AI trust issues: Why ChatGPT's confidence can mislead users

ChatGPT has become the world’s go-to digital assistant, helping students draft essays, professionals summarise reports, and brands brainstorm campaigns in seconds. Yet beneath its ease and speed lies a growing concern: users are starting to trust it a little too much.

Industry experts, technology writers, and even Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, have warned users to treat the chatbot with caution. From privacy issues to factual hallucinations, the risks of using ChatGPT carelessly are becoming more visible across education, business, and daily life.

Confidence masks confusion

ChatGPT’s greatest strength is also its biggest weakness. It writes with confidence even when it is completely wrong.

Altman himself has admitted that the AI “hallucinates,” meaning it can produce information that sounds factual but is not. The problem, as he put it, is that “people place a very high degree of trust in something that can be confidently wrong.” For students and researchers, this is particularly dangerous. The chatbot can cite non-existent sources or fabricate data that appears credible. According to a Times of India report, educators warn that over-reliance on AI tools could weaken critical thinking and contribute to a new wave of digital misinformation. ChatGPT can sound convincing, but it does not know truth. It predicts patterns in text. Treating it like a search engine remains one of the most common mistakes users make.

The cost of convenient chat

Analysts highlight that users often share personal or confidential information with ChatGPT without realising that their data may be stored or used to train future models.

Experts strongly advise against sharing anything that should remain private, including financial details, medical information, passwords, or corporate documents. In one notable case, developers accidentally leaked internal company data while using ChatGPT to debug code, unaware that their inputs were being saved. The logic is simple. Once information enters an AI system, control over how it is used can be lost forever. Privacy policies can evolve, and even anonymised data can sometimes be reconstructed. As businesses increasingly depend on digital assistants, many companies are now drafting AI-use policies to ensure employees do not unintentionally feed sensitive information into public chatbots.

From privacy issues to factual hallucinations, the risks of using ChatGPT carelessly are becoming more visible across education, business, and daily life.

Tasks AI should not handle

Not everything belongs in the hands of artificial intelligence. Analysts identify several tasks that ChatGPT should never manage without human oversight. These include:

> Medical or legal advice, where missing nuances could have serious consequences

> Financial forecasting or investment planning, as the model cannot access real-time data

> Academic work, where plagiarism and fabricated references remain frequent

> Sensitive human resource or ethical decisions, which require empathy, context, and intent

Experts agree that ChatGPT works best as a starting point, not an endpoint. It can assist, but it cannot decide.

Guidance, not bans

While some schools have banned ChatGPT altogether, many educators believe that the solution lies in smarter use rather than restriction. When used responsibly, it can enhance research, improve language skills, and encourage students to explore new ideas. Teachers emphasise the need for AI literacy; understanding when to question, verify, and cross-check the output. ChatGPT should assist critical thinking, not replace it.

Human touch still matters

Artificial intelligence has reached a point where it can imitate intelligence but not judgment. Whether in classrooms or boardrooms, the risk lies not in what ChatGPT says, but in how readily people accept it.

As CNET noted: “ChatGPT does not think, it generates.” For now, the smartest users are not those who write the most creative prompts, but those who know what not to ask. The technology continues to evolve rapidly, but until it can distinguish fact from fiction, humans must remain the final editors in this age of AI-generated truth.