Getting rich with ChatGPT, is that possible?
The very powerful features of ChatGPT and other OpenAI products make it possible to replace almost all staff with AI, starting a one-person startup.
A brief history of lazy entrepreneurship
The idea of starting a business that runs itself is not new. The easiest way is of course to buy shares. Dividends are paid out every year and shares generally also increase in value. But the downside of that is that you can’t control the process unless you’re as rich as Warren Buffett. Do you want a slightly higher return on your investment? Then you will have to start your own company.
You used to have to hire people to do that. A new type of company, popularized by the American Timothy Ferriss in his book The Four Hour Workweek, is one in which all tasks are outsourced or automated.
A well-known example is a dropshipping company, where customers place their order with you, which is automatically forwarded to, for example, the supplier in China who sends it to the customer. Ferriss described this in his book. In this company you hire freelancers from low-wage countries and you only have to invest time in setting up a marketing channel.
At the moment, setting up these companies is very popular and the handy Chinese have also discovered that it is much smarter to start selling yourself, so that the possibilities here have collapsed a bit. Although for the more sophisticated forms of dropshipping, which require a bit more brains and effort to set up, there are still plenty of options.
Now that AI has become so good that it can take over most office tasks, many of these activities can also be arranged with an AI.
What type of business can you automate with AI?
In principle, any type of company that deals with information processing and where all customer contacts take place via the internet can be fully automated with artificial intelligence.
Do you sell physical products, e.g. nutritional supplements (like Timothy Ferriss did)? Then this is a bit more difficult and you will still have to outsource that part to a dropshipping company.
Artificial intelligence such as GPT-4 is now so good that you can even leave the marketing to the AI, for example by regularly sending tweets, blog posts or emails. Admittedly still on a somewhat wooden level, but since you only have one member of staff, yourself, you can settle for a lower return.
Examples of already automated companies
A company that sends an automatic declaration plus a claim to spam bots recently made the news.
There are also handy guys who use AI to perform freelance jobs from, for example, the Fiverr network. Some customers do not yet understand how AI works. This quickly yields a few tens to hundreds of euros per job, which is of course quickly earned with a few minutes of work.
Other simple ideas include starting a management consultancy and writing green policy plans for clients, or promoting inclusion and diversity in the workplace. Leave it to the AI to turn that into beautiful, meaningless management jargon. Do an AI check to avoid falling through the basket, often changing a few words is enough.
Not crazy, but we will of course have to change the addressees. Now the most important thing, sending a fat bill to this customer. GPT-4 has also beeped this:
In whatever branch of sport you want to use AI, you will need some form of quality control. Sometimes AIs “hallucinate”, but you could solve this by letting the AI correct itself. This technique is exactly what GANs (generative adversetrial networks) are based on. You will also have to invest the necessary time and effort in setting up and tweaking your system. So some hard work is unavoidable. Which in itself is not bad. As long as it’s fun work.
