised learning to train their models, which means they use the internet and other sources, instead of human-labeled data to generate data.

Unlike ChatGPT, LLaMA is also trained on diverse sources such as scientific and news articles, making it better equipped at answering more technical prompts.

However, while LLaMA may have the edge when it comes to research, its 65 billion parameters pale in comparison to ChatGPT’s 175 billion parameters, making its uses slightly less extensive than OpenAI’s chatbot.

As it currently stands, LLaMA is still not accessible to the public, so it’s impossible to see how it stands up against its competitors, directly. Yet, with Meta’s gaze set on becoming a “leader in generative AI”, the race to become the dominant AI is anything but clear-cut.

From quiet hiring to quiet firing, and quiet quitting to quiet promotions, keeping up with workplace trends can be a head-spinning challenge. Well, it’s time to learn another one: quiet comeback.

What is the quiet comeback? It explains the phenomenon of people quitting their jobs, only to return to the same company, as a freelancer or contractor. This may be done for financial gain, or freedom, but it’s not always that simple.

We take a look at the latest ‘quiet’ term to trend, and speak to those who have done the quiet comeback themselves.

What Is a Quiet Comeback?

If you’ve never done a quiet comeback yourself, you’ve almost certainly worked at a place where it has happened. It’s when someone leaves a full time position at a company, only to return as a freelancer or contractor. In some cases, they might even be performing the same role.

What makes it ‘quiet’? Unlike joining a new company in a full time role, with onboarding, team lunches, or a shout out at the next team meeting, freelancers usually aren’t regarded as part of a core team, so forego all the usual pomp and ceremony. In fact, if someone leaves your company and returns to help out another part of the business, chances are they’ll slip under the radar, and you won’t even know about it.

The last couple of years has seen a huge increase in the number of terms with the ‘quiet’ prefix, from quiet quitting, to quiet hiring, and even quiet promotions. Quiet comebacks are the next natural progression, and with more Americans freelancing than ever, it could be your next career move.

The Rise of Freelance

The quiet comeback has its roots in the rise of the freelancer. More of us are doing it than ever before, with 73 million freelancers in the US in 2023, predicted to rise to over 90 million in the next few years. It’s predicted that if the current freelance rates keep climbing, over half all US workers will be freelancing to some degree by 2027.

Of these millions of freelancers, some will be be doing the quiet comeback. It only makes sense that if you’re going to strike it out as a freelancer, you’ll be tempted to work for a company you already know, working with systems you’re familiar with, and dealing with people you’ve already built up a good rapport with.

It can be lucrative too. Many of those we spoke to who had done the quiet comeback said that they were able to negotiate much higher fees than they could when they were on the payroll.

Real Quiet Comeback Experiences

One of those we spoke to, Barry Maher of Barry Maher & Associates, told us that he once worked for a Fortune 500 company, and received a call to say that there had been an accounting mistake, and that the company were overpaying him by $1,000 a month. He was given the ultimatum of paying back over $20,000 that the company said he owed them, or being laid off. Maher, who felt that the salary he was receiving was what he had initially agreed to, opted to be laid off.

However, the story doesn’t end there. As Maher told us:

‘I returned to working for myself, consulting in the same industry. Much to my delight, I was soon hired as a consultant by another branch of the same company at $250 per hour rather than the $50 they’d been “overpaying” me before.’

The move also means that workers can play to their strengths, and not worry about other aspects of a role that don’t appeal to them. As Anastasios Moulios, founder of BeardLong, told us, ‘As an employee, I often had to work on projects that were not necessarily aligned with my strengths or interests. As a contractor/freelancer, I have been able to choose the projects that I am passionate about and that I know I can deliver great results on.’

Similarly, Kit Warchol, founder of the content agency, Nunc Studio says, ‘I was tired of being in meetings all day, and I realized that I’d advanced so far up the chain in my profession that the only way I’d get back to creative projects and writing work was to opt out of full-time content work.’ Kit now runs a successful agency, and has brought onboard colleagues that she has worked with previously.

But what do companies think of quiet comebacks? Of those that we spoke to, the view was that it was positive. Companies are able to find freelancers/contracters with a firm understanding of processes, systems and clients, and get to work straight away.

Dennis Shirshikov, Head of Growth at Awning.com, said ‘As аn еmployеr, I hаve rehired fоrmer еmployееs who chose tо еxplorе nеw opportunities, оnly tо return with а fresh рersрective аnd vаluаble skills. Тheir exрeriences еlsеwhеrе mаde thеm even morе vаluаble аssets tо our orgаnizаtion.’

Jaden Oh, CMO of Traffv, agrees – ‘As an employer, I have employed a previous employee in this way because I know their work ethic, and it saves time in the onboarding process.’

There are fewer overhead costs or comittments for businesses hiring freelancers, too, giving them more flexibility during a challenging economic time.

If you want to go freelance and stay organized, check out the best project management software

Could the Quiet Comeback Work for You?

When we spoke to people who had made a quiet comeback, most told us that the reasons were twofold – more flexibility, and better pay. On paper, this makes sense – workers can have more say over the projects they work on and the time they dedicate to them, and they’re free to set their own fees.

However, quitting your job and coming back as a freelancer or contractor isn’t for everyone.

For one, the money may appear better initially, but those that work for themselves may have additional expenses to cover, including everything from insurance and retirement savings to travel, as well as smaller perks like lunches. It all adds up, so it’s worth breaking down what your actual take home wage would be.

You’ll also need to be very self motivated, and prepared to seek new opportunities when/if those at your current company dry up.

It’s also important to get reassurances that there will be work available to you at your company should you quit. Not every company will be receptive to hiring previous employees  – Rhett Stubbendeck, CEO of LeverageRX, told us that doing so can create a ‘barrier between the two sides, which leads to tension and loss of productivity.’

However, if you’ve done the math, are motivated, and have reassurances that your company will take you back on this basis, it is well worth considering, and there’s plenty of positivity about the movement from those who have done it.

If your next move at work is a quiet comeback, you could well find it gives you something you won’t want to keep quiet about.

Facebook users are getting a $725 million lawsuit settlement, and the social platform has been sending messages letting them know. If you’ve spotted an email or in-app notification about the settlement, don’t worry: It’s not a scam.

Anyone in the US who has held a Facebook account between May 2007 and December 2022 is eligible for a payout in the wake of a legal case about Facebook data breach allegations. That’s a huge range that encompasses millions.

Here’s what the notifications look like, how much money you might be eligible for, and how to get it.

Facebook’s Letting Everyone Know

Facebook’s owner, Meta, is doing its court-ordered best to let everyone know about their chance to receive settlement money, and that involves both emails and notifications on their platform itself. Here’s what to expect an alert to look like:

The full message explains that the issue was about claims of Facebook practicing poor data security, sharing massive amounts of private data without properly monitoring how it was used.

Meta also notes that it “den[ies] any wrongdoing.” As it should — it just settled for $725 million to ensure its ability to make that claim was not legally challenged.

How to Get the Facebook Settlement

To actually have a chance at getting a sum of money, you’ll need to fill out an online form, available from  the settlement administrator.

The claims website will look like this. It’s not a scam, either, despite the text-heavy appearance of the website — just fill out your personal information, including your official Facebook user name, and pick the best payment processor.

You can find the website at facebookuserprivacysettlement.com/#submit-claim

What’s the Facebook Settlement for?

In 2018, allegations became public that Facebook had allowed political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access the personal data of around 87 million users.

A massive data leak like that is a big deal, and the moment was a bit of a turning point for public trust in both Facebook and many other social platforms.

How Much Money Could I Get?

We can’t say exactly how much of a payout each individual will get from the settlement, but some predictions put the amount at a little under $7 in total. It’s better than nothing.

The actual amount will come out of the net settlement ($725 million minus administrative and legal costs, which could be 25%), and be assigned to each user on a points system. Each month that a user held their account will give them one point. The net settlement will be divided by all the points.

So, the longer you held an account, the more you’ll get.

For everyone who relies on Facebook for keeping in touch with family and friends or for running a business, however, a single-digit dollar amount definitely won’t be enough to turn them away from the now-ingrained service.

Another day, another round of layoffs from a big tech company, as Lyft has officially cut 1,200 employees from its workforce to “better meet the needs of riders and drivers.”

It feels like there is no end in sight for the tech industry’s obsession with layoffs, as the recession has pushed company after company to cut costs by firing employees. Sure, some tech CEOs have been able to avoid the trend by taking pay cuts, but even those companies are likely going to need to part ways with workers to keep costs low.

Now, it appears that everyone’s favorite pink ride-share company has joined the fray, laying off a significant portion of its workforce in service of a “faster, flatter company.”

Lyft to “Significantly Reduce” Workforce

Announced in a note from the CEO of Lyft, the ridesharing company is planning to make significant cuts to its workforce by Thursday.

While the note didn’t specify exactly how many employees would be getting the ax, the Wall Street Journal reported that as many as 1,200 workers would be cut in this round of layoffs.

“We need to be a faster, flatter company where everyone is closer to our riders and drivers so we can deliver on this purpose. And we need to bring our costs down to deliver affordable rides, compelling earnings for drivers, and profitable growth.” – David Risher, CEO of Lyft

Fortunately, Lyft is taking care of its laid off employees in a meaningful way, providing 10 weeks of severance pay and the opportunity to get more if you’ve worked at the company for more than four years. Additionally, all laid off employees get accelerated equity vesting and healthcare coverage until October 31st, 2023.

How Will Lyft Layoffs Help the Company?

With so many layoffs flying around, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that these cost cutting measures do actually have a purpose beyond firing employees. Fortunately, the Lyft CEO was happy to provide a bit of insight into what exactly these layoffs were about and how they would keep the company competitive in the long run.

“We intend to use these savings to invest in competitive pricing, faster pick-up times, and better driver earnings. All of these require us to reduce our size and restructure how we’re organized.”

Studies have shown that despite rideshare companies like Lyft and Uber seeing a substantial price increases for riders, drivers have not seen the benefits in turn. Hopefully these layoffs will serve to make the rideshare ecosystem a bit more affordable for riders and lucrative for drivers, but that remains to be seen.

Other Tech Companies Making Layoffs

If you haven’t heard about tech companies making layoffs in recent months, you likely just got out of a coma. The trend has been brutal for tech workers across the industry, with virtually every company under the sun cutting costs in a major way.

As for which companies are leading the charge in laying off more than 100,000 total tech employees in 2023, the likes of Meta, Google, Amazon, and Twitter have made some huge cuts, eroding trust in big tech that could have long-lasting impacts on the industry’s ability to attract top talent.

If you’re got a morbid sense of curiosity, follow our guide to the tech companies making layoffs in 2023 for more information.

The first study into the workplace impacts of generative AI platforms has officially been published, and it’s good news for those relying on it to boost productivity.

Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google Bard have been all the rage in recent months, with businesses across the world using the technology to perform tasks like coding and content creation. While the tech is obviously helpful, studies hadn’t yet been conducted to measure its effectiveness in helping employees get their jobs done.

However, despite only being live since November, a new study has emerged showing that worker productivity has seen a 14% boost in companies utilizing generative AI platforms.

Generative AI at Work

The study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, titled Generative AI at Work, found that the technology improves productivity by 14% on average.

“Progress in machine learning opens up a broad set of economic possibilities. Our paper provides the first empirical evidence on the effects of a generative AI tool in a real-world workplace. In our setting, we find that access to AI-generated recommendations increases worker productivity, improves customer sentiment, and is associated with reductions in employee turnover.” – the authors of the study

Productivity in the study was “measured by issues resolved per hour,” analyzing the work of 5,179 customer support agents from an anonymous Fortune 500 software company.

How Does Generative AI Improve Productivity?

If you’ve had a chance to utilize ChatGPT or any other generative AI platforms at your business, you likely understand how they could improve productivity on the first day.

However, this study attempted to create an environment in which the tech could be objectively studied to allow businesses to understand exactly how it can be used to improve productivity.

“This increase reflects shifts in three components of productivity: a decline in the time it takes an agent to handle an individual chat, an increase in the number of chats that an agent is able to handle per hour (agents may handle multiple calls at once), and a small increase in the share of chats that are successfully resolved.” – The authors of the study

On top of that, the study notes that generative AI replicated that work of the firm’s top performers, which means that the biggest productivity improvements came from the novice and low-skilled workers. Conversely, generative AI didn’t have a massive impact compared to the firm’s high performers, which means we wouldn’t recommend going around and laying off your whole team just yet.

What Is the Best Generative AI Platform?

If this research has swayed you to give generative AI a try at your business, we don’t blame you. Plenty of businesses would be more than happy with a 14% productivity increase and given the low cost of entry for generative AI at this juncture, it seems like a bit of a no-brainer. So, which generative AI platform should you use?

Right now, generative AI is a two-man race between ChatGPT and Google Bard, which both have some serious tech resources behind them to get the ball rolling in Microsoft and Google, respectively. Both perform admirably for the majority of tasks and should help your business improve productivity.

However, in our research, we found that ChatGPT is a tad better at some of the more important business functions, like idea generation, summarizing extracts, and creative flair. Still, given the two platforms — and their many generative AI alternatives — are always learning, the best generative AI platform could be right around the corner.

After teasing the removal of the legacy blue check system for months, Twitter has finally revoked the privilege for notable accounts, and unsurprisingly, its caused waves of carnage and confusion across the site.

The serial CEO hasn’t removed the check from all users though, with Elon Musk peculiarly covering the cost for William Shatner’s, Stephen King’s, and LeBron James’s Twitter Blue subscriptions out of his own pocket.

The end of the legacy system is part of Musk’s attempt to push users to sign up for the pay monthly subscription. But with this latest move sparking concerns around impersonation and disinformation, the reversal could result in users abandoning the platform altogether.

Twitter Removes The Legacy Blue Tick for Notable Twitter Users

Another day, another shake-up at Twitter HQ. As promised, Twitter began withdrawing hard-earned blue ticks from users yesterday on 4/20 – a date that Musk proposed earlier this month.

The reversal of the legacy program is turning out to be just as ruthless as suspected, with Musk and his team removing the checks from a sweeping array of notable celebrities, political leaders, academics, and journalists.

Which celebrities lost their blue tick on Twitter?

Twitter removed the verification symbol for almost all legacy users, including big names like:

• Beyoncé
• Pope Francis
• Kim Kardashian
• Bill Gates
• Donald Trump
• Oprah

Twitter didn’t remove the blue check for all legacy users though. Yesterday, Musk tweeted that he would be “personally paying” for some celebrities to keep their blue check, including Willian Shatner, Stephen King, and LeBron James.

I’m paying for a few personally

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2023

But while this could be mistaken as a charitable act on the CEO’s behalf, it’s not. These celebrities have all been critical about the app’s transition to Twitter Blue in the past, with basketball player LeBron James previously tweeting “Welp guess my blue (tick) will be gone soon cause if you know me I ain’t paying the 5.”

Why Did Musk Decide to Ditch Legacy Tick Marks?

Twitter first rolled out blue tick verification in 2009, following a court case where a former professional baseball player sued the app over imposter accounts.

However, despite its success in limiting imitators over the years, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk made abolishing the system central to his business strategy since he took over the social media network in October of last year.

This is because by removing legacy ticks, more users are incentivized to sign up for the platform’s Twitter Blue subscription, a service that lets users keep their blue tick, and also access exclusive features like Undo Tweet options and long-form video posting.

But the system, which costs most users $8 per month, isn’t just available to individuals. The paid verification service is also available to businesses, who can receive a gold check mark through purchasing Twitter Blue for Business, and government institutions, who can become verified with grey ticks instead.

Despite Musk and his team’s best efforts, the gamble isn’t appearing to be paying off, with research from Travis Brown revealing that only 5% of legacy verification accounts have signed up for Twitter Blue. But what other issues is Twitter’s verification overhaul causing?

Is Musk Making a Mistake?

Now that most notable figures on the platform lack blue ticks, opportunities for impersonation and the spread of disinformation are running rampant.

Just hours after Hillary Clinton lost her legacy mark, a dupe Twitter account claiming to be the US Senator announced she would be running for the presidency, purposely misleading thousands of its followers.

Removing the symbol from government agencies is sparking concerns around safety too, with US Senator Brian Schatz recently commenting on the lack of verification for agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that assists the public before and after national sisters.

“I am not complaining about my own check mark, I just think during natural disasters it’s essential to know that FEMA is actually FEMA.” – Brian Schatz, US Senator

Alongside the mass unchecking, Twitter has also gotten into hot water recently for assigning incorrect ‘government-funded’ labels on leading media organizations like the BBC and Russia’s RT. While this misstep has since been rectified, the blunder has stroked more mistrust on the platform and has prompted major publications like NPR and Canada’s CBC to abandon ship.

Musk claims that these changes will “democratize the site”, and believes the company is “headed to a good place”.

However, with experts warning that prioritizing profits over legacy ticks will make the platform a less reliable source of accurate news and information, it’s likely that these actions could soon scare off even more users and advertisers and make the app even less viable in the future.

The tech world’s AI gold rush might have been a little hasty: Google ignored employee warnings and even overruled an official risk assessment in order to launch its AI chatbot Bard, reports claim.

The alleged warnings took place in internal messages seen by thousands in February 2023, while the risk assessment happened a month later in March, the same month in which Bard debuted to the public.

Google’s Bard is one of the highest profile chatbot AIs, alongside OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Both have faced plenty of public scrutiny. One of the biggest claims against the tools is that they lie regularly and convincingly, a potentially disastrous downside to the tech that aligns with the same warnings that Google reportedly ignored.

Google Staff Questioned Bards Readiness

The new reports, out from Bloomberg, say that employees were allowed to test out Bard in February and many issued warnings that the tool was not ready for a public release.

Employees reportedly stated that Bard was a liar, and not ready for launch in its current state, flagging major failing of the AI.

One employee warning reportedly stemmed from their conversation with Bard on how to land a plane and how to scuba dive — two potentially deadly activities that don’t have a lot of room for advice from, say, pathological liars.

The employee’s conclusion, reportedly, was that Bard’s answers could result have a harmful impact on users if followed to the letter.

Risk Assessment Was Reportedly No Match for AI Race to Launch

A risk assessment in March was also overruled, Bloomberg says. Google’s push to release its own generative AI bot was at least partially spurred by a competitor: OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its integration with search rival Bing.

Another reported claim from Bloomberg holds that senior Google leadership sent out a “code red” in December 2022 to accelerate its AI programs, leading to ethical compromises.

Doublecheck Your AI Conversations

The takeaway for anyone dabbling in chatbots — whether they’re from Google, Microsoft, or any other of a handful of competing free and paid services — is to take everything the bots say with a grain of salt.

All generative AIs are pulling from databases of knowledge, but they don’t always mix and match the information they receive correctly. The full list of issues to worry about is even larger, too: Chatbots should be checked for plagiarism, copyright violations, and poor mathematical skills, among a few other concerns.

AI chatbots certainly can contribute plenty of benefits in plenty of cases. Just don’t rely on their advice the next time you go sky diving.

Just a few years ago, for a whole class of knowledge workers, the thought of being replaced by AI was unthinkable. But the meteoric rise of ChatGPT has led many to ask themselves the same question that those working in manufacturing have asked themselves for many years now: will my job be replaced with AI?

With businesses discovering new ways to use ChatGPT every day, you can understand why workers in all sorts of roles are looking over their shoulders. With AI tools worming their way into the day-to-day routines of employees and solving all sorts of problems, it’s unsurprising that over two-thirds of employees are hiding the fact they use it from their bosses.

We’ve spoken to AI experts, entrepreneurs developing AI tools, and businesspeople using them to find out exactly which jobs they think will be automated first, how AI might make things easier, and how you can make yourself AI-proof for the job market. In this article, we cover:

• Is AI Replacing Jobs?
• Top 10 Jobs Most at Risk of Being Taken By AI
• Will AI Just Make All Jobs Easier?
• Jobs that Won’t Be Taken By AI
• Will AI Create More Jobs Than It Replaces?
• How to Make Yourself AI-Proof

Is AI Replacing Jobs?

It’s unlikely that AI will suddenly replace huge swathes of the human workforce by the end of this week, but the idea this sort of change may happen in the near future has never seemed more realistic than it does at present.

A report published by the World Economic Forum in 2020, for example, predicted 85 million jobs will be replaced by AI by the year 2025. Mckinsey’s more conservative 2021 estimate, on the other hand, is 45 million by 2030.

Our own Tech.co research has also found that 47% of business leaders would consider using AI instead of hiring for roles at their company.

But arguably, these estimations now seem too small. In the wake of ChatGPT’s explosive popularity, Goldman Sachs revealed its predictions that around 300 million jobs could soon be replaced by artificial intelligence or automated in some way or another.

At the moment, AI is competently completing tasks within job remits, rather than subsuming whole job roles. But it’s not difficult to imagine how this may progress to entire positions being taken over by artifical intelligence.

Indeed, rather than entire roles disappearing into thin air and being replaced with a chatbot like ChatGPT, What we’re more likely to see in the next year or so is AI being used as a tool to aid some duties performed by an increasingly large class of workers.

OpenAI predicted in a recent paper that artificial intelligence will soon be able to help with around 10% of tasks for eight out of 10 workers, while 19% of workers will be able to use AI to complete 50% of their tasks. This sort of spread suggests AI replacing jobs will be a slow, gradual process rather than a sudden change.

The Top 10 Jobs Most Likely to Be Replaced by AI

We’ve put together a list of jobs most vulnerable to AI. 10 jobs that could be replaced by AI are:

1. Entry-level Admin Roles
2. Data Entry Clerks 
3. Software Engineers and Coders
4. Customer Service Reps
5. Paralegals
6. Copywriters and Content Roles
7. Graphic Designers
8. Bankers and Accountants
9. Traders
10. Fact-Checkers and Proofreaders

1. Entry-Level admin roles

Administrative roles are perhaps most at risk of being replaced by AI tools currently available, such as ChatGPT. Admin roles consist of tasks like note-taking, proofreading, writing summaries, and managing spreadsheets, jobs that can already be performed competently by ChatGPT.

In the same research note that revealed Goldman Sachs’ prediction that 300 million jobs could be replaced by AI back, “office and administrative support” is cited as the job with the highest percentage (46%) of “current work tasks” that could feasibly be automated and carried out by AI.

In Microsoft Teams Premium, the CoPilot feature will summarize your video conferencing meetings into note form and then generate a list of action points by analyzing the content of the transcript. Twenty years ago, taking meeting notes would have been a core duty of a number of administrative and secretarial roles. Now, this task can be completely automated.

2. Data entry clerks 

Data entry roles involve lots of tasks that follow pre-defined sets of rules. This means it’s a comparatively easy role to automate, due to the repetitiveness and logic-following nature.

“Jobs that require decision-making based on data analysis, such as financial analysis and medical diagnosis” are most at risk according to Angelo Sorbello, CEO of AI writing and SEO tool Linkdelta. “In general, any job that involves performing a set of predefined steps or following a strict set of rules is vulnerable to automation,” he explained.

“Manually entering data into a computer system is time-consuming” Ryan Faber, the founder of the AI content writing platform Copymatic, agrees.

“While it’s an important part of many businesses,” he continued, “it’s also a task that’s ripe for automation. With the development of AI-powered tools such as OCR and NLP, it’s now possible to automate many aspects of data entry.”

3. Software Engineers and Coders

The news that OpenAI is already trying to make basic coding obsolete with ChatGPT will have certainly spooked those in the software industry. AI can automate much of the repetitive testing that software engineers currently perform during development, as well as many responsibilities usually assigned to junior software engineers.

AI could also help with hunting down bugs and patching vulnerabilities. Although it doesn’t seem to have the skill set to replace engineers building highly complicated software that requires human creativity, this isn’t necessarily necessary for every code-based task.

OpenAI is already working on a program called Codex that can be applied to virtually any coding task, while Amazon and Samsung employees have also reportedly been using ChatGPT for coding purposes.

4. Customer Service Representatives

Companies are now using AI to deal with customer service requests; a lot of small businesses can’t afford to employ humans in these roles, so it’s becoming commonplace. They join larger platforms like Amazon in turning to AI to deal with customer service queries, something which the ecommerce giant has been doing for nearly three years now.

Jonathan Tian, CEO of CreditYelp, says that AI “has taken over the customer support response” at his company. “Most frequently queried responses are fed to the algorithm to assist our online clients with immediate replies” he added.

5. Legal assistants

When Legal Cheek recently asked ChatGPT what jobs technology powered by GPT-4 could potentially replace, the paralegal profession was third on its list. The “human trait replaced”, as ChatGPT puts it, is “research and organization.”

AI legal assistants are already commercially available – some even offer free trials. One of these programs – Casetexts – will review documents and legal research memos, and help lawyers prepare depositions. It can analyze contacts and revise them if they conflict with compliance laws, as well as identify potential risks your business might face.

As you can probably imagine, this covers a lot of duties carried out at present by human paralegals.

6. Copywriting and content production

Anyone who’s used ChatGPT knows it can produce competent paragraphs of useful, relevant content in seconds – just like a writer or editor can, but quicker. ChatGPT alternatives like Jasper and Writesonic are already well-established in this place and charge hefty subscription fees for access to their premium services.

Although major websites have started to dabble in using artificial intelligence to create content and write articles, producing content en masse with AI hasn’t exactly gone smoothly for the companies testing the water. For instance, tech website CNET used AI to write 77 articles but was then forced to issue corrections on 41 of them while other news outlets identified examples of “extensive plagiarism.”

Buzzfeed has recently begun publishing AI-generated content too, although it’s been accused of being quite repetitive. Although we’re a long way off from replacing writers, it’s an area being considered closely by a lot of publications – so watch this space.

7. Graphic designers 

Already, AI tools like DALL-E can generate images at the drop of a hat that would give experienced graphic designers a run for their money. GPT-4, which is currently only available to ChatGPT Plus customers, now allows image inputs, and other competing AI chatbots can also generate impressive image content, such as Character.ai.

DALL-E and similar tools aren’t going to kill the graphic design industry in their current iteration; rather, some artists are already using it to their advantage. But it’s more about what DALL-E – and similar tools – could become in a short amount of time. If we can easily access technology that can produce unique, original, high-quality images now, what will it be able to do in a year’s time?

8. Traders

Would a computer program be better at trading than a human? Well, considering the duties you have to perform in your early years on the job, the answer is probably “yes”.

“I definitely think [it will impact] the trading side, but even [at] an investment bank, people [are] hired out of college and spend two, three years to work like robots and do Excel modeling — you can get AI to do that,” Pengcheng Shi, Professor of Computing and Information Sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology told the New York Post in January.

Teams around the world are already using ChatGPT and Bard to generate Excel formulas for specific tasks, and saving valuable time hunting. When we recently tested ChatGPT and Bard, we found that they both served us responses to requests for Google Sheets formulas at lightning speed, which otherwise would have taken considerable time leafing through Google to find.

9. Bankers and accountants

Trading isn’t the only role in the finance industry that is likely to be affected by the AI revolution.

“I believe that roles in accounting and finance are most at risk of being taken by AI” argues Forbes 30 under 30 alumni Matt Ramirez, Founder of AI firm Rephrase Media.

“Advanced algorithms are already being used to detect patterns in large sets of data, which can then be used to predict future outcomes and make better business decisions,” he continued. “Sectors such as finance, accounting, and insurance will certainly experience disruption from AI.”

10. Fact-checkers and proofreaders

Right now, neither Bard nor ChatGPT is capable of getting every single question they’re asked correct, every single time. But if they undergo significant fine-tuning and provide sources to every answer they serve to users, they could function as formidable, real-time fact-checkers. What a great addition to the US presidential debates they’d be.

Whether people would initially be prepared to trust an AI fact-checker is another story. But roles that revolve around sourcing correct information quickly and efficiently would be transformed by a chatbot that can consistently pull accurate information from the web while citing its sources – and it doesn’t feel like we’re miles off from making this a reality.

Proofreading huge texts – which requires a similar level of attention to detail and would take veteran proofreader hours to check – can be reviewed for mistakes by AI programs in seconds already, meaning this sort of role is vulnerable to automation too.

Will AI Just Make Jobs Easier?

ChatGPT has already proven itself competent at basic administrative jobs, as well as coding, content ideation, generating Excel formulas, and writing emails. The version built into Microsoft Teams can take meeting notes and create action points. Rather than replacing jobs, however, might it just make our existing ones easier?

Real Fake Photos founder Jan-Oliver Seidenfass, who’s currently completing a postgraduate degree focused on signal processing and machine learning at ETH Zurich, thinks the jobs most at risk include roles that deal with “mass content creation and editing, related to text, images, and video.”

However, he told Tech.co that “rather than eliminating these jobs, AI is likely to boost individual productivity significantly. For example, software engineers can now generate boilerplate code in seconds instead of hours.”

Ryan Daniel, President of Finance Manager Training, thinks the sales industry won’t be heavily affected by an AI revolution – in fact, workers in the sector may benefit from AI programs.

“Our team recently launched an AI product designed to train car dealership staff. However, we were surprised to hear from many people expressing concerns that our product might replace their job,” Daniels recalls.

“Our product uses AI to help train salespeople and finance managers, therefore allowing these employees to be even better at their job. In this way, we use AI as an enhancement – rather than a replacement” – Ryan Daniels, Finance Manager Training.

Out of all the industries witnessing AI-related changes, Daniels believes “sales will be the least affected over the course of what we now know as artificial intelligence” because people are “less likely to trust AI with purchasing decisions.”

It’s also important to remember that this sort of paradigmatic shift is nothing new for a constantly evolving global economy.

“Every great technological innovation in history has changed up the job market, and AI is no different,” explains Nick Gausling, Managing Director of Romy Group LLC and Author of Bots in Suits: Using Generative AI to Revolutionize Your Business.

“Some skills and jobs will become obsolete and resources will be reallocated to fit the new economy,” Gausling continued. “The most successful people will be those who learn to leverage AI to augment their work.”

Jobs That Won’t Be Taken by AI

We’re some years away from the AI-supported utopian dreamland that’s been described by sci-fi novelists and tech futurists for decades, where we’ll be free to indulge in whatever activities we want to while robots do all the work.

A whole swathe of job roles will be occupied by humans for years to come. For instance, it’s hard to envisage how the roles of lawyers and public sector jobs in nursing and law enforcement can feasibly be replaced in the near future. It will be a long while before we trust AI to occupy roles that demand accountability, even if the technology is advanced enough to perform the relevant duties capably.

Indeed, a general distrust of AI – as well as more nuanced ethical considerations – is likely to hold up the expansion of AI into specific sectors as much as actual technological development. Major names in the tech industry are already speaking out against its unchecked development, and this pushback is likely to exist in perpetuity.

Interestingly, however, public service job shortages are common at present in developed countries like the United Kingdom, where there’s still a huge backlog of unheard court cases left over from Covid-19, as well as severe nursing shortages. This could lead governments to explore innovative ways to fix this – which may include incorporating AI into job roles and processes.

In the private sector, a 2022 Gartner survey found that 80% of executives thought AI could be applied in “any direction” – which would suggest no stone will be left unturned when it comes to automation.

Will AI Create More Jobs Than It Replaces?

Conversations about how artificial intelligence and advanced robotics will impact the job market are usually focused on the jobs they’ll replace. But AI development has the capacity to create a whole new industry full of jobs, too. It’s anything but a zero-sum game.

In the World Economic Forum report referenced earlier on in this article is the fact that while AI may make around 85 million jobs obsolete, at the same time, it’ll create 97 million new ones.

Other studies, such as a University of Warwick investigation published in March of last year, found AI investments were 28.4% more likely to create jobs than investments in other types of similar technologies.

Dr. Will Hunt said at the time that “discussions about AI’s potential impact on jobs have tended to focus on potential job losses as AI is increasingly capable of automating complex tasks. And while there does seem to be some evidence of that, our research shows that AI is as likely to lead to net job creation in companies introducing AI as it is to lead to net destruction.”

Many of the businesses that Tech.co has spoken to for this piece seemed positive about the impact AI is having on their respective industries, and keen to incorporate it into their workers’ lives.

How to Make Yourself AI-Proof

The AI revolution is here, and if companies don’t start upskilling their staff so they can keep up with these significant changes to their working lives, they risk their business being left behind.

But what can individuals do to prepare themselves? Iu Ayala, the co-founder of AI-focused consultancy firm Gradient Insight, says prospective employees heading into the job market should “focus on developing skills that complement AI technology.”

“For example,” he explains, “skills in critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, emotional intelligence, and communication are likely to become increasingly valuable in a world where AI is prevalent.”

As we’ve said before, major changes aren’t going to happen overnight. If you’re worried about your role being swallowed up by artificial intelligence in the next few years, there are things you can do to adapt. Expanding your soft skills – and getting comfortable using the latest AI chatbots and other tools – is a good way to start.