In December, Christian Terwiesch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, decided to put the latest version of ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence algorithms, to the test with an exam from his operations management course. The bot did better than average, scoring a B-, and quickly became ubiquitous. Today it’s the pixelated face of AI’s promise — and its dangers, including the existential ones.
Is this a sign of great opportunity, or of machines encroaching further into human territory? We decided to check in with Terwiesch, who chairs Wharton’s department of operations, information and decisions and co-directs Penn’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management. He was keen to discuss his research paper on ChatGPT, ways to use the technology in the future, and what all the chatter about the bot has to teach us.
(Note: Interviews are edited for clarity and length.)
Hi, professor. So your experiment has created a bit of panic out there. Should we be afraid of the chatbot with the MBA?
