AWS CTO Slams ChatGPT: ‘Not Concerned About The Truth’

Amazon Web Services CTO Werner Vogels took to social media today to slam the Microsoft-backed popular AI chatbot ChatGPT.

Amazon Web Services’ popular chief technology officer, Werner Vogels, slammed OpenAI’s ChatGPT regarding its answer to one of his questions regarding cloud cybersecurity.

“Security has become one of the main drivers of companies migrating to the AWS,” said Vogels on Twitter today. “However, if you ask ChatGPT it will tell you the opposite, based on ‘a recent report’, which shows you it is not concerned about the truth, but just about putting words together convincingly.”

While on ChatGPT, AWS’ CTO asked the artificial intelligence-based chatbot to write a news story about the impact of cybercrime with the growth of cloud computing.

ChatGPT created a headline that read, ‘Cybercrime Takes a Toll on Cloud Computing’s Rapid Growth’.

[Related: Google Cloud VP Trashes ChatGPT: Not Cool]

The AI-powered chatbot—without citing any evidence or data points—said the rapid growth of cloud computing has attracted cybercriminals who have found ways to target the cloud.

“According to a recent report, cybercrime has had a significant impact on the growth of cloud computing, with businesses losing billions of dollars each year due to data breaches, hacking attempts and other forms of cyberattacks. Many businesses are now questioning the security of the cloud and whether it is worth the risk.”

Security has become one of the main drivers of companies migrating to the #aws. However, if you ask #chatgpt it will tell you the opposite, based on "a recent report", which shows you it is not concerned about the truth, but just about putting words together convincingly. pic.twitter.com/DvhExLKEl1

— Werner Vogels (@Werner) January 31, 2023

However, AWS CEO Vogels did say something positive about ChatGPT’s capabilities on sounding convincing in its answer.

“I am so happy that the FUD that old IT companies were using to discredit AWS in the early days was not generated by ChatGPT, as it would have sounded a lot more convincing than ‘who would ever want to rent servers from a bookshop,” Vogels said on Twitter.

AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Stance On ChatGPT

Seattle-based AWS is the worldwide market leader in cloud computing, with a run rate of $80 billion.

ChatGPT is owned by startup OpenAI whose main backer is Microsoft, which is AWS’ biggest cloud computing rival in the world.

Microsoft has formed an extremely tight partnership with San Francisco-based OpenAI since first investing $1 billion into the startup in 2019, receiving an exclusive license to commercialize the company’s AI technology.

Introduced in November, OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT is gaining popularity due to its ability to create human-like conversational text when responding to prompts or questions by users.

Dominick Delfino, vice president and global leader of cybersecurity sales for Google Cloud, recently took to social media to discuss his disdain for ChatGPT.

“In case you think ChatGPT is cool. This is what it’s being used for,” said Delfino on LinkedIn, adding a link to a Techradar news article regarding how cybersecurity researchers from Check Point Research observed ChatGPT being used by cybercriminals to improve and build from scratch dangerous malware and ransomware.

“There needs to be governance in AI to avoid abuse like this!” Delfino said.

ChatGPT’s Negative And Positive Impact On Cybersecurity

For cyber criminals using the tool to write malware code for deployment in cyberattacks, “ChatGPT lowers the barrier to entry for threat actors with limited programming abilities or technical skills,” researchers from threat intelligence firm Recorded Future said in a report this month.

“It can produce effective results with just an elementary level of understanding in the fundamentals of cybersecurity and computer science,” according to Recorded Future’s report.

However, researchers at Accenture Security have been trying out ChatGPT’s capabilities for automating some of the work involved in cyber defense. The initial findings around using the AI-powered chatbot in this way are promising, according to Robert Boyce, Accenture’s global lead for cyber resilience services .

It’s clear that the tool “helps reduce the barrier to entry with getting into the defensive side as well,” Boyce recently told CRN.

Others, like fast-growing MSP and top AWS partner Cascadeo, believe ChatGPT will eventually become as intelligent as a human software developer.

“In ChatGPT you can say, ‘Write me a program that does this in Ruby or whatever programming language I want.’ And it will give you something that’s probably mostly right,” Jared Reimer, founder, president and CTO of Cascadeo told CRN. “And within a couple of generations, it will be always right. ChatGPT will eventually be as good as a competent human software developer.

AWS parent Amazon is set to report its fourth fiscal quarter 2022 financial earnings results on Feb. 2.