When it comes to cybersecurity, ChatGPT can both help in the fight against cybercrime and help cybercriminals launch more attacks.

That’s according to Randy Lariar, Optiv‘s practice director of big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics.

ChatGPT is a a chatbot launched by OpenAI last November. It leverages natural language processing (NLP) to analyze verbal input and generate responses, imitating a natural human conversation. It can write anything: letters, song lyrics, research papers, recipes, therapy sessions, poems, essays, outlines — even software code.

OpenAI and Microsoft recently announced an extension of their partnership. ChatGPT is available free and via subscription.

ChatGPT and the Cybersecurity Talent Shortage

Lariar said ChatGPT could help close the massive cybersecurity talent gap, which totals more than 3 million workers.

Optiv’s Randy Lariar

“The capabilities that they’ve now reached with the underlying ChatGPT technology are really astounding,” he said. “No one should get worried that jobs are going to be replaced anytime soon, especially in cybersecurity. It’s the ability to find and compile information; it’s like the next generation of a Google search. It is organizing that information in a way that is useful, and that output can be trained just like a new hire. Anything you might ask an intern to do for you, ChatGPT is going to do. And unlike an intern, you’re going to learn over time the best prompts to use. And when you make requests, it’s going to give you the same consistent quality.”

There’s a lot of talk about ChatGPT not up to date with the times. Moreover, if you ask it a question, the response is pretty simplistic, Lariar said.

“But I think that there’s going to be a lot of development in this, and folks are going to realize that certain prompts and certain ways of structuring those requests are going to get you some really powerful and useful answers,” he said. “And if the answers don’t make your workflow completely done for you, they’re going to get you 90% of the way. And then obviously your subject matter expertise can take you the rest of the way.”

Scroll through our slideshow above for more from Lariar about ChatGPT and cybersecurity; plus, more security news impacting the channel.