Impact of ChatGPT’s Nonsense: Company constantly explaining that it can’t locate phone numbers
OpenCage is an IT company that specializes in providing geographical location APIs. The company offers various interfaces that can be used to convert coordinates and locations into each other. For example, inputting a set of coordinates would return the actual geographical location.
Recently, the company has encountered a vexing issue: users continuously contacting their technical support, asking why the API is not working. Upon investigation, the company found that these users were attempting to use OpenCage to locate the position of a phone number.
In simple terms, they were inputting a phone number to determine the location of its owner. As for why they were trying to track someone’s location, it’s something you can probably imagine.
The good news for OpenCage is that ChatGPT often recommends the use of OpenCage’s API interface to users with geographical location requirements, which has brought the company many new users.
The bad news is that ChatGPT spread a rumor: when people asked how to locate a phone number, ChatGPT responded with a piece of code that, when filled in with OpenCage’s API, could locate the phone number.
The problem is that OpenCage’s API does not offer this service and cannot locate a phone number. As a result, many new users believed that the API was not working and contacted OpenCage for consultation.
As for why ChatGPT spread this rumor, it is related to a previous rumor. Initially, someone posted a video on YouTube claiming that they could locate a phone number using OpenCage’s API. These videos are similar to some of the marketing campaigns found on some domestic websites, which appear to be practical but are actually entirely fake.
Other marketing campaigns later copied and adapted this content from YouTube and turned it into written tutorials, and it is likely that ChatGPT grabbed this content.
As a result, OpenCage’s customer service must deal with many queries every day regarding the API not working, and they must constantly explain to users that ChatGPT is wrong.
The good news is that OPENAI appears to have made some adjustments. If someone attempts to locate a phone number again, ChatGPT will state that it cannot provide an answer due to privacy and ethical concerns.